British comedy audiences do not now and have never wanted true originality

Lewis Schaffer viewed in an unflatterling light

In his blog today, British-based American comedian Lewis Schaffer does a U-turn.

He had previously criticised London’s Comedy Store for putting on “boring shows that set a poor standard for British live comedy”.

Now he says he has changed his mind and been persuaded that, currently, audiences “don’t want interesting” because of the global economic situation and other problems. He says they now don’t want chaos or anarchy, they want something less original.

But, I have to say, this is nothing new. ‘Twas ever thus.

What was the big comedy success on British TV thirty years ago?

Obviously, Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

No.

It was Terry and June, the comfortable sofa-based sitcom much-derided by comedy cognoscenti then and now for being dull and unoriginal.

OK, there was also Fawlty Towers but – in pure format terms – Fawlty Towers is unoriginal. It is basically three OTT comedy stereotypes in a single location doing often slapstick comedy.

Monty Python was truly original and played around with the television medium. And Middle England did not watch it on its original transmissions.

I remember Monty Python’s original transmissions. They were shoved all over the place in the schedule. People did not watch in vast droves and it did not appeal to the core mainstream audience.

However, in the 1990s, Reeves & Mortimer did manage to combine originality with vast audience success… didn’t they?

No they did not.

They were a Channel 4 and BBC2 act. When the BBC foolishly attempted to put them in their own show on BBC1 at peaktime on a Saturday night, it was an unmitigated ratings disaster.

What have the big TV comedy successes of the past few years been?

My Family. Very cosy. Vastly popular. Much derided by comedy critics and the comedy industry.

Now we have Mrs Brown’s Boys. Again, disliked by circuit comedians, possibly through jealousy.

And then there is Miranda… indeed, anything with Miranda Hart in it.

We are not talking cutting edge (or even necessarily funny) here.

Who are the biggest stand-ups in the UK?

Michael McIntyre and Peter Kay.

Personally, I admire Michael McIntyre and Peter Kay’s technique, but I would not pay to see them.

Comedy Store audiences would.

Because – a vast generalisation – the larger the audience appeal the less original and less ground-breaking the performance.

Originality does not equate with success in the same way that success does not necessarily equate with talent.

I have heard it said that Lewis Schaffer is a “comedian’s comedian” – other comedians will stand at the back of his audience with mouths open just to see what happens.

He could be a major mainstream TV presenter of factual documentaries. Lewis Schaffer. He is basically Bill Bryson with attitude.

He could even, perhaps, be successful performing at the Comedy Store in London.

But we will probably never know.

To quote the great American comedian Donald Rumsfeld:

There are known knowns.

There are known unknowns.

And there are unknown unknowns.

Lewis Schaffer, oddly, fits into all of those categories.

Have the Jimmy Savile police decided to re-define the word ‘arrest’ as ‘chat’?

Lads on the look-out for famous names and tabloid publicity

Am I alone… Day 2.

Am I alone in wondering about all these police ‘arrests’ in the Jimmy Savile paedophile case?

Are they actually arresting people they genuinely think are guilty of something or are they just questioning high-profile people under caution and then saying “We have arrested Famous Person Number 5” to make it look like they are actively pursuing the case?

The usual routine in high-profile murder cases is that, if the police can’t find anyone to arrest, they simply find the local loony, arrest and charge him and hope to fix the evidence so he goes down for 30 years.

In the case of these Jimmy Savile ‘arrests’, they seem to be allegedly ‘arresting’ people who will make the front page of the tabloids, having a chat with them and then releasing them all without any charge.

I think my understanding of the word ‘arrest’ may be at fault.

Sir Jimmy Savile: a meeting with the religious, much-loved charity fundraiser

Devout Jimmy Savile – knighted by the Pope

A couple of days ago, I posted a short blog mentioning what a government minister had told my chum mad inventor John Ward about Jimmy Savile’s knighthood from the Queen – not to be confused with the papal knighthood he, as a devout Catholic, received from the Pope. I had not realised John actually met Jimmy Savile.

Time-Life has called John “possibly the best English eccentric inventor living today.”

“I did meet Jimmy Savile about 1981-ish,” John told me yesterday, “when I organised a charity football match and we got £926 from it. At that time, it was the highest amount raised from one event in Northamptonshire – and off we all went to Stoke Mandeville Hospital to hand the cheque over to The Blond One.

“Among the two dozen or so of us that went, one girl was 23 but looked about 15 or 16 – something she did not like as she was refused drinks in pubs.

“When we got there, it was like Ken Russell’s film of The Who’s Tommy but, instead of Marilyn Monroe statues being wheeled around, we had The Blond One wandering about with his assistant – some middle-aged woman clad in jeans and a tee shirt with DAILY EXPRESS in large letters across it.

“People filed up in a line up as if they were being introduced to Royalty and in some people’s minds – judging by their gushings – we were. Old dears were close to wetting themselves because, to them, it was like meeting the Queen or the Pope and The Blond One patronised them something wicked.

“I can see why nobody would complain about Him – and no-one would believe complaints – as this bloke was a Saint in their eyes. He was the ultimate double glazing rep but all he was selling was himself and what a job he did of that!

“After about an hour, while we were still in a line waiting to see The Blond One to hand the cheque over and get the photo done, the 23 year girl came up quietly and said to me: “‘Ere – He’s been undressing me with his eyes.” At the time, I thought she was perhaps over-reacting due to the moment and where we were. But now…

John Ward: what you see is what you get

“When we met him, he was quite abrupt depending on who you were. He changed his tone. He seemed to have more time for the elderly and the very young.

“Anybody close to his own age range – middle-aged – he was quite cold. There were three old dears, average age about 70, who had raised less than a tenner by knitting dolls – He was all over them… But us, who had raised over £900, he barely wanted to know – except for the 23 year-old girl who looked 15.

“Most of us agreed that, with him, what you saw was not what you got. He was a cold, calculating person/machine. After that, nobody within our lot ever did anything else to raise funds for Stoke Mandeville.”

Comedy critic Kate Copstick in Kenya: is she being comprehensively shafted?

Kate Copstick: a cold feeling that usually precedes the discovery that one has been comprehensively shafted

Comedy critic Kate Copstick flew back to Britain from Kenya yesterday.

She had been out there administering her Mama Biashara charity which helps poor women start up self-sustaining businesses.

Inevitably, once out there, things got more complicated and more personal.

This is another extract from her diary.

____________________________________________________________________

Saturday

I have been in touch with Sammi in Ruai about the small boy Michael.

Sammi has agreed to come to Nairobi, meet Kibe, find Michael, talk to the father and, hopefully, take Michael back to Ruai and the rest of his family.

I have decided that the last thing this situation needs is a mzungu (a foreigner) looking like she is doing a Madonna, swooping down on a slum village and carrying off a small child. I arrange to meet them later.

I am constantly on the phone to Doris who is taking some of the women from this week’s workshops to hospital. The pus-producing uterus is being treated, the blind/half-blind/occasionally blind ladies have been seen (no pun intended) and the usual sheaf of pointless prescriptions for Amoxil and Ibuprofen written.

At the market, I am approached by Soapstone David who is worried about his wife – blinding headaches that make her sick, not responding to any known painkiller etc etc. I tell him I am doing a clinic in Kwa Maji on Monday and to bring her along.

I meet Sammi. He explains that the father has agreed for Michael to come back to Ruai and says he accepts the boy is ‘suffering’  where he is. The one fly in the ointment of this happy reunion being that Michael could not be found. So they are to go back to find him tomorrow. Well, Kibe and the boys will go back – Sammi has to do something at the school he says.

Sunday

I await news from Kibe that the rescue is complete.

I get a call from Kibe saying something about a meeting and ‘complications’. He arrives with the two boys from Ruai (Michael’s big brother Joseph and cousin George) and Michael.

Michael is looking happy and very very healthy. And quite unlike anyone ‘suffering’.

I get the cold feeling that usually precedes the discovery that one has been comprehensively shafted.

We go and have a drink and a talk. Michael doesn’t want to go back to Ruai. Michael is very emphatic about this. Michael says he was beaten by Mrs Sammi in Ruai and had the marks to prove it.

I look at Joseph, his big brother. Joseph looks at his shoes. His eyes fill with tears. Kibe and I look at each other. The details are not forthcoming. Asked if they are all being beaten, Joseph stares at his shoes. Pressed on exactly what is happening, his eyes refill with tears. But all of the children are desperate to get away from Mr and Mrs Sammi. Joseph finally grabs my hand and says he wants to bring his family away from Ruai and get a house beside Kibe’s cousin and look after them there. They all love the school and don’t want to leave the school, but do want to leave the Sammi House.

KIbe and I are devastated. It is like being hit with a brick. However devastation don’t peel no taters… or some other such folksie saying. I buy Joseph a phone – a secret phone. My numbers are in it as is Kibe’s. It is Joseph’s emergency help line. We agree that nothing can really be done till the end of term.  In December, after Christmas, they will move back to Nairobi – hopefully under the care of Kibe’s cousin and his wife. So we need to find them (a) a house and (b) a school.

We drive to Ruai, We do the usual trip to the village in the car with the kids, buy sodas, do a vegetable and charcoal shop and bounce around the countryside with the windows open waving at people. When we get there, Sammi and Mrs Sammi are entirely unperturbed at the non-return of Michael. Mrs Sammi is feeding the new baby. It is vast. I mean HUGE. Like a little hippo in an acrylic knit top.

We leave (me with many meaningful glances and nods at Joseph) and go to Gorogocho, a slum whose name means ‘broken stuff’. Which is what they sell there. Anything technical or mechanical which dies in Kenya is ripped apart and many of those parts end up for sale in Gorogocho.

In Gorogocho, the low tin or mud huts are crammed together tightly. The women’s group is met in a tiny room/house in the interior. The women are terrific. They have all pitched in to buy beads little by little and have made forty sets of necklace/bracelet/earrings. Absolutely NOTHING that I would ever have ordered, but the principle is good. I buy them and we will sell them as a sort of Special Appeal. Meanwhile I do the whole Mama Biashara thing and say I’ll be back in November and will do a workshop and set them up in proper small businesses. They are so delighted the old lady wants to pray.

We head back to Nairobi and I get a phone call from Joseph.

I think: Violence already?

But no, he thinks he has left the earplugs for the phone in the car…

Time for a rather late publicity push for my show at the Edinburgh Fringe

(This column was printed in Three Weeks on 22nd August 2012)

The final issue of Three Weeks at the 2012 Fringe

Debate always rages at the Fringe about whether people should use a professional publicist. Is forking out £2000-£3000 actually going to get you more coverage? As most performers are organisationally doolally, it may be worth the money.

I have never used a PR because I have a background in promotion and marketing and I am fairly organised and pro-active. But not this year. As I am only staging one show – the one-off, two-hour Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show at the Counting House on Friday 24th August (always plug your listings!) I figured I would take a leaf out of the late Malcolm Hardee’s own book… and just bumble along, do things late and see what happens.

As my awards show – the REAL Fringe Awards show – is on the final Friday in the final week of the Fringe, I think issuing press releases or even trying to get coverage at the start of the Festival would have been pointless. There is no point advertising products which are not immediately available on the shelf. People reading on 4th August a plug for a single one-off show on 24th August would have forgotten by the time the show was imminent.

So I decided on a late publicity push. This had the added bonus that I could be lazy. It also meant that, to an extent, I might actually know what was in the bloody show by the time I got started. This has not necessarily proven to be true. All that is certain is that it is full of very bizarre acts. And the winners of the three annual awards will be announced.

At the start of the Fringe, I was not 100% certain that legendary cabaret act Miss Behave would compère the show, despite the fact she is billed in the Fringe Programme. She managed to bugger her back in an accident immediately before the Festival started. (She was supposed to compère the show last year, too, but contracted near-fatal meningitis – perhaps she is trying to tell me something). But now she is fine. Better than fine. Bouncing with outrageousness. I had booked the brilliant Janey Godley as a back-up compere and she will now be doing an 8-minute set and – I hope – joining in our Russian Egg Roulette contest.

Yes, not only are we having the late Malcolm Hardee’s comedy troupe The Greatest Show On Legs perform their infamous Naked Balloon Dance, we are also having the international president of the World Egg Throwing Federation come to Edinburgh to supervise a Russian Egg Roulette contest. Two people face each other across a table. Six eggs in a box. Five are hard-boiled. One is raw. The contestants smash an egg against their own forehead (as in Russian Roulette but with eggs) until one of them loses by smashing the raw egg onto their forehead. It is a knock-out contest. Possibly literally. One winner. Comedians Arthur Smith, Richard Herring and other un-nameable ‘Names’ have said they will take part.

And then, at 1.00am on Saturday morning, the show will not finish. It will blend imperceptibly, though presumably chaotically, into one of Arthur Smith’s near legendary (even people who went on them could not quite believe they happened) night-time tours of Edinburgh. These used to end in nudity, drunken shouting, the arrival of the police and sometimes arrests. I think Simon Munnery was once mistakenly arrested by the Leith Police for being a German. But maybe things will have mellowed.

I could have put none of this in a press release at the start of the Fringe. Russian Egg Roulette appeared as a possibility two weeks ago. The link to Arthur Smith’s tour only became a possibility last week. Which reminds me… the website still has last year’s details on it! But not by the time you read this. Which you can check at www.malcolmhardee.co.uk/award

How the Edinburgh Fringe is financed: the article which you cannot read in this morning’s edition of The Scotsman

Bob Slayer: taken aback by The Scotsman

Comedian Bob Slayer was asked by The Scotsman newspaper to write a piece about the way the Edinburgh Fringe is financed.

One week ago, they told him it would be printed in today’s issue. Yesterday, they told him they had decided not to run it. This is the article they are not printing for whatever reason…

_____________________________

Edinburgh Fringe’s magnificent choice of shows comes along with a rainforest of media and PR which aims to persuade us to see this show or that. Of course we all ignore that nonsense and seek out shows based on friends’ recommendations, reviews or other factors such as venue or price.

Surely the better shows are in the bigger venues and a £15 show will outshine one that is £5 or Free? You would think so wouldn’t you? Well maybe we should have a look at how the Fringe really works.

Understanding the Fringe means knowing who actually pays for it. Promoters? Venues? Some all-powerful Fringe body?  All of those will make money but actually the Fringe is mostly paid for by performers (who generally don’t make money!). Really? Yes, Really!

The open-access policy means that anyone can perform at the Fringe so long as you can find a venue. Demand to perform at the commercial venues is high and they have evolved a selection criteria that sets a minimum number of tickets that shows must sell, then charges them for those tickets before the festival even starts. Now it doesn’t really matter for the venues if tickets sell or not as they have already covered all their costs.

Performing at a 100 capacity pay-to-play room will cost an act a minimum of £160 per day or £4,000 for the whole Fringe. Ticket income is then split 60/40 but the venue applies such a myriad of deductions that shows are unlikely to ever cover what they have already shelled out. The venue is the only one guaranteed to make money in this relationship. Also with 10 shows programmed into each performance space it could generate the venue around £1,600 every day, or £40,000 for the whole Fringe. The commercial pay-to-play promoters have 65 performance spaces between them with an average capacity of 150 which means they’re charging performers nearly £4 million to pay for the Fringe, most of whom simply won’t make this money back.

Crikey! I want to run a venue! Oh, hang on, I do run a venue! The Alternative Fringe @ The Hive is in its second year, but we aren’t charging artists these sort of fees. In fact, we aren’t charging artists anything up front at all. Why? Well these crazy pay-to-play Fringe economics get worse.

Competition is so fierce for spaces in pay-to-play venues that, unless you have a full marketing campaign, then you are unlikely to get selected. This has led the average cost of putting on a Fringe show to be around £14,000. You can be the best show on the Fringe but if you haven’t got the cash then you are unlikely to be in the Assembly, Pleasance, Underbelly, Gilded Balloon or Just the Tonic. Conversely, if you wave enough money at them then they will probably find you a space somewhere.

So who ends up paying for these imposed costs? You the consumer of course. Just to stand a chance of breaking even, most shows need to charge at least £10. Even when you are paying £15 or £20 for a ticket, it is very unlikely the performer will see anything. It’s all being spent on that same marketing that you aim to ignore all month. It’s a myth that ticket prices reflect what the show is worth: they are dictated by what costs have been imposed on the show by an industry that has gone ever so slightly mad.

Some performers may still want the bragging rights of having played certain pay-to-play venues, but for how much longer? If you were a smart, funny, interesting act and you had a choice between spending thousands and risk not seeing a penny in return… or being part of a fun environment where you will be treated fairly, where would you decide to put on your show?

Change is inevitable.

The Alternative Fringe adopt a model similar to The Stand, who have been promoting some of the best, most affordable shows for years. We do not charge artists guarantees, rent or other hidden fees (Alternative Fringe earns £1 from each ticket sold). If we don’t sell tickets then we don’t get paid, which means we select shows purely on quality. As we are paying for the marketing ourselves, we are careful not to waste our money. These savings get passed on to the punter through cheaper tickets – £5 per show or £12 to see four shows (one pay).

Most importantly Alternative Fringe performers do not have to worry about getting into debt. When you buy a £5 ticket the performer is always seeing a healthy cut so you know that they are happy… It’s ironic that the pay-to-play mainstream comedy has been sponsored by a marketing led commercial beer, whereas the Alternative Fringe has been sponsored by Scottish Borders Brewery who produce individual real beers with care, building their business through word of mouth for a quality product.

“The pay-to-play venues have their commercial festival, but we are making a stand to Reclaim the Fringe!”

EXCLUSIVE! Top comedy critic Kate Copstick’s announcement about her Edinburgh Fringe reviews this August

Kate Copstick makes acts an offer they can’t sensibly refuse

First, the background.

Kate Copstick, doyenne of Edinburgh Fringe reviewers, has written criticism for The Scotsman newspaper for more years than I dare mention. She was also a judge on last year’s ITV1 series Show Me The Funny and, since 2007, has been one of the judges for the annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards which I allegedly organise.

As normal, she will be co-presenting the awards during a 10-minute section of the 2-hour Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award Show, part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival in Edinburgh this August… 100% of all profits (ie what audience members throw in a bucket at the end of the show) will go to Copstick’s Mama Biashara charity. There will be no deductions.

There are now three annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards:

- The Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality

- The Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best stunt publicising a Fringe show

- The Malcolm Hardee ‘Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid’ Award

As I mentioned in a recent blog, the most problematic of these has usually been the Cunning Stunt Award.

Most years, there has initially seemed to be a dearth of contenders though, most years, an obvious contender has emerged. However, this is not “most years”.

As Copstick says: “This year is something of a bumper one for Cunning Stunts already – Stu Goldsmith and Caimh McDonnell to name but two.”

Stuart Goldsmith, whose show Prick was ridiculously censored as Pr!ick in the Edinburgh Fringe Programme, reacted by shooting a YouTube video in which he says he will donate £1,000 of his own money to the Waverley Care HIV charity, but will deduct £100 from this every time a critic uses a pun on the word “prick” in their review.

“What’s most important to you?” Stuart asked the critics:  “Looking a little bit clever? Or saving a life?”

Comic Caimh McDonnell took the opposite approach. He said he would pay £100 for every review published by 20th August, offering to spend up to £3,000 “rather than blow it on a costly publicity campaign”.

The point is that PR men and women can cost an arm and a leg. And the Edinburgh Fringe is being taken over by the Big Names with big money behind them.

Now Kate Copstick tells me: “Far be it from me to stop comics coming up with hilarious and ingenious ideas for publicity (just put them in your show, chaps – many shows could do with a bit more hilarity and ingenuity) but I have just got the go-ahead from The Scotsman to tell you that I am:

1. not reviewing anything in a venue of over 500 seats as I do not consider them real Fringe venues and

2. I will be reviewing as many non PR’d shows as I physically can this August.

“To this end,” Copstick says, “if any performer has a show with no PR at all and fears they might get overlooked, my personal email address is copstick@bobbysgirl.co.uk - feel free to send me the pitch for your show. But be aware I am not a very generous person and star ratings can go down as well as up.”

Copstick is the most influential comedy critic at the Edinburgh Fringe.

As the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards has no paid-for PR, I should point out again – the two-hour long Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show hosted by Miss Behave – with awards presented by Kate Copstick and acts including Charlie Chuck and The Greatest Show on Legs (performing the naked balloon dance) – is at The Counting House on Friday 24th August, 2300-0100.

Copstick will not be reviewing it because she’s in it. If you are in Edinburgh, you should come along and see her on the show. It’s free.

If you are a good act without PR people, you should contact her. That, too, is free.

Little else at the increasingly-commercialised Edinburgh Fringe is…

Comedy contests and North Koreans “shaking with towering indignation”

North Korea - not a country known for its comedy contests

In my blog yesterday, comedian Ashley Frieze explained how the Funny’s Funny comedy competition was started last year after the long-running Funny Women contest started charging a £15 entry fee for participants.

Lynne Parker of Funny Women has reacted to the blog by telling me: “Funny’s Funny is doing their thing once a year and we wish them luck with their search for new talent. Funny Women exists all year round to support women who want to get into comedy – whether as a profession or to help them in their everyday life.

“The Funny Women Awards now have three distinct categories: the main award, the variety award and the comedy writing award so we’re offering women a broad platform to develop their talents. Everyone has a choice about which competitions they enter.  Some extremely successful and talented women have come though the Funny Women Awards over the last 10 years and we are proud of all the work we have done, and continue to do, to develop comedy talent.”

A past Funny Women multiple award winner is my chum Janey Godley, who has just arrived in New Zealand for over three weeks of gigs at their International Comedy Festival which starts on Friday.

She e-mailed me last night, saying:

“Am jet-lagged. I blame you and am gonna stab you, cuntface.”

Ah, Glaswegian affection. Never under-stated.

There seems to be a lot of it about. Not Glaswegian affection or death threats.

Jet-lag.

Comedian Bob Slayer today passed on to me an e-mail from comedian Barry Ferns, who changed his name by deed poll to Lionel Ritchie for professional reasons. Barry is currently jet-lagged in Los Angeles and says:

“There seems something about this place that gives people a licence to go that extra mile with whatever idea they have about how they live their lives. Today I passed someone who was covered head-to-toe in bandages (like an Egyptian mummy), pushing a trolley full of plastic; then there was the man dressed as an old woman (a la Driving Miss Daisy/Angela Lansbury), with an ornate red hat that had fruit on it who was either homeless or wanted to seem like s/he was homeless.

“Then there was one guy advertising himself as The world’s most entertaining drunk – Donate and I’ll sing a sing and tell you jokes. He was dressed head-to-toe in yellow, and stunk like a sewer.

“People are strange in whole different ways in this place. Imagine going to sleep and having a dream where everything is normal except for one random element, that’s LA.

“Of course there’s the chance that I am actually asleep and that would explain all of this. Now if I can just stay up and awake for another few hours I’ll be fine…”

I know the feeling. I came back from North Korea late on Saturday and am still zonked with jet-lag. My only consolation is that I can still read about what is happening in that great country in reports.

Yesterday, the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army issued a statement saying that “the indignation of the army and people of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) at the group of rat-like (South Korean President) Lee Myung Bak is running high.” The Korean Army threatened to “reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, (or) in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means or methods of our style… Our revolutionary armed forces do not make an empty talk.”

North Korea’s admirably-named Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea also issued a statement yesterday saying:

“The mischief made by rat-like Lee Myung Bak reminds one of a rabid dog barking towards the sky. What Lee uttered is no more than squeaks made by the rat before being killed by all people for its wrong doings. Now the army and people of the DPRK are shaking with towering indignation and anger and their resolution to wipe out the Lee group is running high. The army and people of the DPRK will make rat-like Lee and his group meet the most miserable and disgraceful end for doing such mischief in rat holes as defaming the sun.”

How can anyone not admire the spirit of North Korea?

I am currently typing-up and posting my daily blogs of earlier this month from North Korea – using notes I took inside that fine internet-free country and hid on the way out. The latest (from 12th April) is titled North Korea – George Orwell’s pyramid looms over the capital city Pyongyang - and not without reason…

German girls’ armpits and Russian foreign policy in the Ukraine

A bizarre but effective Burns Night last night in Kiev

I came over to the Ukraine three days ago to attend the previously-mentioned and still inexplicably-timed though admirable Burns Night Supper organised by Scots entrepreneur Stuart McKenzie in Kiev.

It happened last night (Burns Night is actually 25th January) and must have raised a whacking amount for the local Lions Club charities, as tickets were $250 and bids for the multifarious charity prizes were coming in at around the $7,000 and $5,000 level per item, with buyers’ enthusiasm whipped-up by Stuart, who is stepson of the late Scots comedian Jimmy Logan.

It was a very pro and very smooth operation with top-notch sound & lighting and specially-shot videos on the four giant video screens around the seated area plus great dancers, the Reel Time ceilidh band (flown in from Scotland) and top Ukrainian singers Tina Karol and Kamaliya (who won the 2008 Mrs World contest as most glamorous married woman). Someone told me there were 600 guests being looked after by 200 staff, including on-site catering by the local Hyatt Hotel.

There was also, in a separate display area at the other end of the venue, a rather odd recreation of an old Scots cottage with two live pigs, multifarious hens, a cock and several attractive girls in very short diaphanous dresses which looked to me suspiciously like Greek costumes. This promised the unfulfilled hope of bacon and eggs for breakfast.

I mean via the pigs and hens, not the surprisingly-costumed girls.

I was enticed into holding a long sword and being photographed with one of the girls, as if auditioning for some future production of Beauty and The Beast.

I was also bemused by being occasionally introduced to people by the admirably optimistic Guinness Record holder Fred Finn with the words: “This is John Fleming. He sponsors the Edinburgh Fringe.” I am sure the ashes of the late, great, never under-sold Malcolm Hardee must be silently chortling in his urn to know his three comedy awards have become synonymous with the Fringe.

It was certainly worth coming over for the Burns Night supper – though, as I mentioned in my blog yesterday, I think their idea last year of combining the Burns Night and St Patrick’s Day celebrations has a lot of future in a potential weekend party town like Kiev.

One of the bonuses of last night was that the word ‘eclectic’ understated the range of people who were there. In my experience, it is a wee bit rare to have informed conversations both about what German girls have under their arms… AND about whether or not Russia, which requires access to the Black Sea via the Crimea for its fleet, would object to Ukraine joining the European Union.

For the record, informed opinion (not mine as I am ignorant of this area) was that German girls have armpit hair like ZZ Top have beards.

“I really like ZZ Top,” the Dutchman who told me this added, by way of increasing his credibility.

On the topic of Russia requiring access to a warm water port on the Black Sea (which seemed to be a recurring theme in my 19th century history lessons at school), informed opinion came in the shape of a hyper-intelligent Russian lady whose family’s active military involvement stretched from today back to Tsarist days. Her opinion was that the Russians would not object, because the Crimea already has a high level of autonomy from the rest of Ukraine and is heavily-populated by Russians rather than pure Ukranians.

I did toy with trying to blog more about this Russian lady’s extraordinary and intriguing military and professional background while trying not to identify her and then pretend that this blog was an April 1st piece, but the complications of bluff, double-bluff and the distant possibility of being hunted down like an animal by some Spetsnaz hit squad proved too much for my sleep-deprived brain to cope with.

So there was this comic with cerebral palsy and no voice who auditioned as a singer on The X Factor yesterday…

Lee voices his amusement at yesterday’s X-Factor auditions

One of the joys of writing this daily blog is that people send me bizarre anecdotes.

This is certainly one, so pin back your eyes like you are Alex in A Clockwork Orange and read on.

Yesterday afternoon, I got an e-mail from a Jeff Lantern, who describes himself as “an enigmatic North East England based act” and who says: “I perform on the comedy circuit because no-one else will take me seriously”.

He said he had “recently met a new comic from Sunderland called Lee Ridley, aka ‘Lost Voice Guy’ who cannot physically talk. Today, he is auditioning in Newcastle to go on The X Factor.”

This successfully grabbed my attention, so I got in touch with Lee, who had just returned from the auditions. And this is what he told me:

Basically, I have cerebral palsy from when I was ill when I was a baby. This resulted in me losing my speech and having a weaker right side of the body (which means I walk funny). Instead of talking, I use a small computer called a Lightwriter to communicate with – although I use an Apple iPad on stage as it is clearer and more practical. I just type what I want to say and the iPad says it out loud. A bit like Stephen Hawking.

I only started doing comedy last month so I’m still building up my profile. I’ve only had three gigs so far. I started because I’d always enjoyed making people laugh and watching stand-up. I never thought I’d get to do it because of my disability. But then my mates suggested it might work. I thought about it for a bit and then decided to give it a go. I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t.

I already had some X Factor material in my act so, as it looked like it might be a boring Saturday, I thought it would be funny to audition for The X Factor as a singer and see what they said when I turned up. I decided to do I Believe I Can Fly because I thought it seemed apt in a deluded kind of way. I got up this morning at 6.00am to get to the auditions for 8.00am. Once there, I was put into ‘Pen B’ which was for disabled auditionees. I thought it apt that the staff referred to them as Pen A and Pen B as if we were animals going to the slaughter.

I was signed in by an assistant who talked to me through my communication device. This begs a question about how she expected me to sing when she could see I couldn’t talk. Was she just being polite? Two more people spoke to me in the same way and still no questions were asked. Good news for me!

We stood in the cold for an hour while X Factor production staff got people to sing Fog On The Tyne and Let’s Get Ready To Rumble. Stereotypical?  I was surprised they didn’t bring in the fat topless bloke from Newcastle games just for good measure. Or maybe Gazza with some chicken, a dressing gown and a fishing rod.

Then we were let into the venue – the Metro Radio Arena. Once inside, we had to sit together and wait to be called for our audition. Everyone around me started practising and I did start to feel a tiny bit bad for potentially wasting someone’s opportunity. But not too bad.

When I finally got in for my audition (about two hours after arriving) – basically in the side corridors of the arena – I was greeted by two production assistant type people who were my judge and jury. I could see straight away that they weren’t sure what was going to happen. They asked me if I was going to sing, like they were double checking.

I broke into I Believe I Can Fly and the looks on their faces were priceless. You could tell they were still trying to figure out if I was serious or not. In my opinion, I quite obviously wasn’t (I even had a Lost Voice slogan on my t-shirt), but the sense of humour seemed to be lost in translation. I tried not to laugh too much and just sway along to the words. After a few verses and some very weird glances, they stopped me and told me I wasn’t going through to the next stage. Part of me thought they looked annoyed at me for being a twat and wasting their precious time. I hope they were anyway.

I asked if I had sounded too flat as I walked out.

Still not a smile.

As I said, I already had some X Factor material in my act, so I plan to add to it with what has taken place today. My biggest gig yet is coming up is next month – Sunday 8 April 2012 at Rib Ticklers’ 1st birthday in Hartlepool with special guest headliner Patrick Monahan.

I have decided to record my ‘losers song’ and put it online.

__________

Here it is: