Gig Report Friday 17th May 2013
Tom Stade Tour Support - Worcester
Prelude
I have never experienced divine intervention, neither in real life nor on stage. There is, of course, a first time for everything. Tonight’s gig is in a church, well strictly speaking an ex-church. The church has been deconsecrated - they’ve undone the magic in layman’s terms - and it has reverted back to a building. Let the swearing commence! The venue nevertheless retains many of the trappings of a church. The pews are all still in place, there are lecterns on the stage in the form of eagles. The stage, located where the alter once stood, still sports a grand chair carved from wood, where once a priest/vicar/bishop would have rested his bum in between hymns and eulogies. This ex-church still looks too like an ex church for my liking. Will the audience feel they have to be on their best behaviour? As a non believer I am unfazed by the church. As an ex-catholic I actively want to say something needlessly provocative. As an comedian I am aware that location can affect an audience’s mood.
Before Gig
We (Tom Stade and I) are made very welcome by the venue staff and shown to the green room which once served as the vestry. We are offered beer, we decline. We are offered food. I order a disappointing Burrito. We are not offered tea and coffee, we take it anyway. We are asked about intro music, we couldn’t care less. I select Janet Jackson.
During Gig
There is no curtain to emerge from. There is a door that faces the audience. Once you are through that door you are on. You then have to mount the stage (more a platform) by a set of steep steps in full view of the audience. It makes for an unavoidably clunky entrance. You cannot bound on stage. The stairs run towards the front of the stage. So an over enthusiastic run up and you will overshoot the edge of the stage, crashing into the front row. No, my entrance can only be described as stately. I feel that I am about to deliver a sermon or as a headmaster address a school assembly - perhaps berate some boys for changing the lyrics of the national anthem. The stage feels at once too high for a comedy gig, my feet are level with the tops of the audience’s heads. Sometimes stages that are too high make it more difficult to break the fourth wall. I spend the first few seconds bouncing about on stage just to compensate for the entrance. “Look at me I can move nimbly.”
But all worries are for nought. From the beginning this is the ideal audience. They are warm, they are generous, they are fun, they are comedy literate, they are up for it. They are so Friday night in the best sense of the word. There is no compere on before me and I do no preamble or compere myself. I just start and they are into it right away. The set proceeds well, I chuck in some new stuff about petrol stations and Hitler’s dog, the new stuff goes down well while flagging up to me where the improvement will have to come.
The venue looks like an ex Protestant church, I nonetheless use it as a spring board to talk about Catholic guilt and milk the apparent segue for all it’s worth. The shocking lack of architectural knowledge these days, is providing rich pickings for any comedian prepared to stray into the topic of building design. I talk about catholic guilt but as cast my head around the church apparently taking it in. As I turn momentarily to the back of the stage something catches my eye. I see writing on the chair. Emblazoned across the wooden chair reads “Jesus is All”. I pause to look at it. I don’t really understand what “Jesus is all” could mean. Surely even the faithful believe that there is more than just Jesus? What about God? And wasn’t the Holy Spirit a guy too? Maybe they didn’t have space for “Jesus is significant but by no means is he the be all and end all”. I look at it again. The text is in some kind of medieval olde world font. The “All” looks like “ill”. In a instant of time I know what I will do. It takes me a fraction of a fraction of a second to make my plan. Often I will get an idea on stage with no clear idea of where it will lead, I just wing it. Other times I have a vague strategy but no clear end. Sometimes it becomes apparent I have no end in mind as I fail to find an ending on stage. Tonight is different. the whole routine springs into my head in a oner. Beginning, middle, end it is all there. I know how I will pace it, I know the pauses, I know where I will emphasise certain words. It pretty much came in zero time. Is this divine intervention? Or years of application finally paying off? We will never know.
I am worried my eyes will give me away as I turn to face the audience again. I am so pleased with myself at the routine I am about to deliver, that I fear there is a mischevous glint in my eye that will indicate I have a plan. I don’t want to look like a man with a plan. I want to look like a man with no plan. I want to look like George Osborne. I want to look like I am making it up as I go along. I think a premeditated air could scupper this. I pause just enough to compose myself. I try to dampen down the gleam in my eye. “Pretend it is a woman you like Stephen, Pretend it’s a woman you like, now pretend not to like her.” I do a second take at the writing. “Have you seen this?” I casually chuck in “Jesus is ill? I’m not surprised. Nailed up to a tree like that. Illness is understating it a bit if anything.” and so on. There is then a bit about Jesus phoning in a sickie to the Apostles (inaccurate of course the telephone wasn’t invented till 1888. Still the audience are so carried away they let me off with it).
After Gig
The half-eaten Burrito waits for me back stage looking more wretched than ever. I am desperate to listen to the recording of the gig to check on the “Jesus is ill” section. I can’t remember the specifics even now. A routine I had mapped out in my head only five minutes before is vaporising in my head. (I will never know the details. Mysteriously the recorder stopped at 2 minutes 17 seconds, too early to catch this routine. There is no record of it - ohh spooky.)
