Gagfest UK

Gagfest UK

Gag

Part One

The changing of the Camden Locks

Brown Shoes (Part I)

The Discovery of the Misrule Game

Present day

Robyn- Rogue Trader

Clive- Legal Eagle

Jack- Doctor in the House

Cosmo- The Birdman of Belmarsh

The Magnificent Four

Club Tropicana- but the drinks aren't free

All Aboard

Blind dates and other disasters

An Evening with Jenny Agutter

The Beginnings of a Plan

Brown Shoes (II)

Part Two: Let the games begin

Saturday (London)

Sunday (Stonehenge & Glastonbury)

Glasto

Monday (Bath)

Tuesday (Haworth)

Wednesday (Blenheim)

Thursday (Cambridge)

Friday (Blackpool)

Saturday (Beachy Head, eventually)

Brown Shoes (Part III)

The Hitch-hiker

Brown Shoes (Part IV)- Out of Sight

Time For Repairs

Sunday (Party-time)

Monday morning (rather early)

Tuesday (Land's End)

Brown Shoes (Part V): The Great Escape

Epilogue (12 months later)

Appendix

Other Books by Scott Pixello

Live Long and Prospero

Luke, I am Your Father

Memoir of a Gothic Girl

Rainbow

About the Author

Gag

It wasn’t funny. I’d put up with broken mikes, bottles thrown at me, even an idiot with a laser pen in Cardiff but this was worse. Far, far worse.

"I met an interesting woman the other day at a posh country club. She looked really cool in an elegant all-black outfit and explained she was a real golf widow. So I tried to sound interested in the game and said, ‘At least you won’t have to put up with your husband under your feet at weekends.’ And then she went a bit pale, gave me a strange look and said, ‘Not golf widow, gulf widow.’ I wish I hadn’t boasted about my handicap now."

It was only three days into a two-week show. Midway up a bill of six other comedians, all striving to stand out from the thousands invading the city for the festival. Mid-way— that just about summed up where I

was—

sitting on the fulcrum of my career in a draughty church hall, filled with rickety wooden seats, dodgy acoustics and little chance of covering the hire costs.

Peeping round the rudimentary stage curtain, I reckoned the place was about half-full and like last year, there was scarcely a Scottish accent to be heard. I could see why anyone actually from Edinburgh might despise the whole Festival and themselves for needing the money it brought. Still, better than yesterday when only eight people turned up and we had to vote on whether to do the show at all.

Tonight was all about getting noticed and there were rumours about some journos from The Guardian coming down. I’d only just managed to secure this slot at all because Martin, the compère here, was an old college friend. Three years on a Dance and Performance Studies degree and this was all I had to show for it. Three years of blood, sweat and tears. Well, tears mostly. Still, he’d given me a floor to sleep on too, which was probably the bigger favour, rather than having to rent a cockroach-infested room in Leith with an ensuite crack dealer.

Competition was tough. Some of these new acts that crammed every inch of poster space around the town were still at school. I’d read an interview in The Scotsman with some precocious 14-year-old from Brighton, who had come up ‘to hone his act’ before going on tour. On tour! At 14! All I had at 14 was chronic acne and a paper round. Instinctively, I put a hand to my forehead. All that stuff about spots disappearing in adolescence, like most things your parents tell you, was a complete lie. I caught a glimpse of myself in a small mirror perched on a shelf in the wings. God, my eczema was acting up too. It made me look flustered, so that people were always telling me to calm down, which only made my face redder in a mixture of embarrassment and anger as I tried to persuade them that I was fine. When I’d started out in stand-up, I’d experimented with various different looks but eventually settled on a smartish but casual burgundy suit that looked like I was on my way home from work rather than going out to a party. I soon realised that reviewers were always going to comment on what I wore, so I might as well look as if I had not been trying too hard. When I stepped out on stage, audiences saw a small, mousy-looking blond and with so few other female comedians with which to compare me, they seemed to expect an anti-male tirade, peppered with swearing, and seemed oddly disappointed when it didn’t come.

I wasn’t on until nearly midnight but the opening routine had begun well enough.

"Good evening. I’m Patrice Harding and I’m an alcoholic. Oops, sorry. Wrong meeting."

Patrice wasn’t my real name but I was trying out various stage names. ‘Patrice’ was OK, except that I’d to spell it about six times to every journalist I’d met. I began to relax a little, even trying a few flirtatious winks with the front row.

I think you should know, I’m not the kind of girl who asks men back home on a first date. No way. I usually shag them in bus shelters.

Paul, my boyfriend, hated that one. He entered so completely into the fictional world of anyone on stage that even if I tried to explain 100 times that it was just an act, a small part of him was still hurt by it. It could be annoying but at the same time it was one of the sweet things that had kept us together for five years.

The other day, my boyfriend complained that I just pick holes in everything he says and that he would never marry me ‘not for all the tea in China.’ And I thought about this for a moment and then I said, ‘There isn’t a T in China.’

Paul wouldn’t come to gigs anymore. Said they made him uncomfortable. Probably not wise anyway, in my current condition. That was just another reason for the stand-up to start working, so I could tell people that I was not only going to be a mother soon but that I had a proper career. I’d joked to Paul about throwing up on stage but he thought I meant nerves, not morning sickness. I’d have to tell him soon. I tried not to think about how many pregnant female stand-ups I’d ever seen on stage. To the nearest round, very round number- none.

To try and keep our relationship fresh, my boyfriend and I even tried some role play but it didn’t work too well. He said he liked a girl in uniform but apparently concentration camp guard doesn’t count.

I’d had a spell as a teen Goth when I was younger; even got people to call me Severina for a while but it was only when I discovered comedy that things seemed to slip into place. People always said I was funny. Maybe weird and a bit odd too but definitely funny. And those nights when the gags went right and you made people

laugh—

there was no high quite like it. And I’d tried quite a few.

It’s hard to describe what being a comedian’s like. Imagine going to a dinner party, where you don’t know anyone. You’re a bit nervous and you want people to like you but you’re not sure what to wear, what to say, what kind of a pose to strike or heaven forbid, just be yourself. But for once, you’re a big hit. People listen to you, laugh at your jokes and just think you’re great. You light up the

room—

any room. And then after a few hours, when almost everyone has gone home, someone comes up to you and says Hey, you were great. How about doing that all again tomorrow next door and the night after that and the night after that? And so on and so on down the whole street. It’s a paradox, an exercise in rehearsed spontaneity in which you’re basically begging people to like you. Maybe I was just some attention-seeking psychotic, looking for parental approval.

My dad was always a bit of a drifter. He was the fat one at the back, who couldn’t sing. The fact that he was white was a bit of a giveaway too. But seriously, he was a cool dude, my dad. ‘Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home.’ That was his motto. 35 years living in a hat-stand. What an idiot.

He came to one of my gigs once and sat, shaking his head at the language, the gags, the whole ridiculous idea of his daughter earning a living from making drunk men laugh. Dad still watched old re-runs of Morecombe and Wise and always voted for David Jason as Del-Boy, falling through the bar in Only Fools and Horses as the best comic TV moment ever. He never really understood my act; just shook his head, repeating Celine, Celine, Celine like a cracked record. I couldn’t explain it in ways he’d understand. Once you start saying why something’s funny, it somehow melts away right in front you.

You know what they say. ‘A woman’s work is never done’…by a man.

Deep down, dad didn’t think comedy was a ‘proper job’ for a woman. Although, I clearly didn’t agree with this, I did get some strange reactions when I told people what I did for a living. And although they didn’t come out and say it usually, you could see what they were really sceptical about was not that I could be funny but the idea that women in general could be funny.

Ask people who the funniest person is they know, their first reaction is nearly always that Dave guy in Accounts. He can tell really good jokes. Dirty but good. Push a bit harder, beyond joke-tellers, someone you know who is just funny and you get different

answers—

that’s got to be Aunt Em. She’s always laughing about something. It’s just a look, a twinkle in her eye sets me off. It’s often not so much what she says as how she says it. And you listen to a group of women, especially getting ready to go out, laughing together, just giggling at something or someone. It’s hilarious.

But guys are different. They tell jokes and often really competitively. It’s whose joke is the best, the longest, the sickest, the dirtiest. Guys learn jokes and mini routines from a young age so they can share them with a ready-made audience who will give them instant praise or ridicule. Girls just don’t do that, so they don’t get the practice in crafting stand-up routines that hit marks at expected moments. Stand-up needs a certain…attack and many women just don’t see the need to prove themselves in this way. The challenge to a stand-up comic, ‘Come on, make me laugh’ is one that men are used to meeting from an early age whereas women don’t operate in that same mode very often. But that’s not to say they couldn’t. Not all boys are good at telling jokes but logically if many more do it, a few will become good.

I’d tried to explain all this to Paul and he’d just looked at me blankly and asked, And that’s your act is it? No wonder you got booed off last week. That’s not a routine, that’s a bloody thesis. People don’t come to comedy clubs to be lectured. They come out for a laugh. And there’s plenty about these days. If you don’t make them laugh, they can pop down the road to another club.

I thought about going to see Jim Davidson’s show or as it’s become known, ‘The Vagina Monologues.’ A self-dramatising c-word, babbling nonsense to himself for two hours.

I was mostly fine with swearing, which was something else dad definitely didn’t get, but even so, to say that particular word live on stage in front of strangers, it was still…intimidating.

I was probably closest to someone like Jimmy

Carr—

not in terms of sales or needing to avoid tax but in style. Mostly I just told jokes, ones I’d written, which could make my act seem quite cold. It took a while for audiences to warm to me because I wasn’t telling them a story or asking them to relate to me personally, just delivering a stream of jokes. So the material itself was particularly important. It was like reading out my homework to a class and I really wanted them to like it. Their response was an instant judgement on me. And quick-fire gags used up material like Casey Jones throwing logs into an insatiable furnace.

Most of all, I just wanted to be able to get through the next month without having to beg for yet another sub from dad, who had developed ‘belligerent hospitality’ to new levels, managing to simultaneously tut, shake his head and make disapproving noises through his beard as he handed over the necessary once again. I was grateful really and well-aware that my continued dependence was stretching to the limit his expectation of what ‘putting a daughter through college’ actually entailed. Still, just once, I’d love to wait until he offered me some cash and just say, No, you’re alright, Jack. I’m fine. In fact, here’s that five hundred I owe you. I’d been practising using his first name since leaving university three years ago but still hadn’t had the nerve to use it yet.

A friend of mine works as a doorman. He’s a big bloke but he’s the worst bouncer ever. Bar none...It’s alright. I can wait.

There was a slight ripple as they thought about it. I couldn’t do that kind of joke too often but once in a while, I liked to make them work a bit.

What was the best career trajectory I could hope for? A successful word-of— mouth response to shows, a critically-lauded tour, some radio panel show, a few TV spots, a Royal Variety Performance (with toned down material), my own radio programme then transferring to TV (a bit unlikely but a girl can dream), an even bigger tour, a series of DVDs so successful that they get uploaded onto YouTube but this only makes my tours more popular and then film scripts start to arrive. With my trusty guitar and witty song lyrics, I could sell out the O2 Arena with tickets at 200 quid each.

I could always write a book. It might even get published but apart from Ben Elton, not many comedians seem to manage a good living out of it. And he wrote the words to that dreadful, parasitical Queen musical. Would I really want that as my legacy? Maybe not but the money would certainly be nice. I could write books like David Baddiel for the more literary types, maybe even be asked to join the Booker panel. And then? And then? Just a gradual slide back down that ascent, with the possibility of presenting a game-show in between. In 25 years’ time, I could be still standing in this same draughty hall, trying to connect with another group of strangers.

The truth was, I was part of a huge stampeding herd of comics, all clamouring to be noticed and I wasn’t even convinced of wanting what would be a chance-in-a-million level of success. I was one of hundreds, probably thousands all pushing to be first through a small door, marked ‘Fame and fortune’ with the likelihood that what lay on the other side would actually provide neither. I’d seen many earnest young men, and they were mostly men, over the last few weeks, positively reeking of ambition, like a nauseating convention of wannabe children’s TV presenters. Most knew in their soul that the dream would elude them but they still plugged away, reluctantly agreeing to any kind of booking, until their self-respect was just a dot in the rear-view mirror.

A woman said to me the other night, ‘I’m your biggest fan.’ And I looked at her and thought ‘Yep, you probably are.’ She had these fatty deposits under her arms. Jason and Tyrone she called them. She said she couldn’t believe her ears. To be honest, I couldn’t either. She looked like one of those giant satellites trying to pick up signals from deep space. I mean, it’s one thing to be able to waggle your ears to entertain small children. It’s something else to be able to scratch your own nose with them. That’s just scary.

But after a while, the laughter started to drain away. It may have been August but the temperature suddenly felt distinctly chilly. There were quite a few single women in the audience, not just tagging along with partners and they didn’t warm to this material. I tried a more bawdy, conspiratorial note.

Ladies, false-fitting bras. Don’t they just get on your tits?

I didn’t tend to tell stories or build a chummy rapport with the

audience—

my style, the only style I knew, was to tell jokes. Unfortunately, not all audiences, especially female ones bizarrely, could easily accept the idea of a woman ‘being funny’ and my joke-based act required regular affirmation from the audience.

Did you know, 90% of men who go fishing at weekends would rather land a record pike than sleep with a supermodel. Strangely, 90% of supermodels would rather sleep with a record pike than men who go fishing at weekends.

But I was now faced with absolute silence. It was like a nightmare interview where I could hear my own voice rambling on, disconnected from my body. I couldn’t do routines about periods and tampons but on the other hand, I definitely wasn’t racist or homophobic or at least, I thought I wasn’t. Gags about people’s weight seemed fair game as they had an element of responsibility in that, didn’t they?

I read one review of my show that called it ‘an hour of cruel, sarcastic bitching,’ which I thought was really unfair. I usually do at least a good hour and a half.

That wasn’t

true—

about getting one review. I’d had to fight to get any. Getting noticed at all was next to impossible unless you stirred up some kind of media storm. There was a great temptation to say something controversial just to see if some journalist or blogger would pick up on it.

I’m not a huge fan of the Royal Family. I think they lost their biggest star when Diana died. She was a complex one, wasn’t she? I wouldn’t want to pick out one defining image of Diana. That’d be a minefield.

Bit too old that. Most of the crowd tonight were probably still in primary school in 97.

"They say ‘Time is a great healer.’ But you go into a jewelry shop the next time you get stabbed and try and put a watch on a knife wound, they get very shirty about it."

If this had been a western, bush grass would be blowing across the stage. Maybe, I should try and edge up the evolutionary ladder a bit.

It’s easy to get complacent in this business. I mean, do you think Oliver Hardy sat on his laurels too much?

Too highbrow. Probably most of this crowd had never actually sat through a black and white film, let alone one with minimal dialogue.

Any students in?

There was a drunken bray in response.

Ah, medics. Good to know our health service is in safe hands. I’m trying to write a novel at the moment but it’s not going very well. You know, the great American writer Ernest Hemingway once said, ‘The first draft of everything is rubbish.’ But that’s because the first draft of everything he wrote was. And the second and the third.

Hemingway had actually used a slightly stronger term than Rubbish but I was starting to self-censor the routine, hoping that tamer language might bring the audience round. There was a ripple of laughter but it felt as if I was sitting at a wedding reception, listening to something more interesting at an adjacent table.

"I see we have some Literature students amongst us. D’you remember when you were in school in English and you were stuck for something to write, teachers would always tell you ‘write about what you know.’ Great advice to a 15-year-old. Acne and masturbation will only get you so far. Ask Jeffrey Archer. I don’t know, maybe it’s just

me—

I find most of his stuff virtually unreadable. And the rest of it actually unreadable."

Conversations were starting up around the room, some of them whispered, some not so subtle. In panic, I drifted into more observational stuff. Usually, I despised comedians who saw themselves as some kind of divine mouthpiece. And then last year, they only went and gave the Perrier, or whatever they were calling it this week, to just one of these nauseating idiots.

Why do deaf people only want to watch TV on Sunday mornings, eh? What’s that about?

Rhetorical questions could be awkward at the best of times. In the middle of an iffy comedy set, it wasn’t the time to be confusing the audience as to whether they should participate or not. The silence was threatening to swallow me up. I suddenly had a memory of myself as an eight-year-old kid on an interminable canal-boat holiday around the Norfolk Broads. I had quite a good throwing arm and always got stuck with the job of tossing a rope to someone on the towpath to secure a mooring. I had a sudden image of it just flopping back at my feet like a dead fish.

You’re rubbish. Get off.

That was always a problem. Like You’re not funny, it was a statement of fact rather than opinion and to argue, only made it worse. It was hard to see who had called out. Heckling was like guerrilla warfare. Hit and run. Drunk men, and it nearly always was men, who shouted out at comedy clubs rarely wore helpfully-stupid clothes or possessed an easily-identifiable physical feature to ridicule. All too often, they fancied themselves as spokesperson of the audience and I could feel this starting here. Lone nutter becomes hero of the people.

I paused to take a drink from a glass on a stool nearby. It might have looked as if I was trying to retain my composure but actually I was trying to stop my gorge from rising. Losing my cool was a sure way for my morning sickness to be announced in a very public way. Why on earth was it known as morning sickness, if it could strike in the middle of the night like this? I took a couple of deep breaths. Gagging on stage was not top of my wish-list right now.

I never really understood why people heckle. Shouting and screaming at the ref in a football match might help let off steam from a stressful week but it didn’t stop the game. Paying, what was sometimes quite a hefty entrance charge and then interrupting the act should make these people the most loathed individuals in the place. But apparently not as loathed as I was right now. I made a play for the academic high-ground.

"In terms of language, we still borrow a lot from Latin, you know. Homocide- killing gay people;

suicide—

killing Chinese people;

regicide—

killing people called Reg." Bit obscure

that—

not many people called Reg these days. "Patricide— killing someone called Pat;

pesticide—

killing people who eat pesto; fratricide- killing people who go to frat parties in American universities." Would an Edinburgh audience even know what fraternities were? "And then there’s

leukaemia—

a disease suffered by people called Luke."

There was a bit of muttering going on through this last bit, which was building. I could feel it.

I’ve got leukaemia. A voice called out. There was an awkward pause. I shielded my eyes from the spots and tried to see where the voice was coming from.

Good to see you…Luke.

My name’s not Luke and that joke wasn’t funny. It was just sick.

Well, hey each to his own. I’m sure some people found it funny. Bad mistake. There was an instant grumbling sound as if the crowd had a collective consciousness, had thought to itself and concluded that no, they didn’t think it was funny. Good to see you Luke anyway. Keep taking the tablets. This got a snigger or two but only in a nasty kind of way, which part of me felt bad for doing it. I wasn’t really that kind of near-the-knuckle comic but this guy needed to be put down. In comedy, nothing’s off-limits.

Well, maybe it should be. The voice cut through the audience chatter. It wasn’t a big enough crowd to drown him out. Unfortunately. What about comicide? The voice continued. You know, lynching unfunny comedians. This got a rather disturbing smatter of applause.

How about hecklercide? I countered. Killing annoying twats who waste everyone’s time and money, including their own, to shout out at live performances. Try doing that in a theatre, or a ballet and you know what would happen? I’d probably lost the point a bit with

ballet—

what was I thinking? Go to your local multiplex and start shouting at the screen and the men in white coats or black jackets with security on at least, will come and take you away. This isn’t a football match or a pop concert, mate. Check your ticket next time before you come out.

This got quite a got laugh until the voice came back again. Yeah, I think I’ve been done. The ticket says ‘Comedy.’

This was boiling up to a straight fight. If I couldn’t face down this antagonist here and now, then my whole career, my whole future, could be permanently screwed. All to make this one individual feel better about himself. The audience was a sentient being and gave interruptions an undefined amount of time to improve the entertainment on offer and then passed judgement. Everything hung in the balance.

What exactly is your problem? I mean, what’s the point of shouting out like this?

The man had clearly given this some thought. He wasn’t a complete random loony. "I’m making this gig

memorable—

that’s what I’m doing. Saving it from banality."

"Oh, we seem to have Confucius in our midst. Look mate, this isn’t a Philosophy class. The people in this room, including those right next to you, should be pretty pissed off with you. They’ve paid money to be entertained and—"

—And you’re not doing it, he cut in.

Not a student by any chance are you? A low boo rang out. Pretty much every other face would be would be appearing in a uni near us all soon.

No. The voice rang out firmly. I don’t think you have to go to college to get an education.

"Good for you, son. Now sit down and let me get on with my job."

That’s what I’m doing.

I beg your pardon. Some righteous indignation was entering my voice. I was getting seriously pissed off with this idiot.

"It’s like jesters in Medieval times, hecklers test the mettle of what’s being discussed. They question, they lampoon, they

query—"

"—Yes well, I interrupted. You sound like a right query to me." I thought myself beyond homophobic abuse, even of the mildest kind, but you don’t know your true nature until pushed beyond your normal limits. So do us all a favour and SHUT UP. I’m not one to bandy threats around but if you don’t sit down, I’ll have you removed.

I am sitting down. He knew I couldn’t see him through the blinding lights. He also knew there was no real budget for security at this scabby little venue and he’d provoked me into breaking one of the cardinal rules. Don’t promise or threaten what you can’t deliver.

The comedy world was full of supposed witty comebacks. What was that Oscar Wilde line when someone said he was drunk? ‘And you sir, are drunk but at least in the morning, I will be sober.’ Hang on, that’s not right. No, no, no, try again. ‘I may be drunk but tomorrow I will be sober and you sir, will still not be funny.’ Or something like that. I felt anger bubble up.

"So where is this…star of the future? This self-proclaimed man of the people? Hmm? No killer lines? Ah, not so brave now, huh? Shouting out when no-one can see you, is one thing. Standing up like I am here, well that’s something else. You wouldn’t last very long up here, my friend. Anyway, as I

was—"

—You’re not funny.

The voice came from over on the right and I shielded my eyes like a mole trying to salute from the rather brutal pair of rudimentary spotlights, which were more like interrogation than illumination devices. I could make out a silhouette. A man; sounded quite young. London accent. A bit of creeping Mockney

maybe—

thanks to Jamie Oliver, the voice of several million southerners these days.

"So what would you like to say? What?" The man started to speak but I interrupted him this time. "No, you see the thing is, I’ve got a microphone but no-one can hear you. What? Ah, elementary mistake there. First law of

heckling—

don’t mumble into your stupid, fat face." That drew a snigger. Second rule- have a gag ready. Emboldened, I continued. And maybe think why it is that I’m the one with a microphone. I didn’t just happen to have it with me. The management of this fine venue gave it to me so that people could hear me. Me, not you. Me. Stupid. I was just sounding like a playground bully. "These good people have paid to hear a comedian, not an idiot with nothing to say." That drew a few claps. Always good to remind them that there was money at stake.

No, they didn’t. I covered my eyes, but still could only make out a silhouette. The voice was keeping his comments short like a kidnapper, afraid the police would trace his call.

Er, what? So they got in for free, did they?

They paid to be entertained. For someone to make them laugh. And you, my friend, he said, throwing my own verbal style back at me, are not doing that. You should give them their money back. Trying to make the audience turn on him for wasting their money wasn’t going to work if he was challenging me to a full refund and the point about the microphone was also lost by now as unfortunately everyone could hear him.

I tried to shift tack. And are you funny? Are you entertaining?

I dunno. Compared to you, maybe. What do you think? This last comment was addressed to the audience, some of whom seemed to be shifting towards supporting their self-styled hero. I could feel the balance of power slipping away. Allowing someone else to speak to the audience was asking for trouble. Somehow I had to get the initiative back.

"Don’t tell

me—