STREATHAM 15TH MARCH 2019

Sometimes I really hate the Scots. There is a Scotsman and he is really drunk plus and/or possibly on coke. He has stopped using consonants and his heckles consists of merely vowels. Nobody can tell what he is on about. I could probably decode his noises if I wanted to, for I too am a Scottish. It is not really words just ambient Scottish sound. It is as though he occasionally wakes from his slumbers and chucks in something else before going back to sleep. 

He is not really a major problem. More like a grumbling appendix. He rumbles away during the other acts but I am aware he could become a flash point. 

When I take to the stage he very quickly pipes up when he finds that I am Scottish. I immediately tell him I wish to distance myself from him. That I want nothing to do with him. We have nothing in common. That we have no affinity whatsoever despite being born on the same piece of rock. I do it with wit and charm so it is a good icebreaker. I wish I can remember how I did it because it was really good. Funny but also setting out the ground rules, ingratiating myself with the rest of the audience, isolating the trouble maker and done with a light touch. I wish I could recreate that on stage again and also in real life where I could go about telling people who needed to be told to fuck off but in a charming fashion. Like a master politician or a socialite or something. 

Anyway however I fluked it the audience are on my side. So I already have more leeway. Then I do the gay town routine and the whole gig is flowing. it is in the ideal spot where they trust you and the audience are so elastic you can stretch them all over the place and you can get the next laugh with such economy of delivery, just little nudges and you don’t really need to over sell or push the delivery. It is probably as good as it gets for this size of crowd. It is also unfortunately as good as it gets. 

But I take a wrong decision about material. I do a routine about coming down from Scotland to London and having a chip of my shoulder. And although the routine is about me and I am the joke in it all, the Scotsman gets riled up by it and starts causing problems. He thinks its about him. And it really IS about him. He thinks I am having a go at him. And I really AM having a go at him. Why choose that routine? My subconscious has decided to take him to task  that is why. Fair play to my subconscious and fair play to him - the headcase -  amidst all the alcohol and cocaine and regret and hatred in his addled mind  -  he is the only one in the room, including me, that has cut through the sub text and can see that I really am saying  ‘Fuck You’ to him. His over sensitivity to social slights are working perfectly. 

So anyway he reacts to it and not in a good way. He thinks some gauntlet has been thrown down. And it has by the way. He starts becoming a problem. I find myself later thinking I shouldn’t have chosen that routine. But armed with fore knowledge would I really have acted any differently? I doubt it. I would probably have delighted in ramming the whole thing down his throat anyway. Who knows? He may have exploded on something else? Maybe nothing is ever my fault? That is also a possibility. 

There  are more exchanges with him. I always get the better of him. That is not a boast by  the way. It is my job and also he is really out of it and I am not. I should be getting the better of him. But every interruption damages the rhythm and exposes the artificiality of material. He is too far gone to know that I have beaten him anyway so he will always be back for more. Like the time the Zulus beat the British in some battle even although the Zulus didn’t have guns and The British did have guns and all because the Zulus were on hallucigenics and that stopped them from stopping when they got shot. Like that. 

There are other miscalculations. For example I am looking at the wrong person. I think the heckler is somebody else and I am directing my barb comments at the wrong person entirely. That in itself becomes “a bit”. By “a bit” I mean an improvised comedy routine around an occurrence during that gig. A happening or an event if you will. In the parlance “a bit” is a good funny bit. 

Anyway it is not the gig I would have envisaged but it is all cooking anyway. But suddenly he stands up and this changes the whole dynamic. And it is quite a small audience so the tension at potential conflict is always going to be quite large. I am sure he wants the toilet and not to hit me in the face but he looks so dazed. He is not sure where the toilet is or where backwards or forwards is. He rocks back and forth on his heel trying to focus, a thousand yard stare. I think the audience think his is limbering up for a right hook. But they don’t understand Scottish psycho body language. He is merely marshalling his resources for a toilet visit. All this is largely post gig conjecture of course. At the time I don’t really know what is going on. At the time I don’t initially realise he is standing at all. All I know is that the heckle put downs are no longer working and that they are no longer laughing at me and there is tension in the air. I think it is my fault. Have I gone too aggressive? Has my tone changed? I try to correct my tone but to no avail. And it could have been my fault maybe it wasn’t because he stood up. Who knows? 

Anyway he goes to the toilet and the tension abates and I do the rest of  the gig and it is good but it is bad because it could have been so much better judged by the start of the gig standards. They were in that elastic state where I could have taken them anywhere and know they will only go some places. So the end is good but it is not good. 

NUNEATON - 21ST FEBRUARY 2019

Don’t fall out with the audience before the show even starts: if you want my advice, thanks for asking. Over the years I have worked really hard on not judging audiences in advance. 

I just try to think of them as a huge sea of neutrality. Not that it is always easy. It can be very difficult to withhold judgement from a group of people you have never met. Sometimes I have witnessed an audience being malicious to a previous act. Other times I recognise a familiar pattern of behaviour and, like a benign god or parent, I know where their behaviour is headed before they do. Sometimes my “gut instinct” tells me in advance that there is something up with them - this is the same gut instinct that led police to beating confessions out of innocent suspects in the 1970s.  

But whatever the reason, no good can come of falling out with the audience in advance. 

Tonight I am in a small village outside Nuneaton. It has one shop and I wish to buy some food from it for my pre show diner. The shop keeper refuses my transaction because I haven’t reached the £5  minimum for a card transaction. I explain the law has changed and that there is now no legal minimum so he can damn well serve me. He refuses. I quote the law back to him. I don’t know much about  the law but I do know that legally speaking I am as entitled as anyone to bandy it about. I don’t know for sure that the law has changed but the general consensus among people who I know in London is that it has. And also places in London would frankly let you debit card 2 pence and not even blink. So he better get with the project. 

The stand off continues. One great advantage of doing stand up comedy is that you loose any sense of embarrassment whatsoever. You are prepared to push things to the absolute brink of social awkwardness and still not care. 

Another customer enters the shop - of course he gets involved because this isn’t London and people don’t mind their own business. This local, of course, backs up the shop keeper, Insisting the law hasn’t changed. But who would know better? Me a man who lives in London where laws are actually made and has occasionally lunched in the Houses of Parliament or a man in a shop?

This customer assures me that he knows what he is talking about because, and I quote “I am a business man”. This argument has been obviously designed to massively get my goat. Trust me I am a shark, let me look after your swimming pool.

He then makes a good point that the shopkeeper isn’t obliged to serve me and can decline my business. This is an excellent point and I don’t have a counter argument to it. And so I am forced to borrow cash off a fellow comedian to complete the transaction. I am not happy about this and everyone knows it. 

Later on at the gig the customer in the shop “the business man” is seated in the front row of the audience. Small world. Well it is when you live in a small world. 

He is surprised to see me.

Half an hour ago I was just a man in  shop arguing about his inalienable rights and now I am a comedian. It is not often that audiences get to witness the off stage me ratcheting up tension in an everyday situation with a shop keeper. So I think this guy feels privileged to have seen the on and off stage Stephen Carlin. 

So there is now a little conspiracy between the two of us because we both know but I never ever mention it. Perhaps I should do? There is a lot of comedy potential to this situation.  But I decide to keep it secret because there is something very satisfying about this conspiracy of silence going on with one guy in the front row. It gives the whole performance an edge and he enjoys it all the more. If only I could just recreate that little individual conspiracy with each audience member individually it would really heighten the whole thing. Perhaps I need to have runs in with all of the audience individually prior to any show but this would be very time consuming. 

Anyway I think the upshot of today is that there were no negative consequences to my actions and therefore I have not learned anything. I have neither evolved as an artist nor as a human being. In the future I have resolved to have more run ins with my shopkeepers or carry cash on me at all times. It is importantly to harness everything you have towards your stage act. 

THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 13

SHOW 13: 15TH AUGUST 

Before Show

Edinburgh Fringe Part 2: What a difference one day off makes. In the comedy boot camp that is the Edinburgh Fringe, one day off feels like a fortnight off in the real world. I am already hazy about what my show is, vague about what I am supposed to say. I do not overly worry myself with this for I realise it is a trick of the mind. I focus on facial and vocal exercises before the show. I do stupid voices, I try to maintain my silly, I experiment with different accents during the sound check. I plan to introduce myself in a silly voice from the off stage mic. I veto this idea because about one in ten times I accidentally lapse into a Chinese accent and that would be to give a false impression of the show. 

During Show

The first half of the show largely goes well, not without it blemishes but overall, it has a momentum up to ‘Life is a Waste’. Strangely ‘Gay Town’ does not land as well today and this has been the show banker really. It works but it is a struggle to keep them on board. I am on uneven ground throughout. It keeps me in the moment, with me constantly trying to feel it out, but I would prefer if they just excepted it was good - it would do wonders for my stress levels.  Quite a young crowd today though so they may not be as sure where I am going with it. 

‘Hitler Left wing Right Wing’ goes well, the cleanest version of it so far in terms of clarity. Millennials goes well - especially with the millennials in the audience strangely enough. And this is the problem with this generation. Even when you are lambasting them, they are so self-aware and well-adjusted that they agree with your criticism in an open-minded fashion. It is enough to make you sick. Strangely it is the older lot, the Baby Boomers, who largely emerge scot free from this broadside - other than me occasionally wishing they were all dead - who get offended! I can’t even insult people when I wish to and still insult people when I don’t want to!

‘Better than You’ is the start of the decline and the early promises of the gig never quite recovers from it. ‘Animals’ has its moments but the energy has largely gone: either in me or the audience. ‘Vegetarians’ is a anticlimax at the end. 

I feel I have left the audience more confused today than ever before- an achievement of sorts. They feel that the ending was not an ending. They are coming up to me after the show to offer me explanations. Blaming the heat of the room, blaming the time of day “It would be better if people were drunk”. They clearly know something wasn’t right but strangely aren’t blaming me. Is this progress? Did I look so utterly in command today that anything going awry couldn’t have possibly been my fault? Why has it taken me so long to develop this skill? And how can I use this ability in other areas of my life? Questions, questions. 

After Show

At last. I now know how to do this show. I have been doing it in the wrong order all along! If you have already seen this show come back and see it again. I have fixed it in my head now. It should be LIFE IS A WASTE, BETTER THAN YOU, BEAUTIFUL GIRL, MILLENNIALS, HAVING A HARD TIME, ANIMALS and finish on GAY TOWN. Cut VEGETARIAN altogether. This doesn’t really fit in with the show and with if left in the whole show takes up the full hour and gives me no time to play. I want to play with it more specifically at UFOs, ANIMALS HAVING A HARD TIME, ANTHROPOMORPHISING.   

I now see a lot of possibilities for this show heading into the second half of the run. Excited. Looking forward to doing it tomorrow. Will update further then. Over and out. 

THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 5

SHOW 5: 6TH AUGUST 

Fuck this audience. Or fuck half of them anyway. The half that walk out. Fuck that half. That half that walk out in drips and drabs from about 10-20 mins mark. Particularly fuck the ones that go later in the pack. At least the initial ones have the benefit of being in the vanguard of some ill-informed movement. At least they are pioneers in their own bad taste, there is a certain nobility to their action. Double fuck the later ones who follow like little sheep. Particularly those who, after giving them the opportunity to leave if they don’t like it, stay on for two more minutes just to maximise the damage when they do eventually leave. 

And fuck the man who goes “off to the toilet” and never comes back, leaving his partner on her own for the remainder of the gig. And fuck the woman who wasn’t even at the gig but came in at about the 45 minute mark to retrieve the woman who had been abandoned by her partner, apparently sent in by the toilet guy too cowardly to return to scene of the crime. 

And fuck two guys who almost stick it out to the bitter end but are offended by some innocuous criticism of Scotland, who can’t even handle a jibe at their own country without their entire sense of identity crumbling before their eyes. 

Then also fuck the people leave the gig but stand outside the curtain deliberately talking loudly to make it almost impossible for the audience to hear me over the mic. Then further fuck them who when asked to keep quiet deliberately scrape stools across the stone floor to create massive shrieks of noise.

And finally fuck me for having the stupidity to plough on with such a ridiculous charade rather than talking the whole gig down with me in a fit of self indulgence. Fuck me for salvaging what remained of a crippled wreck of a gig and limping home instead of storming out of my own gig and or the Fringe Festival and giving everyone a spectacle. 

I would also like to thank the half who stayed without whom the rest of the gig would not have been possible.  Thanks to those who remained despite everything, especially when the cascade of leavers threatened to turn into a torrent. A special thanks are in order to the two American gentlemen who entered the gig at around the half way mark and, blissfully unaware of the previous carnage, go on to throughly enjoy the show: thus providing a model for all future audience behaviour.  

I would also like to pay tribute to anyone who may have been in the audience and has never been at a comedy gig before and will probably never go to one again. That is all I have to say about today’s show. 

Sunday 2nd February – Top Secret Comedy

My tendency is not towards aggression. I wouldn’t, for example, sit in the second row of a comedy show and fight with my partner. i.e. actual physical fisticuffs. I wouldn’t do that. Neither would I be thrown out of a comedy show by security for hitting my partner and then feign a confused look of “What did I do?”  But tonight during my performance one couple will do just that. It is a Sunday night and I am not prepared for a fight but then when is a good night for a fight?

Before Gig

I don’t want to say that my guard is down but let’s just say it is at half-mast. It is a Sunday after all; I am not expecting a tsunami of drunken high-jinks. People may drink themselves silly on a Sunday but they can rarely achieve the “schools out” energy of a Friday night or the “biggest night of the week” mind set of a Saturday. Sunday is not the traditional night of the stag-do. Sunday night audiences are usually containable. If anything they can suffer form the opposite problem – a sluggishness as their minds turn to the start of the working week.

However as the audience pour in tonight, a large group enters who have shit-hitting-fan potential written all over them. They are a birthday party. They have clearly been reveling all day. They will clearly be reveling later on. This show is only an interregnum in their reveling but the risk is they will revel straight through.  They are young, possibly students? And clearly no respecters of days of the weeks. They are carrying on like a Friday night. As I watch this group, I can keep upping the danger level of this audience. 

The show starts. The Birthday Party are indeed a handful. They are a writhing drunken mass of distracted, youth. The compere takes a strong line with this group right from the start. She lays down the law to them immediately. She lets them know who is boss and the consequences of stepping out of line. There is two-ing and frow-ing between compere and the birthday party. They heckle, they are slapped down. It is a very combative stuff. It is more reminiscent of “late and live” during the Kitson years than a typical Sunday night West End gig. The compere beats them. As I watch the compere I keep upping the danger level again. I imagine all sorts of things before I go on. I imagine them being a delight as an audience. I imagine it all descending into chaos. I see myself successfully surfing the madness. I see myself  walk off stage before my time. I see myself sharing an amiable chat with  the birthday party after my set. I see myself wanting to kill them. I had a lovely gig at this same venue three days ago. Now the memory is that is confined to the dustbin. I have to do it all over again. 

I am first on after the compere. Seconds before I go on the technician says to me “I apologise for what is about to happen” But what is about to happen? Something is about to happen, I just don't know what it's going to be yet. 

During Gig

There is an eye of the storm feeling as I take to the stage. It is calm for the moment but this is just temporary. How long will it last? The audience haven’t quite gelled yet. I can feel the seething factions. There is the birthday party to my left, drunken and distracted, then there are the young people frightened of the birthday party and everybody else has that look of “lets see how this goes" fence sitters waiting to see who's side to take. Problems could arise from anywhere. I have a feeling I haven’t had for a while but which is reminiscent of an earlier Stephen Carlin who found himself playing gigs he wasn’t quite ready for and was forced to do an impression of somebody who looked like they knew what they were doing.  The first 3-4 more minutes are fine. There is one interruption but order is maintained although the truce cannot possibly hold. It doesn’t matter how well routines go I know there is a malaise bubbling under the surface. 

Eventually the threat breaks cover. It is not the birthday party. It turns out that they are not the problem. Another problem breaks from left field (actually the middle of the audience). The problem is a couple in the second row. The pair of them are really three hecklers. She is interrupting. He is interrupting and then quite separately they are interrupting as a couple. Their destruction is greater than the sum of their parts. There is always one of them with something to say. Routines have one in two chance of making it to the end. There are interruptions aplenty but sometimes I can get back on track and continue with the material and other times the reprise is not worth it. The moment has passed. 

Taking the compere's lead, I take a firm line with this pair and it is working but it is not quite working. It is working in a superficial sense. I am postponing another showdown. But it is always fire fighting. It merely quells the flames until the next eruption. It never quite caps it. The trouble is I am being aggressive and this aggression doesn’t really suit me. I am not being myself and on some level the audience can sense that. Having inherited a highly combative dynamic when I came on stage, I sense that I'll need to switch to something more Carlinesque. The question is how? I'd been trying to stay on my agenda rather than embracing the chaos. I could fire fight this all night and it would be OK but it would never be great. And sooner or later they will sense this isn’t really me. I need to do it my way. But How? And what is my way? 

Perhaps taking their cue from my material, they start fighting during a routine about relationship break-ups. When I say fighting I mean actually hitting each other. The guy also calls me a “Jack-ass” repeatedly but in a voice that is too deep for his face. That almost throws me more than the violence. Fighting in the audience is bad. It is the worst.  It indicates a lack of control of the room. It poisons that atmosphere. I can’t ignore it and neither can I be overly flippant. And it has happened on my watch. Perhaps this is the moment it goes tits up? There is a tension, a bad feeling, an ugly mood. The couple are escorted out by security. And they do not go quietly. It drags the whole process out. I wonder how to tackle this. I don’t want to launch into something new while they are still causing a ruckus. I tread water. I feel like a commentator at this moment. There really is an apprehension now. And I could see it sliding away now and never getting it back on track. I remember this happening once before. I can hear little groups breaking away to chat. And I don’t quite know what to do. And then I say wistfully “I wonder if they are going home to have sex?” This speculation concurs with the audience and it gets the biggest laugh of the set. I have struck a different tone with it now and for the first time it seems I am totally in control of the room. I start deconstructing the couples relationship and hit a seam of comedy, this, I realize, I should have been doing all along and to hell with the pre written routines. All the seats are taken, there is standing room only at the back and so now people filter down the front and take the rows vacated by the domestic violence couple. I start a riff about reserve audience members standing by in case something should happen to the original audience. Like co-pilots on a plane. I have found my stride with the disruption. More chaos ensues. People get up and leave, others come in, people shout out. But now I am able to weave it into the fabric of this ad-lib. It goes on for about seven minutes. It is the most fun I have on stage this year. I pull it back into material right at the end just to round of the set. I pull out an old routine about “something to tell the grandkids” I don’t use it anymore but it seems apt tonight and hopefully I can fake it as ad-libbed to round of my turn.