A midsummer day’s dream
I am old, bald and fat. It is very hot. Today I had a siesta.
As I have mentioned in this blog before, I seldom remember my dreams – only when I get woken up during one. That happened during my siesta. For some reason, I was dreaming that comic performer Martin Soan was trying to persuade me to go to a party organised by the band Radiohead.
I got woken up by a text from Martin Soan. When I told him what I had been dreaming, he said: “I have been to a Radiohead party. Years ago. A small one. Intimate. The drummer had a cottage next to a friend of mine.”
Martin had actually texted me to ask: “What date is the Malcolm Awards? I have a red carpet invitation in London on 28th August for Steve Oram’s new movie.”
Actually, the real, billed title of the Malcolm Awards show is Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrghhh! It’s the Increasingly Prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show – and It’s Free!
“Inevitably,” I texted back, “the Malcolm show is on 28th August in Edinburgh.”
This year is the tenth anniversary of the death by drowning of comedian Malcolm Hardee and the increasingly prestigious annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show is being staged at the Edinburgh Fringe on that very evening – Friday 28th August.
So something special, sophisticated and highly organised had to be arranged for this special anniversary show, didn’t it?
No! Of course not. That would smack of carefully-arranged professionalism and it would not be honouring Malcolm’s memory.
Malcolm Hardee: a shadow of his former self
But, for the show, I had booked The Greatest Show on Legs, the troupe of occasionally naked men Malcolm performed with. We had not talked about what they were going to do, of course. Professionalism can be taken too far.
Anyway… so… this morning, I got this text from Martin Soan – the head Leg.
“I don’t know what I should do,” he said when I phoned him.
“Well, obviously,” I said, “you have to go to the film thing. What is the film called?”
“It is called Aaaaaaah!”
“Not Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrghhh!?”
“No, Aaaaaaah!”
“Do you have a running role?”
“I have a cameo.”
“How did they fit the broach into the plot?” I asked.
“I play a fading rock star,” he told me. “There is a trailer for it on YouTube.”
“I got the part after I did something for one of Oram & Meeten’s Club Fantastico stage shows. I won the title Miss Club Fantastico 2014.”
This is what Martin did to get the part.
The world premiere of Aaaaaaah! is on Friday 28th August in the Vue, Leicester Square, in London.
The annual Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrghhh! is on Friday 28th August at The Counting House in Edinburgh.
