British comedian Martin Soan forgets two old vaginas but is offered a third

Martin contemplating vagina offer yesterday

The redecoration of the public areas of Fleming Towers continues apace with comedian and prop maker par excellence Martin Soan up ladders painting. (I have a fear of overbalancing induced by a childhood trauma on a rope-and-plank bridge in Scotland when I was around nine.)

Late yesterday afternoon, Martin came downstairs and said:

“I’ve just been asked to play a vagina. This woman’s rung me up and asked me to play a vagina. Which is OK. Alright. I can accept that there’s a vagina in a play. I’m quite open and liberal about it. But then she told me she wants me for the BIG vagina. There is another part in the play for a SMALLER vagina.”

“Who’s playing that?” I asked.

“I’ve got no idea,” said Martin.

“Have you met this woman before?”

“No,” said Martin. “Someone just gave my number to her.”

“Obviously,” I said, “she was asking around for someone who could be a cunt and people suggested you.”

“It must have been Boothby Graffoe or someone like that,” mused Martin. “She did mention it was so-and-so but she was talking fast and… someone has just passed my number on…

“She was reading through the whole play over the phone for about five minutes,” he continued in disbelief. “She said: Hang on a minute! Hang on a minute! I’ll just open the curtains to let some light in the house. I mean, it’s 4 o’clock in the afternoon now and she’s just opening her curtains to let some light in her house.”

“But you have no idea who the small cunt is?” I asked.

“I did suggest Andy Linden,” said Martin. “I’d play the big vagina if Andy Linden was playing the small vagina.”

“Would you be a talking vagina?” I asked.

“I presume so,” said Martin. “There are lines. It’s a play.”

“Vagina lines?” I asked. “What lines?”

“I’ve got no idea,” Martin replied. “She was reading the script to me, but my head was swimming.”

“Where would this play happen?” I asked.

“At The Lost Theatre in Vauxhall,” said Martin. “That’s a good place to do a play if you’re straight, isn’t it? It’s the gay capital of the world.”

“It’s not the Vauxhall Tavern?” I asked.

“No,” said Martin, “but every pub round there…”

“That’s where MI6 is!” I interrupted. “Vauxhall… James Bond can’t be gay!”

“But,” explained Martin. “MI6 is on the other side of the road. They’re separated by the one-way system. They call the bit opposite Gay Village.”

“Do they?” I asked. “I haven’t lived, have I?”

“No, you haven’t,” said Martin.

“Didn’t you build a vagina for someone once?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Martin. “I’ve made two vaginas.”

“For…?” I asked.

“I can’t remember,” he said. “One was for a dead-straight stand-up. He wanted an all-singing-and-dancing talking vagina. I used silk. It had hair and eyes that one. It was really scary.

Martin re-installs my pussy painting at Fleming Towers today

“And I did another vagina for someone else, but I can’t remember the name.”

“Honestly!” I said. “Your life is so full and complicated that you can’t remember who you made a talking vagina with eyes for?”

“No,” said Martin. “I block all these things from my memory.”

“I suppose that’s possibly wise,” I said.

Answers to nine questions asked by first-time Edinburgh Fringe performers

My first view of the world from bed this morning was fuzzy

I did not get to bed until 4.30am this morning, only had three hours sleep and have to go out. This is not good.

At my age, I should be in a bed that tilts being tended by uniformed nurses wiping spittle away from the edges of my mouth. But enough about my fantasies.

I deserve one day of blog-writing laziness. So below is a blog I posted over two years ago.

I have updated the audience figures. But the situation and advice remains the same as it did two years ago. The situation has been slightly affected by the increasing importance of the PBH Free Fringe and Laughing Horse Free Festival, so some of this advice (particularly the financial stuff) refers only to pay venues.

Anyway, in a spirit of altruism and pomposity, I thought I would give my personal opinion on nine Things Performers Need to Know About the Edinburgh Fringe…

1. HOW MUCH DOES ACCOMMODATION COST?

You know the phrase “an arm and a leg”?

If you think you can get anything as cheap as that, you are having an idle fantasy or you are taking hallucinogenic drugs far stronger than you should if you want to stand upright on a stage.

And, if you haven’t been up, you have no idea. The Edinburgh Fringe is unimaginably large and sprawling. It is the biggest arts festival in the world; Edinburgh is a relatively small city. In 2012, there were around 22,457 performers in Edinburgh simply for the Fringe. That is just performers. Then you have the back-stage, administrative, media and service industry people and the audiences themselves.

One solution to 2012 accommodation problems in Edinburgh

Last year, there were 42,096 performances of over 2,695 shows from 47 countries in 279 venues. And that’s just the Fringe.

Simultaneously, you have the separate official Edinburgh Festival, the Military Tattoo, the Art Festival, the Book Festival and the Television Festival. Any one of those would be a major event on its own in any other city.

In Edinburgh, they are happening simultaneously. Plus there are endless other events and street theatre on a massive scale. And just normal meandering tourists.

Last year, at the Fringe alone, there were around two million bums-on-seats for shows. No-one knows exact figures for sure because of the increasingly large PBH Free Fringe and Laughing Horse Free Festival numbers.

It is a simple case of Thatcherite market-led supply and demand. The demand for accommodation is enormous; the supply is severely limited.

Someone I know who is friends with an estate agent in Edinburgh was told – this is true – that one rule of thumb they use for calculating rental rates for flats during the Fringe is to ask the owner: “How much is your annual mortgage?” That then becomes a fair amount to charge someone for the month of August.

I had relatives and friends in Edinburgh until five years ago. Now I have to pay. It’s horrendous.

The phrase to bear in mind with everything connected to the Edinburgh Fringe is “like lambs to the slaughter”.

But, like the mud at Glastonbury, it is addictive.

2. SHALL I GO UP FOR JUST ONE WEEK?

No.

The first (half) week is dead and tickets are half-price or two-for-one. You will get low audiences and even less money. If you do get audiences, they will fall off a cliff on the first Tuesday, when the half-price deals end.

The second week (called Week One) is usually almost equally dead.

The third week (called Week Two) perks up a little.

The final week is buzzing.

The Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Fringe back in 2008

But, if you have not been there since the very beginning and only go up for the last week, you will have generated no word of mouth about your show, no momentum and no review quotes to put on your posters and flyers. And you will be wiped off the face of Edinburgh awareness by a tsunami of other shows which have all these things.

That is if you even get a review, which is highly unlikely.

Whenever a foolhardy Fringe virgin asks my advice, I also tell him/her:

“You have to go up for three consecutive years”

The first year, you will be lost and ignored. The second year you will, with luck, know how to play the system. The third year, reviewers and audience will think you are a regular and you may get noticed.

I know one act who has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe three times. Great act. Wonderful. Got 4-star reviews every time. But, because he/she could not afford to go up every year, there was no momentum building from year to year. He/she, in effect, had to start from scratch each year as an unknown.

Remember that it is not just audiences but reviewers who have a high turnover. The punter and reviewer who saw your show two years ago is probably not in town/ not reviewing this year.

3. CAN I RELAX ON THE PUBLICITY FRONT BECAUSE MY VENUE’S PRESS OFFICE AND THE FRINGE’S PRESS OFFICE WILL HANDLE ALL MY MEDIA PUBLICITY?

You have no idea how it works.

No they won’t.

The venue’s press office is not there to specifically publicise your show. They publicise the venue and act as a central contact point. They will try to be even-handed, but they have lots of other shows. They cannot do constant hands-on publicity for you.

Same thing with the Fringe Office. They are a central contact point. Keep them informed. But they are too busy to do the impossible and publicise your show. Last year, they were dealing with 42,096 performances of 2,695 shows in 279 venues. And with 22,457 self-obsessed and wildly disorganised – possibly mentally unstable – performers. This year, the numbers will probably be higher.

The Samaritans are the ones to ask for help in Edinburgh.

4. DOES MY VENUE’S STAFF KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING?

No.

Trust me.

No.

Most only arrived a week ago, some are Australian and the ones who are not have little experience of anything outside their friends’ kitchens. They probably had no sleep last night and are certainly only at the Fringe to drink, take drugs and, with luck, get laid by well-proportioned members of the opposite sex. Or, in some cases, the same sex.

Trust me.

With help and advice, they could organise a piss-up at the Fringe but not in a brewery.

5. HOW MUCH MONEY MIGHT I MAKE?

Are you mad?

You have to assume a 100% loss on your investment. Even if people make a profit, they usually calculate that by ignoring accommodation costs and the amount of money they would have made anyway if they had not gone up to Edinburgh.

6. I HAVE A PROMOTER AND/OR PRO AGENT. HE WILL LOOK AFTER MY INTERESTS, RIGHT?

He might do. And you might win the EuroLottery. Or he might try to screw you rigid.

One thing to look out for is an agent/manager/promoter’s expenses.

Edinburgh is pretty but with great big potential storm clouds

One performer I know went up with a well-known promoter who was looking after seven shows that year. He quite reasonably deducted the cost of his own accommodation and transport. But, instead of dividing the total costs by seven and spreading that cost between all seven shows, he deducted 100% of the cost from each show’s profits, thus getting back 700% of his total costs.

Another thing to look out for is agents, promoters or managers who take their percentage off the gross, not off net receipts. They should be taking their percentage off the genuine profit – the net receipts after deduction of genuine overheads and expenses. If they take their percentage off the gross receipts before deduction of overheads and expenses, you are being severely disadvantaged.

Alright. They are fucking you.

If your show makes £100 but costs £90 to stage, then the profit is £10. If the promoter/agent takes 10% of that net profit, then he gets £1 and you get £9.

If your show makes £100 and the promoter/agent takes 10% off that gross profit and the show cost £90 to put on, then he gets £10 and you get zero.

And, in both those examples, the show made exactly the same amount of money.

And let’s not even get into the games which can be played with the point at which they add in or deduct VAT.

7. IT’S MY FIRST EDINBURGH. WILL I GET FINANCIALLY SCREWED BY UNSCRUPULOUS PEOPLE?

Yes.

8. WILL IT RAIN?

Yes.

9. SHOULD I GO BACK AGAIN NEXT YEAR?

Yes.

Crowdfunding Edinburgh Fringe shows seems to be on the increase this year

Poster for show may not live up to its title

A couple of days ago, I posted a blog titled: £500 Ticket Price To See One Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Show This August, about a show being (with luck) crowdfunded via Kickstarter.

I got several responses from this. One was a Tweet from Sheepish Productions saying: “We’ll set our play up at someone’s house for £750!”

I replied: “You can set it up in my garage in London if you pay me £1,500 per show… If you crank up the bullshit a bit, you might get a blog out of it…”

Their response was: “Many thanks, much obliged. I’m currently feeding a 4 month old (baby) so will send some things across to you tomorrow.”

Sadly, no cranking up of the bullshit on the garage performance front ensued. But this, I discovered when I actually looked at their Sponsume page, was because they actually ARE prepared to put a show on in your home for £750.

Well, to be frank, I suppose I would be prepared to sing an hour of 28 consecutive national anthems in your home for £750.

It turned out that Sheepish Productions’ show was actually a play called Shadow On Their Wall about (their pitch says) “an impulsive man who battles with his inner demons. The play lasts an intense and spine tingling 40 minutes and is firmly within the genre of horror but also deals with issues of mental health and, therefore, by taking it to Edinburgh we hope to raise awareness of such issues.”

Sheepish Productions are Edinburgh Fringe virgins, something exposed by what the pitch then says:

“Unfortunately, as we have discovered in the last few months, taking a play to the Edinburgh Fringe is far from inexpensive. If we reach our target sum of just over £1,250 it should cover the cost of hiring the venue, registering with the Edinburgh Fringe Society and the majority of our publicity materials (i.e. flyers, posters and some very natty polo shirts). We’ve already had some great reviews and a Buxton Fringe award nomination for New Writing, so please help us on the road to Edinburgh and, in turn, help us raise awareness!”

If they can cover all the costs of staging a play at the Edinburgh Fringe for only £1,250, they should be running the country.

Jeremy Fletcher, aka Sheepish Productions, tells me: “Our crowdfunding attempts are making slow progress at present, but it is still early days. Hopefully, we’ve priced things reasonably given what is on offer.”

What is on offer are rewards for pledges which range from £10 – for which you get a credit in the programme and “a super stylish signed poster of the show” – to the £750 Hank Marvin option. This got me quite excited at the thought that the legendary guitarist had been got on board, but it turned out to be the rather more prosaic pitch:

You too could have this in your home…

“How large is your living room? For the divine sum of £750 we’ll come and perform the entire play (complete with our own lighting and sound system and the chaps that come with them) at a mutually convenient time and date. Although you have to live within a reasonable travelling distance (i.e. a couple of hours) of Sheffield or be willing to attend a venue that we hire!”

Jeremy Fletcher told me yesterday: “I have Tweeted Richard Branson to see if he fancied this, but I guess he must have been otherwise engaged.

“Our theatre company was formed last year ahead of the Buxton Fringe,” he continued. “It followed a Belgian beer induced conversation between Gareth Watkins and me about him having a life-long ambition to act and, coincidentally, me having a life-long ambition to write for theatre. Amongst other things, Gareth has been a Deputy District Judge and a long term resident of Cressbrook in Derbyshire.

“I wrote the play with Gareth in mind. It was originally supposed to be 40 – 45 minutes of horror but, having been seen by a couple of reviewers in Buxton, they seemed to consider there was more to it. With hindsight, I’m not surprised that the reviewers took more from the play than I had originally anticipated. Whilst the play is far from being autobiographical, it appears that I did draw on some very dark times and feelings that I’d experienced in the past.

“I suspect this bit won’t be the stuff of blogs…” he continued, perhaps revealing he has not read many of my blogs…

“… but the dark times related to a wave of mainly cancer-related deaths of seven members of my immediate family – aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents – over a five year period from 1998 to 2003. Being an only child, the most brutal part was that my mum was diagnosed with cancer in 1998, aged 49, survived for five years (until her death in July 2002) with my dad being diagnosed with lung cancer six months later, dying in November of 2003 (aged 55).

“Hopefully, I’ve stopped short of self-pity, suffice to say that I’ve found writing to be enormously therapeutic and enjoyable.”

That, to be honest, had me hooked as the background for writing a play. I might go see Shadow On Their Wall at the Fringe this year.

To repeat, yet again, the late Malcolm Hardee’s oft-used and eternally-wise intro to unknown open spot acts at his clubs: “Might be shit. Might be good. Who knows?”

Nigel Farage in The Times today after UKIP’s big election wins yesterday

But “Might be worth watching” is good enough for me.

Talking of which…

This morning, I woke up to a message saying that someone billing himself as ‘Assistant to Nigel Farage MEP’ – the leader of the UK Independence Party – would like to connect with me on LinkedIn. Of course, I immediately did.

I always enjoy encountering interesting people.

The Chinese saying “May you live in interesting times” is not always a curse.

A remarkable fire-eater talks about a death and British alternative comedy

A poster for the Nell Gwynn/Gargoyle Club

In a blog a couple of weeks ago, the So It Goes blog’s occasional correspondent Anna Smith wondered what had happened to her acquaintance, an exotic dancer from Winnipeg called Karen, who was last heard-of in London.

Unfortunately, I can tell her.

I had a drink this week with Philip Herbert, best-known to me as fire-eating comedy act Randolph The Remarkable.

“Sadly Karen passed away,” Philip told me. “She got knocked off her bike in London. She was overtaking a lorry and a bus came towards her.”

“When was this? I asked.

“About 15 years ago,” Philip told me.

“The last time I saw her, she was on her bike and I shouted: Careful on that bike!

“That was the last thing I said to her. And, about a fortnight after that, she was dead.

“At the time, I was on a 12-week tour, doing A Tale of Two Cities at the Oxford Playhouse. So I couldn’t get to the funeral. Her parents thought she was working as an au pair and teaching; they had no idea she was working on the strip circuit. All her friends were freaks, were punks, were entertainers. Apparently the wake was weird because everyone was pretending they knew Karen through her teaching.

“She was going into comedy. She was beginning to speak and tell stories and do poetry.

“In the old days, there was a cross-over between stripping and comedy. 69 Dean Street was the Nell Gwynne strip club until about 11 o’clock and then it suddenly turned into The Comedy Store. When it got successful, they stopped doing the stripping on Friday and Saturday and they did two comedy shows – an 8 o’clock and a midnight.

“If you were on the circuit then, you’d do first act in the first house at the Comedy Store, then go off and do a pub in Stoke Newington or wherever, then rush back and do second or third on the bill in the second show at the Comedy Store. If you were good, you were working in more than one place. Everyone worked round each other and there was a cross-over between street acts and alternative acts”

Philip performed feats of skill as Randolph The Remarkable

“I must have first seen you in the 1980s,” I said, “when you were Randolph The Remarkable.”

“I still do Randolph The Remarkable: Fire-Eater Extraordinaire. Feats of Skill Involving Fire and a Blue Bowl of Lukewarm Water. The only trouble is now, because of Health & Safety, you have to have a Risk Assessment and Public Indemnity Insurance and a fireman standing in the wings who holds a bucket of sand. If you can do all that, then they’re prepared to book you. In the old days at the Comedy Store, you’d get £5 and a drink token and I used to work under a sprinkler and there couldn’t be anything more dangerous than that. I don’t suppose they’d allow that now.”

Philip (right) often performed as Hugh Jelly with Julian Clary

“Back in the 1980s, it was much more risky and exciting and there was that cross-over from people who worked as street performers – I started off as Randolph at Covent Garden and Camden Lock… and people saw the act and said Oh, you must do the Comedy Store. Then people would see you at the Comedy Store above the Nell Gwynne strip club and say Oh, you must do the new variety Cast circuit.”

“How did you get into fire-eating?” I asked.

“I was an actor in a community company,” explained Philip, “and we were asked if we wanted to learn how to fire-eat for a historical tour. We did Southampton and Portsmouth. We took people round different historical sites and pubs and re-enacted history – it was a pub crawl, really – and then, as the light faded, we stood on the city wall and did fire-eating and fire-blowing.

“Then I was out of work for months and I thought This is ridiculous. I’ve got this skill. So I did it at Covent Garden and, back then in the early 1980s, you could just turn up and do it. You didn’t need a licence; you didn’t need to audition. Now you have to go through this whole rigmarole and they don’t allow fire there any more because there was a silly accident where somebody spilled paraffin into the crowd.

“I still do Randolph at the Punch & Judy Festival at Covent Garden every year.

Philip as Drag Idol favourite Nora (photograph by John Tsangarides)

“And I did Gay Pride last year and I also do a drag act now called Nora Bone. I was a finalist in last year’s Drag Idol. I was in the last four out of 200-odd acts. I wear a red wig; I’ve been described as a bloated Geri Halliwell, because I wear a Union Jack dress. Not a mini – just below the knee. And white tights and very low heels, because I used to be on a higher heel and I fell. A lower heel is much more sensible for a lady of my age.”

“Are you an attractive woman?” I asked.

“Beautiful. I make the boys’ heads turn. I’m trying to do songs that other people don’t do. Not Life’s a Cabaret or I Did It My Way. I do I’m Too Sexy For My Skirt, Save All Your Kisses For Me, Madonna’s Holiday. The idea is that I’m an ex-recording artist that people don’t remember; an ex-supersize model; that I did a lot of ‘before’ photographs in diet magazines; and I’m a stand-in for Adele.”

“Do you regret not being a full-time actor?”

“Well, Nora is all acting. And doing circus, doing panto… a lot of straight actors knock panto. But I tell them To do panto well is as difficult as doing Shakespeare well - because it’s a set piece. You’ve got all the set stuff with the audience, the interaction. And you’ve got men playing women and women playing men.”

“You’re a character actor, really,” I suggested.

“Last year,” said Philip, “I was in a play about music hall legend Dan Leno – The Hard Boiled Egg and The Wasp. When he was committed to what his wife thought was a care home but turned out to be an asylum, I played the warder.

…Philip The Poet…

“I also do a character called Philip The Poet. I’ve always written poetry. I met John Hegley on a bus on National Poetry Day and he said to me Why don’t you do a couple of poems? because he runs a regular night at the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon. He knew I wrote poems but I didn’t perform them. So I performed at John Hegley’s venue and I really enjoyed it, so I’m doing more and more of that.”

“Would you like to be a straight poet?” I asked.

“Straight-ish,” replied Philip. “With a comical kick at the end. I like my poetry. I comment on things I see. I can write a poem that isn’t a funny poem – that doesn’t need a smile at the end – but I think if you can say something that gets a sharp intake of breath that leads to a laugh… That’s as rewarding as a big guffaw. If you say something that’s quite shocking or meaningful and people gasp and then you undercut it with something that’s funny, then the gasp changes into a laugh and there’s a relief in the laughter. I do like my poetry, but there’s no money in it.

“I sometimes compere gigs as a character called Sebastian Cloy. He comes on in a big frilly shirt – old school compere but not gay – he tells jokes and does the odd song, if required.

“You’re always doing characters,” I said.

“If you create a character then you, in a way, hide behind that character. It’s like a mask. A clown nose. Basically, you put on the clown nose and that allows you to behave in a foolish way. I think it takes a lot of courage just to stand in front of people and say I’m now going to attempt to make you laugh or I’m now going to attempt to sing you a song which I hope will move you.”

“Do you ever actually perform as yourself?” I asked.

“Hardly ever,” said Philip. “though I’ve been doing a one-man show on-and-off for about three or four years. It’s called Naked Splendour. I’ve done life modelling for artists for as long as I’ve been an actor. When I started, the pay was £1.94p clothed and £1.98p naked – 4p difference.

The man himself in his own Naked Splendour (photograph by John Tsangarides)

“I’ve performed Naked Splendour at the Hackney Empire, the Edinburgh Fringe, Soho Theatre and The Rosemary Branch.

“In it, I sit and pose. People can draw – they’re given materials as they come in. I start dressed, then I undress and I sit and pose and tell true stories. Funny stories. Not all funny. Stories like falling asleep. When you’re in a long pose lying down, you do nod off sometimes. And then, at the end, I get dressed and invite people to bring their work down. They put it on the floor and we have a mini-exhibition like a show-and-tell.

“The trouble is, being on your own, you end up doing four months promoting via the computer. For me to do it again, I’d need someone to take it on.”

“So in Naked Splendour,” I said, “you are yourself.”

“But,” came the reply, “I always cringe slightly if I’m introduced as Philip Herbert, because I’m not used to it. When people say Philip Herbert’s here, I look round and say Who? Whereas, if someone says Randolph The Remarkable or Hugh Jelly from Julian Clary’s show… then I know that’s me.”

YouTube has a video of Philip in bed with Julian Clary:

See London West End shows for free

Diane Spencer performed at launch yesterday

I went to Soho Theatre yesterday for the London launch of this year’s Brighton Fringe. The event was unticketed but there was a guest list.

Inside the auditorium, I got into conversation with a man who had wandered in off the street randomly.

“I was passing,” he told me, “and it looked like something was happening, so I just came in. I smiled at the girls on the door. It looked like a PR thing where there might be free food and drink. I go to see a lot of plays and musicals in the West End for free.”

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“I only go to see things that have been running a while,” he told me. “so there will always be some empty seats. I guess when the interval is going to be, get there a bit earlier and wander up to the bar. They don’t check for tickets on the door. I go up to the bar and wait for the audience to come out for the interval.

“When the interval ends and the audience goes back in, I wait in the bar until they’re all seated, then go in, look for an empty seat and go sit in it.”

“But,” I asked, “Don’t the people sitting next to what had been an empty seat look a bit surprised?”

“Not really,” the man told me. “Sometimes they do a bit, but I guess they just think I’m very late.”

“Have you ever been thrown out for not having a ticket?” I asked.

“Never,” he said.

“Don’t you have trouble following the plot if you’ve missed the first half?”

“Not often,” he told me. “And, with musicals, it doesn’t matter much. I know roughly what the story is about. I check in advance. Most people go for the songs. So do I.”

“How long have you been doing this?” I asked.

“A couple of years,” he told me.

“I’ve always thought,” I said, “that it would be a good scam to go round churches on a Saturday afternoon when there are a lot of weddings. If you go in, they just ask if you are with the bride or the groom. They will direct you to sit at one side of the church or the other and, after the wedding, you could probably get to the Reception and get free food and drink. But I could never be bothered trying it.”

“There would be no spare seat for you at the Reception,” the man told me. “And wasn’t there a film about that?”

“Could have been,” I said.

“I never saw it,” the man said.

“Nor me,” I said. “If there was one.”

There was a long pause.

“I once went with two friends to Luton Airport on a Saturday night,” I said. “People never go to airports unless they have to, so I thought it might be interesting to have a night out at Luton Airport like it was a social event. Or a holiday. A one-night holiday at Luton Airport.”

The man did not look interested.

“We had a meal there,” I persevered. “We bought Luton Airport cowboy hats – Why Luton Airport had cowboy hats I don’t know – and we went to the Arrivals area and waved at people coming back from their holidays.

“It wasn’t as interesting as I thought it might be,” I admitted. “I thought it would be interesting to go for no reason to somewhere you never normally go to unless you have a reason. I suggested we should go to a hospital the next time. People don’t go to hospitals unless they have to and you can wander anywhere you like. I thought we might just see where we could wander. My friends thought it was in slightly bad taste.”

“Oh,” said the stranger at Soho Theatre, clearly bored.

He started taking photographs of the stage show.

A comic desperate for laughs in London – and how to lose a theatre arts grant

Malcolm Hardee: the comic who got caught short on stage (Photograph by Vincent Lewis)

I was talking to someone – let’s call her Beryl – about how things change. My eternally un-named friend was there. The subject of the late comedian Malcolm Hardee came up.

“My mum refused to laugh at Malcolm,” Beryl told me. “He would try lots and lots of things to make her laugh. She’d say to me: Don’t laugh at him. He’s as silly as a goat! And Malcolm was attention-seeking, so he’d try his hardest to make my mum laugh. He would dance silly dances.

“I had this funny old radio that I’d bought from a charity shop and Malcolm would come in and say Oh, I like the radio. Let’s put it on and then maybe Saturday Night Fever would come on and he’d dance the John Travolta dance and my mum would snore. She did laugh when he wasn’t there. He was banned from the Albany Empire, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was there the night he pissed on the stage during his act and the people who gave out the grants to keep the Albany going were in the audience that night. I think he said, Oy Oy Hold on, I’ve got caught short! and went to the back of the stage – I think he may have turned his back on the audience, which was unusual, and pissed. You could see this arc of water.”

“He didn’t like it there,” said Beryl. “He said you had to be a one-legged lesbian to be accepted there. It was all politically correct. And he wasn’t terribly politically correct, was he? It’s such a good venue but they don’t really do comedy there now, do they?

“I don’t think they do anything much there,” my eternally-un-named friend said. “There’s the odd stabbing I think I’ve heard of. At a boys’ club. Usually of someone who’s organised a boys’ club. Some poor do-gooder. Big mistake.”

Comedy audiences “haven’t had a good night out unless they’ve thrown-up a few times and punched their girlfriend”

(This was also published by the Indian news site WSN)

Neale Welch at the Comedy Cafe sound desk on Saturday

I was at London’s Comedy Cafe Theatre at the weekend, talking to outspoken owner Noel Faulkner and his business sidekick Neale Welch who, with a marketing background, perhaps promotes the club in less controversial style.

“Why is the Comedy Cafe moving to single-artist shows after August?” I asked Neale.

“Partly,” Neale explained, “because of a decline in the demand for mixed-bill shows – an MC and three acts. Plus increased competition. And it’s costing us more in marketing to get the same amount of people in for those shows. It costs more to get people in than it did previously.

Say goodbye to the old Comedy Cafe  logo

“We’re also re-designing our logo, moving it from the smiley face of the 1990s and refurbishing the room again – we only did it 18 months ago… Lots of little tweaks to make a big over-all change.”

“Are comedy club audiences really declining?” I asked.

“If you look on Google Trends,” Neale told me, “at the graph of Google searches for comedy… live… stand-up between 2004 and 2012 it declines steadily. If you look at live… comedy… London it shows the same decline. So there’s less people searching for live stand-up comedy and, if that’s going down then, probably, the demand is going down too.”

“Did anything happen to the search graph in 2008 with the financial crash?” I asked.

“Not particularly,” said Neale. “It’s not a fiscal cliff. It’s a steady decline.”

“So,” I said, “you’re going to be changing the type of shows you put on.”

“At the end of this month,” Neale explained, “we’ll be booking acts up until August for normal club shows and then, after that, we’ll be booking single-artist shows to run on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays after August.”

“It was over a year ago,” Noel Faulkner reminded me, “that we decided to turn the old Comedy Cafe into more of a theatre-type venue – the Comedy Cafe Theatre – and attract a theatre-type audience and now that’s actually happening.”

“What’s the difference between the theatre audience and the comedy audience?” I asked.

Noel Faulkner at the Comedy Cafe Theatre

“The theatre audience,” replied Noel, “can actually all read and write and they have an IQ of some level. The comedy audience are feckin’ brain dead and don’t know why we’re not giving them Michael McIntyre.”

“But this is the audience you’ve been catering to for years,” I prompted.

“Well,” said Noel, “we’ve all been catering to them for years. Poor old Jongleurs and the Comedy Store Late Show too. Of course you have to cater to the masses. We all have to suck the corporate cock, whether we’re gay or not.”

“So what different type of comedy will these theatrical comedians be doing in their one-person shows?” I asked Noel.

“It’s not a difference in comedy,” explained Noel. “Comics do what they do, but it’s better if you have a sophisticated audience. The other problem, though, is that sophisticated audiences don’t spend money. They have a couple of drinks and they’re happy. They don’t have to get shit-faced, because their lives aren’t horrible. Whereas your average comedy audience – their lives are so horrible that they go crazy at weekends and they feel they haven’t had a good night out unless they’ve thrown-up a few times, had a fight and punched their girlfriend.”

“In that case, surely,” I suggested, “as a businessman, you should be appealing to the drunken comedy audience who throw money around and not to the more sophisticated audience who don’t spend money.”

“If that’s what I wanted to do for a living,” said Noel, “but, if I just wanted to make a living, I could deal crystal meth or run a lap-dancing club.”

“So,” I asked, “the comedians are going to do the same things but longer in their one-person shows…?”

“Well,” said Noel. “Comedians doing these one-person shows are not compelled to come out with a gag every thirty seconds. It’s going the way I planned it. I want a theatre.”

“You always wanted a theatre?”

“I always wanted a feckin’ audience that would sit down and appreciate the effort that’s gone into it,” said Noel.

The Comedy Cafe is also expanding into producing comedy shows as downloadable MP3s. Soon they are going to release shows recorded at the Comedy Cafe Theatre by Steve N Allen, Anil Desai, Robin Ince, Michael Legge and Eric McElroy.

Expanding Cafe laughter – from live shows to mp3 downloads

“When’s that happening?” I asked Neale Welch.

“It’s just being cut now,” he told me. “I’m sorting out the webpage, the hosting and the PayPal and the functionality, so I’m thinking in the next two weeks; something like that. They’ll be released under the individual artists’ names; there will be a standalone page linked-to from our website; the Comedy Cafe will just be a footnote; we’ve just facilitated it.”

“And the appeal of the audio recordings to you is…?” I asked.

“They give us interesting live shows,” Neale told me. “And a bit of legacy. They will still be there in a few years time. We can build the business into more than one arm. We already have the club, the talent agency, a casting agency. It just gives us another arm.”

“And it means you have content beyond live shows,” I suggested.

“Exactly,” agreed Neale. “And we are looking into other content formats.”

Set List comes to Comedy Cafe Theatre

Neale told me the Comedy Cafe is also having Paul Provenza’s superb Set List comedy improvisation shows coming in for a run every Monday from March 11th for six weeks.

“And then,” Noel Faulkner told me, “we’ve another big production company coming in as well. I can’t name them yet. But they’ll come in weekly or monthly with their acts to prepare them for their TV programmes. A lot of people in the comedy business are suddenly realising there’s a small 120-seat space that is really keen to do good theatre. There’s room for three cameras. A tiny stage, but it works: it’s cosy, it’s intimate and it’s what I always wanted to do.”

“In a recent blog,” I said, “I mentioned how, in the future, streaming live club comedy on the internet might affect club business. And Don Ward’s Comedy Store is doing feature films of its shows.”

The Comedy Store film. “It’s a great idea… It won’t work”

“It won’t work,” said Noel. “It’s a great idea and I asked him why the cinemas are doing it. He told me it’s on the slow movie nights and I thought Well, on the slow movie nights – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday – people don’t want to go out. Why go see a movie on a Tuesday night when you can see it on a Friday or Saturday night? So it’s a Tuesday night and there are comics on the big screen? Well, first of all, you don’t need to see a comic on a big screen, because there’s not a lot to look at. And what? You’re going to go all the way down town to a movie theatre and pay top dollar when you can just nip over to the Comedy Store for the same price on a Tuesday night?”

“But punters can’t pop down to the Comedy Store if they live in Plymouth or Aberdeen,” I suggested.

“Well,” replied Noel, “all they have to do is flip over to YouTube or the Dave TV channel and they can see the exact same comedy on a screen.”

“I can’t see the feature film idea working,” I said, “but, in the future, if you did live streaming from the Comedy Store or the Comedy Cafe and it cost a punter only 99p to watch it in Norwich or Belfast or the Outer Hebrides instead of coming to London to see the same acts…”

“Yes,” said Noel. “If, for £5, you could catch the Late Show at the Comedy Store on the internet outside London, that would be great. But the Comedy Store isn’t doing that. They’re trying to fill a cinema. Also, if you’re in a cinema, are people really going to laugh? If there’s only 100 people spread out over 600 seats, you don’t get the atmosphere of a live club.”

“But what happens,” I asked, “when there is live streaming of good acts from a good club at a cheap price? Janey Godley looked into live-streaming her Edinburgh Fringe show from the Underbelly in, I think, 2005 and they couldn’t do it technically from that building at that time. I’ve never understood why no-one has live-streamed their Edinburgh shows so people can see them in Los Angeles and Adelaide. In a few years time, you could have the Comedy Cafe doing a live show to people in London and live-streaming it on a 99p pay-per view so people can see it in Newcastle or Cardiff.”

“Make it £1,” said Noel. “Don’t do this 99p shit.”

UK-based US comic Lewis Schaffer has his trousers stolen in a seaside town

Lewis Schaffer on stage this week, before losing his trousers

London-based American comedian Lewis Schaffer is performing eight weekly shows at the Leicester Square Theatre, starting soon. You heard it here first.

Last night, we exchanged text messages…

___

When is your first Leicester Square show?

3rd March

What time?

Sunday 6pm £10.

___

He then texted that he was in a well-known seaside town to play a gig. I will call it Boringtown. I texted back: Condolences. He texted back: Been here before. Seems nice.

Later last night, I was travelling in my car with my eternally-un-named friend (hereinafter referred-to as my EUF). I got another text from Lewis and this exchange ensued:

___

- I wrote that last text before my bag and useful black coat were stolen during the show. So now don’t have a good impression of Boringtown.

- In car. John is driving. EUF here. John says “Email me more about theft.” He hasn’t got a blog for tomorrow. It’s all Him Him Him isn’t it? – EUF says v. sorry to hear about coat. It’s cold. And bag. Hope no money was in it this time.

- I don’t want him to blog about that. I’m always losing things. Or having them taken from me. There’s a few Yiddish words for me. I’m the guy who spills the soup on you and I’m the one who gets the soup spilled on him. I had a feeling it wasn’t safe to leave it there.

It’s the jokes that I’ll miss. The paper bits with the funny things I said that I left in the bag. Who’s going to use them? I mean, if they can get laughs out of my joke scratchings then they’re funnier than I am.

- John says your txt msgs would make a good blog. I say you poor little Yiddish soupy sosage.

- Schmeil or schmozzel. I’ll have to look it up in Leo Rosten’s Joy of Yiddish. One of those words or both. I’m both. I wish I only spilled. My show at the Art Centre was good under difficult circumstances – there was an audience there (joke).

- John says your jokes are so specific to you that no-one else can tell them. He laughed out loud and said half your act is you saying the words ‘Lewis Schaffer’ – that is difficult to steal.

- It’s not that the jokes are good or that I would have used them. It is now I’ll imagine those lost jokes that I’ve forgotten are the funniest jokes I’ve thought up.

- John asks – You’re doing jokes now?

- I have jokes now. I don’t tell them in the right order or when I should, but I have jokes.

- John says Oh yes – The Holocaust ones.

- Now I have a bad view of Boringtown. Please don’t mention the town.

- John says you told him not to blog these texts.

- I lost my clothes. Luckily they didn’t think much of my leather jacket or I’d be going home dressed like a drunk stockbroker after a night out boozing.

- Are you still dressed in your stage gear? John asks have they taken your trousers? If so, comedy gold. EUF says are you on your journey home?

- They took my beloved Kenneth Cole stretchy trousers. I’m on the train. Please don’t say the name of the town. Me bad in not taking my belongings and putting them in a pile on stage with me.

- Sorry. Would hate to lose some fav clothes like that.

- And my beloved Kenneth Cole stretchy black jacket. And my beloved black and white checked shirt. By Kenneth Cole.

- John says have we agreed he can blog these texts minus Boringtown?

- And my beloved black casual shoes by Kenneth Cole, the American clothing designer.

- No more beloved clothes. I don’t know K Cole.

- Beloved Kenneth Cole.

- John says are you naked? If so, send pic immediately.

- They left my ratty suit carrier bag. Why am I such a plonker?

- I say you aren’t. John says you are. Have you still got phone charger? We are arriving at my flat now so there will be a pause.

- Luckily I hid that behind the portable heater in the dressing room. I am a plonker. I don’t think that’s a Yiddish word.

- It’s John here again now. So can I blog, provided I don’t mention Boringtown?

- I’m not sure you posting my mishaps is helping me in the comedy business. I’m not sure still makes other comics happy to read of my failures. I’m not a threat to them. Yes, you can blog this, but only because I sense your desperation to keep this daily blogging going. I admire your commitment. I could only do 3 months, if that.

- Do you want an IKEA double bed settee, lightweight base with mattress? Was EUF’s sister-in-law’s. Pix to follow. We just brought it back to Greenwich. IKEA beds longer than UK ones.

- Can use bed.

- Good.

- Actually, can’t. Sorry. No room.

- Pity.

- That’s 3 thefts in 5 months.

- 3 thefts in 5 months? You are being targeted by rogue members of the Elders of Zion… Maybe the Middle Aged of Zion.

- First the money in Edinburgh. Then my iPhone 4S in November. Now this. I should stress that the show was amazing. No-one walked out.

- My EUF says this means none of the audience stole your things. She trained as a sleuth by watching Monk on TV.

- I’ve had a run of good shows.

- Don’t worry. Things will get worse. I presume tonight was part of your Free Until Famous tour of Arts Centres?

- Yes. Packed. 150.

- Your Leicester Square Theatre gigs are eight Sundays in a row?

- Yes. Not announced yet. You can announce them in your blog. But they are paid dates. How can I justify it?

- The audience will justify it by arriving. When are you back in South London?

- I’m in New Cross now.

- Do you want food?

- Where? It is 1.30am. This is England.

- I have a car. We can find.

- Okay. Come. I can change.

- At your age, you cannot change. My EUF is starving. We will come round to your place.

- Okay. Hurry. Am fading fast. No. Don’t come. My door keys were in coat. Feeling flu-ish. Have to wake early to take son to football. His birthday. Sorry John. Ask for EUF’s forgiveness.

A first meeting with Malcolm Hardee, the godfather of British alternative comedy (and some four-letter words)

Malcolm Hardee (left) & Martin Soan: Greatest Show on Legs (photograph by Steve Taylor)

This morning, I got a text message from Jonathan Hale, co-owner of the Emporium vintage clothes shop in Greenwich:

“Quite expecting my whole day to be chaos owing to Malc,” it said. “He will be playing tricks from wherever he is.”

Today would have been the 63rd birthday of Malcolm Hardee, the godfather of British alternative comedy. He drowned in 2005. The annual birthday tribute to him takes place at the Lord Hood pub in Greenwich, London, on 20th January and the three increasingly prestigious (www.increasinglypresigious.co.uk) annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards are presented during the now traditional two-hour variety show in his honour at the Edinburgh Fringe on 23rd August.

For almost thirty years, on and off, Malcolm performed with Martin Soan’s comedy group The Greatest Show on Legs.

Last night, I phoned Martin.

“It’s Malcolm’s birthday tomorrow…” I said.

“I remember one year,” Martin replied, “I discovered that his favourite soup was mulligatawny soup. So, that year for his birthday, he got 48 cans of mulligatawny soup off of me.”

“How did you first meet him?” I asked.

“Ah,” he said. “I was asked to join the Put It All in The Pot show directed by Diane Brookings – Diane Broken-knees, as Malcolm nicknamed her.

“I was working as a Punch & Judy man afternoons and weekends. One of the gigs I had was Sunday lunchtime at Greenwich Theatre, performing to children in a jazz lunchtime thing – The jazz band would have a break and, in the ante room, I would do a Punch & Judy show for all the kids who’d come down with their parents to watch the jazz.

“This woman, Diane Brookings, came up and asked if I’d like to join her community-based touring show for children. I’d never done anything else except Punch & Judy and was interested and flattered that someone had asked me to do something else.

“The rehearsals were in the main hall at Goldsmith’s College, which had this staircase which came up in the middle of it.

“I ascended the stairs and my heart sank a little bit because I could hear this voice doing these theatrical exercises: I want you to stretch-stretch-stretch. I want you to pretend your fingers are like the tips of the ends of the branches of trees. Stretch-stretch-stretch. And I thought Oh fuck me! This is going to be exactly what I do NOT want to be involved in.

“As I came up the stairs, I looked round the hall and there were two other men. All the rest were women and they all had Fame-style leg-warmers on and they were all wearing lurex-lyrex-spandex whatever you call it. They were all doing these drama school warm-ups, but there was this one man who had a jacket on and a greatcoat and jeans and he could barely get his arms above his head and, every now and then, he’d adjust his glasses with his middle finger. He wasn’t really trying. It was Malcolm, of course. I looked down and there was this bald boxer dog, wearing a bow tie, fucking his leg. I thought Aha! There may be some saving grace within this show.

“That was my first image of Malcolm. It was Stuart North’s dog fucking his leg, but I can’t remember the name of the dog. It always wore a bow tie.

“During a break, Malcolm came over to me and said: See him over there? - It was the only other bloke; he was called Dave - He’s gay, Malcolm said. See that girl over there? I’ve fucked her. See that one over there? I’ve fucked her. See her over there? I’ve fucked her. I’ve fucked all these girls here. What you wanna do? You’re not gay, are you? 

“He just assaulted me with this little barrage of how good he was at everything. I was half convinced it was actually his show until Diane Brookings came over and handed out scripts.

“A number of people I’ve met who have become good friends… my first meeting with them has been strange.

“I remember the very first time I met Don, another of my friends. We were standing by a river and he just turned round to me and said: I could chuck you in that river, if I wanted. I dunno what it is in me that brings out the worst in types like Malcolm.”

“How did the Diane Brookings show go?” I asked.

“It was absolutely atrocious,” remembered Martin. “It was Malcolm, me Dave and about twelve women. There were about three weeks of rehearsals. We had scenery, costumes and a terrible script. After about a couple of weeks, I knew Malcolm as much as I knew him two weeks before he died. We were that close. Roaring with laughter backstage and playing-up and acting-up, enjoying ourselves. I think Malcolm probably shagged a couple of ‘em, but he didn’t shag ‘em all. The women were not the main reason we did it. Malcolm needed something to do when he got out of prison. I still remember one of the songs:

Put it all in the pot!
What have you got?
You’ve got fun!
You’ve got fun!

Put it all in the pot!
What have you got?
A good ti-i-ime!

“It was shockingly bad. We went to Cheltenham with it. We went to village halls with it. I think Diane Brookings had realised the script was a bit weak, so she got me in and Tom and I – he was my Punch & Judy  ‘interpreter’ at the time – basically did one half of the show with the Punch & Judy and a song at the beginning and a song at the end; and then there were a few sketches.

“But the show wasn’t really working,” said Martin. “Then the van that had all the props in was broken into overnight and nothing was stolen apart from the sound tapes. An expensive tape recorder was in there and was left; only the tapes were stolen. It was a bit odd. Diane Brookings discovered it and blew up and said We’re going to cancel the rest of the run!

“There were only about five shows left and we were quite enjoying ourselves. She got us all around in a circle and basically lost it and slagged us all off about how useless we all were. We had worked at it and we had learned our lines. We were putting on the best show that we possibly could, singing and dancing and I was putting on my Punch & Judy show.

“But she went round each one and did a character assassination on each person. When she came to Malcolm, she said: Oh, you’re absolutely useless! You’ve not been long out of out of prison. Call yourself an actor? No such thing! You’re just a useless waste of space!

“Malcolm just leant down and put his face up close to hers and said Well, at least my mum still loves me and there was something extraordinarily funny about it. She had broken her leg and she was in a wheelchair.”

The Cinema Museum’s nostalgic smell is in Charlie Chaplin’s old workhouse

Cinefiler and collector Ronald Grant as an even younger man

Yesterday, I had a tour of the Cinema Museum in London with Ronald Grant of the separate but linked Ronald Grant Film Archive which has well over one million images from more than 50,000 movies.

Ronald was born near Aberdeen and brought up watching films in his local village hall three nights a week.

“I became enchanted with the cinema,” he said yesterday, clearly under-stating the case. “I liked to help the projectionist and got pieces of film and took them home and showed them on the wall with a magnifying glass and a torch.”

By the time he left school, he just wanted to be a projectionist and got a job with the four Donald brothers who ran 13 of the 15 cinemas in Aberdeen.

Eventually, in London in 1981, his extraordinarily wide-ranging collection of movie memorabilia formed the basis of the Cinema Museum, which is housed in The Master’s House of the old Lambeth Workhouse – the workhouse where Charlie Chaplin was partly brought up.

Ronald Grant at the Cinema Museum in London  yesterday

As well as screening rare films, occasionally with producers/directors/actors there to talk about the production, the Cinema Museum has an almost eccentrically wide collection of film memorabilia from stills and posters to UK and UK books and fan magazines, original cinema projectors, signs from the inside and outside of old cinemas, staff uniforms, pieces of period carpet and even something I had never heard of – small tins of cinema fragrance sprays.

Ronald Grant told me:

“You have to remember that, in the 1920s and 1930s, many houses had no piped water. If you had no piped water, then there was a tap and there were lavatories outside and you shared them with the other tenants. If you wanted to have a bath, you had to go to the municipal baths, which cost money. Or you could have a tin bath which you put in front of your open fire. But this meant you had to go downstairs and bring up pails of water, fill the kettles, put the kettles on the range, heat the kettles, fill the bath…

“It was a whole lot of diddle-daddling and fiddling about, so children sometimes shared the water that other people had bathed in and, generally speaking, people didn’t bathe as regularly as they do now.

“In which case, if you had 1,500 to 2,000 of these people in a confined space like a cinema on a hot summer night…

“The other thing was that, before 1948 and the National Health Service, there were a lot of diseases and illnesses that might prove fatal. There was scarlet fever and diphtheria and there was a lot of tuberculosis around, which is a disease of the lungs. People would cough-cough-cough and spit on the floor. Tuberculosis is carried by moisture so, if you’re coughing – and with many people who had tuberculosis their lungs were bad so they would cough – the moist air could carry the tubercular infection.

“People were very nervous about going to crowded places and maybe catching something that might kill them or might involve a lot of attention from the doctor. Before 1948, you had to pay for the doctor. He was a professional like a lawyer and would charge a professional fee. Medicines would all have to be bought at full price.

“So poor families did not want to go anywhere and risk catching something that would create illness.

“And so cinema owners wanted you to think it was fresh and hygienic and they would spray this perfume.

“Here’s one you can smell. This is what was sprayed in the cinema. We have various flavours and scents. This one is Neuroma Spraying Essence – germicide, it says in brackets – Guaranteed to contain powerful germ-destroying properties blended with a delicate perfume.“

The Cinema Museum – a unique collection of memorabilia

The Cinema Museum has existed since 1981 and has never received any money from any funding body. It hopes to buy its current building which it leases from the NHS, but that could cost anything from £2 million to £5 million.

It would be tragedy to lose a unique collection of movie memorabilia.

Here is a 2000 tour of a small part of the Cinema Museum: