The ghost of Malcolm Hardee still stalks the world of comedy and speciality acts six years after his untimely drowning.
In 2009, my chum Mr Methane – the world’s only professionally performing farter and an oft-time performer at Malcolm’s various clubs – was invited to audition for Britain’s Got Talent on ITV. They did not choose him, perhaps because his farts were unusually smelly that day (they usually don’t smell at all and the act is an odour-free zone). But it was worth the trip as the video on YouTubehas so far got almost seven million hits worldwide and it led to him appearing on and reaching the semi-finals of Das Supertalent – Germany’s Got Talent, despite not being German and having no German connections.
And they say the Germans have no sense of the absurd!
On Britain’s Got Talent, the judges perform just as much as the auditionees – they provide OTT, sometimes cartoony, reactions so there is a supply of good cutaway shots for the edited, transmitted show.
It was good to see another regular Malcolm Hardee club performer – Phil ‘The Pigeon Man’ Zimmerman – making the tabloids yesterday by allegedly terrifying Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden. Getting reported in the Daily Mail is always good news. Especially when they claim you were dressed in a pigeon costume and you weren’t.
According to an ‘audience member’ calling herself Katie Beth who posted on the Digital Spy website, “When the crazy guy was on Amanda looked freaked out and left her seat and spoke to a security guy. Then she went back to her seat only for him to leap off the stage at the end of his ‘performance’. When he jumped off the stage Amanda was straight back out of her seat and stood/hid behind Michael McIntyre who spun his chair round so he was hugging her while security grabbed the crazy man.”
Metro correctly, if less dramatically, reported that Phil had, in fact, only approached the judges to hand out flyers for his comedy club.
And the Chortle website reported that, after the incident, Amanda Holden tweeted on Twitter: “Been possibly the best day we’ve ever had in London for BGT today!! Next week, Manchester here we come!” so I doubt if the lovely Amanda will need too much therapy for post-traumatic stress syndrome.
The spin betwixt truth and publicity is always interesting. But Phil Zimmerman is certainly someone to watch.
I was invited to Phil’s Guy Fawkes Night party last year but couldn’t go – it involved video cameras positioned throughout his house which (as far I remember) were going to stream what was happening inside the house onto the internet. I now wish I had gone. Someone who did go tells me it all ended when an irate neighbour started shooting at the party-goers with an air gun causing mass panic in the garden. When the police eventually arrived, they spent some considerable time crawling around the garden in the dark looking for pellets in the grass…
Phil Zimmerman. The man who brought the Metropolitan Police to its knees.
It sounds almost Hardee-esque in its bizarreness.
On the subject of PR spin and talent, I organise (if that’s the word for it and it probably isn’t) the annual Malcolm Hardee Awards, the real Edinburgh Fringe Awards for comedy. This year, they will be presented during a two-hour stage show on Friday 26th August. Accept no substitutes.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 