Friday 7th June 2013.
The Middle of Nowhere Sussex
Prelude
The gig is a corporate. Corporates are tricky. In a comedy club the public come into your world. At a corporate we go into theirs. Often at corporates feature one comedian only, they have no moral support from colleagues. Often at corporates the punters don’t even know they are getting comedy. It is a “surprise” from the Boss. When the punters are told there is a surprise they imagine a stripper or a free bar or a cash bonus. Instead they get one of us - a comedian. The punters are almost always universally disappointed with the “surprise”. Often there is no stage as such and no introduction, you just have to “start”, while everyone else is still chatting oblivious to each unaware what this madmen in a navy blue suits is doing. What is he saying? Has somebody left their car lights on?.
Tonight’s corporate is for 200 stockmen. What are stockmen? They are men or women who look after live stock. The event is some kind of farming trade fare. They want me to do some stand up comedy on my own. Two sets of 30 minutes, with an interval in between. I say no way. I am not going on twice. Corporate gigs have a far higher disaster rate than club gigs. What if they don’t like me the first time? What I am booed off? How can I come back? I decide to split the gig with another comedian. We will do 30 minutes each. We will split the fee. We will share the blame. We will share the ignomy. Perhaps it will be OK?
Before
The venue is a building. A long Prefab building reminiscent of a World War 2 Nissen Hut. The are men, women and children sitting at long tables. There is much alcohol being consumed. There is much banter and high spirits and laughter. The comedy hasn’t started yet. It will be OK.
They are serving food. Looks like steak pie and I want some. I cannot get some. I now realize I haven’t eaten since Breakfast. (worry not kids only midday, for I am a lazy comedian) I have been saving myself for this meal that I won’t now get. I order two pints of Coke. The barman wants to charge me for the Coke. “You don’t have a ticket mate. You need a ticket.” There is a French barman too. He is laissez faire. He gives me the drinks for free. Everything is going to be OK. I drink them both. I am now feeling headachey and nauseous and I can’t concentrate. It is not going to be OK.
During
The other act is going on before me. It has been agreed I will introduce him.
I therefore have to just start. I pick up the mic and stand from the edge of the room and walk towards the centre of a massive concrete dance floor. Where should I set the microphone? Where should I make the stage? I pick a spot. I attempt to speak over the din of punters having a good time. But they cannot hear me they are having a good time. Enough of that, now for the comedy. The microphone only goes up to very loud and they are louder than that. They can’t here me.
“Hello...hello...can I get your...if I could get your...hello....” Eventually the din dies down for a second. I get them to applaud and I bring on the first act. The audience have a fleeting interested in the gig. People walk back and forth across the stage to go the toilet. A bar stands near the stage which serves continuously during the comedy. Farmers stand at the bar offering a variety of derogatory comments about the comedy. Children play near the comedian indifferent to his presence. Punters sit at tables and chat oblivious to the comedy. Some people heckle but in no co-ordinated way. There is one table in the centre who sits in morose silence. They are the zenith of the audience. The opening acts does as well as anyone can do in the circumstances. He comes off thinking he has done badly. The audience thinks he has done badly. The promoter thinks he has done badly. I know he has done well. With hindsight he will be the highlight of the show. The audience meanwhile emboldened by their ability to wreck a stand up comedy set go into the interval refuelled on alcohol. It is not going to be OK.
As I am brought onto the stage for my set, the situation seems to have deteriorated. Perhaps I am offering up excuses. Perhaps it just looks more difficult now that I am the one at the microphone. The audience guerrilla tactics seem more organised now although paradoxically things are more anarchic. It becomes impossible to be heard at the start as they wont stop talking. A men gestures to turn up the volume. The volume is already at 10, it doesn’t go any higher. 200 people are chatting as I attempt to be heard. Some of them shut up for a bit and so I start. Not enough for my actual words to be heard but enough so the rest can hear that I am saying something. As I start my second routine the whole audience shuts up briefly. They listen to one routine, it is about drinking, it is about as accessible as I get. They don’t like it. They start chatting again. The chat is too loud to hear heckles. I decide the situation is unsalvageable. I need to do lock down. Just perform my set as though it is going well and hope enough of them are drunk enough to think that it is going well. I lock down. Then a 3 year old boy called Georgie wanders onto the stage and stares at me, big eyed in wonderment and perplexity. I cannot ignore. You cannot ignore a three year old kid. I crouch down to talk to him. The audience shut up and are focused. I put the microphone to Georgie mouth. He says “Do you have any jokes?”
I say “Somebody told you to say that.” He responds “yes” and nods. Georgie’s conversation then dries up. He’s 3 he doesn’t have much to say but he won’t budge he stands there and the audience love him. Georgie is the centre of attention. Can I string this out for thirty minutes? The answer is of course no. Georgie wanders off. The chatting starts again. I can barely be heard. I try to bash through a routine. Somebody shouts “Give Georgie the microphone”! things are now so bad that I don’t take that as an insult but as a sensible suggestion. For a brief second I seriously consider it. Would I still get the fee If I allowed a three year old boy to finish my set? Probably not. Now one woman has started doing the “crash of the symbol sound effect” to denote a hackneyed or predictable punchline but she is doing them at set up lines which even under normal circumstances are not supposed to be funny. The thing is she could do the sound effect at the punchlines which also aren’t getting laughter but the effect is to add further chaos into the room. Georgie is back again briefly he has nothing new to say but they listen to him. Then he is off and the chatter doubles. It is impossible to get through a routine now. I have to tell them I am going to tell them a line and then say the line and the audience erupts in chaos and then i have to tell them i am going to give them another line and so on. My routines are now further disjointed just in case there is any risk of them working and there isn’t. I have lost track of time. I feel like I have been up here forever. Maybe it was only twenty minutes? I leave. They applaud surprisingly generously. They are pleasant people who hate the comedy. They have had an hour or their lives wasted but there appears to be no rancour. We walk out unafraid of being physically harmed.
After Gig
I have never had a strong opinion of the countryside. I have always had fantasies of concreting over the whole lot and putting Portakabins on it. I have many opinions of the countryside all of which are ignorant and ill informed and based upon blind prejudice. I drive off thinking of the Alan Partridge episode where he upsets the farmers. I agree with many of Alan opinions as expressed in that episode. I am in a car but fear that a large cow may be dropped upon me. This worry in misplaced. They were nice people who didn’t like my stuff. I sent a text to my agent “Clusterfuck”.
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