Media desperation, gullibility and the Tina Turner tribute act that never was

The BBC ignored the slight visual differences between John Ward (left) and Tina Turner… (Photograph of Tina Turner by Philip Spittle via Wikipedia)

Singer Tina Turner died this week.

The following morning John Ward, esteemed eccentric inventor and designer of the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards including the Cunning Stunt Award, was out shopping when his mobile phone rang from a withheld number.

“Warily,” John told me, “I answered it.”

It was the BBC.

John writes a weekly newspaper column for the Spalding Guardian.  

Occasionally, he has been known to add in these columns, in the past, an unlikely throwaway line about how he gave up performing a Tina Turner tribute act some time ago with people citing such minor problems as his colour, height and girth  – “She is taller and slimmer than me” – and the fact that wearing the high heels gave his feet a hammering.

John is is in demand as an after-dinner speaker and local personality. At some functions/events which he attended, people would occasionally ask him if he might consider “going back to doing the Tina Turner act”.

John says: “I do detect that some of them have been quite serious… They actually thought I had done a Tina Turner tribute act. In one case, a lady at one charity bash said she would have ‘dearly loved’ to have seen me performing as Tina.  She was not alone. I would have dearly loved to see it too…”

Anyway he got a phone call from BBC Radio the morning after Tina Turner’s death was announced.

John tells me:

“The young BBC lady wondered if I had a moment or two as they would like to get a quote from me regarding the passing of Tina Turner as we had a ‘connection’ due to my tribute act…

“I asked how she had got my number but it was from somebody at BBC Radio Lincolnshire – so they, or somebody there, had read my stuff!

“I said Tina was a great performer and will be sadly missed by many around the world but, while we had never met personally, I felt sure Gyles Brandreth must have met her.

“Next thing was: Would I mind giving an interview over the phone, there and then, to discuss my tribute act and what inspired me to do it which might/might not be broadcast either on steam radio or online or both.”

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The questions and answers went like this: 

BBC: What inspired you to do it?  

JOHN: I really wanted to do a George Formby tribute act but found I could not master the ukulele. So I did Tina Turner instead.

BBC: Was the Tina act easy to do?

ME: The biggest hurdle was to overcome my initial colour but, while this took some time, I like to think I nailed it.

BBC: Did you consider your singing voice on a par with Tina?

ME: She was an octave or two higher than me as many who had seen her perform in concert told me, but I was more of a visual act.

BBC: Will you be attending the funeral?

ME: The funeral arrangements have not been published yet, as far as I know, so I prefer not to comment.

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“The BBC lady seemed to accept all this, thanked me for my time and said she would let me know if and when my segment would be broadcast.”

“Have you heard back?” I asked John.

“No. But later, in the afternoon, around four o’clock, someone from Central TV News rang up to find out why they had never covered the story. I asked him where he heard about my Tina Turner tribute act. 

“I was told by a friend at BBC Radio Lincolnshire…” he said. “So it seems the news is spreading.”

This year’s Malcolm Hardee Awards: It all ended in tears and a fight by a bus.

Highly unlikely to ever want to rest in peace…

Yesterday’s blog was about the travails of this year’s Malcolm Hardee Awards Show at the Edinburgh Fringe. The show was cancelled on the day (by the Award organisers) at The Counting House venue and then suddenly moved to another venue, Bob Slayer’s Blundabus: a double-decker bus. No reflection on the highly-esteemed Counting House.

Yesterday’s blog sort-of encompassed my philosophy of organising things… 

Anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong. 

And anything that cannot possibly ever go wrong WILL STILL go wrong.

The best thing is to prepare everything in advance to the last detail, organise everything with fallback positions and then, when the whole thing suddenly starts to go arse-over-tit despite all that, it is easier to manage the new chaos caused by one single unexpected disaster than have to sort-out this new and impossible-to-predict problem AND all the sundry could-have-been-foreseen-and-planned-for potential multiple problems.

You should plan for the foreseeable-knowns; you can’t plan for the unforeseeable-unknowns.

Malcolm Hardee also had a philosophy about First World problems: 

“Fuck it! It don’t matter do it? There are people starving in Africa. Not all over though. Round the edge – fish.”

I am in London. Three people have told me anonymously what happened in Edinburgh on Friday night/the early hours of Saturday morning .

One person, who had arranged to see the 11.30pm show at The Counting House with a group of people from London said: “I saw that the show had been cancelled and assumed that was the end of it. Wish I’d known that Bob had stepped in. Small venue though.”

Someone else, comic Giacinto Palmieri (who actually attended the re-scheduled 01.00am Blundabus presentation), opined: “A show that was so alternative that there was no show… Malcolm Hardee would have appreciated that.”

Apparently the awards were announced from a small stage in front of the double decker bus. When Jerry Sadowitz was announced as winner of the ‘Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid’ Award, there was, I’m told, “a noticeable but small Boo! from the crowd”. 

After the Awards, a vivid verbal contretemps then ensued between two of the people involved in the show which, it seems, can best be described as a non-meeting of minds between, on the one side, ‘very tired & emotional’ and, on the other, ‘very irritated and Woke’. It all ended in tears, as such things are prone to do.

In yesterday’s blog, I wrote that an email sent to me at 02.59 on Saturday morning told me: “The news announcement (of the Award-winners) might be a little delayed… One bit proved quite controversial, so the judges are going to need a chance to decide on the wording first.”

It turns out this referred not to the decision on winners of the Awards but on the wording of the press release mentioning comedian Jerry Sadowitz. 

The press release was eventually issued yesterday afternoon. Here it is (I have added pictures):

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For immediate release

MALCOLM HARDEE AWARDS 2022 RESULTS

The results of the Malcolm Hardee Awards 2022 have been announced during a ceremony at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The awards – handed out in the memory of comic, agent, manager, club-owner and prankster Malcolm Hardee – celebrate and promote the spirit of anything-goes comedy anarchy at the Edinburgh Festival.

This year’s winners are:

COMIC ORIGINALITY

Two thirds of The Flop: Dan Lees (left) and Cammy Sinclair (Photo: Stephen O’Donnell)

The Flop: A Band Of Idiots (Dan Lees, Tom Penn, Cammy Sinclair)

Comedy trio The Flop – Dan Lees, Tom Penn and Cammy Sinclair – performed their show at The Banshee Labyrinth at 10:10pm between the 6th and 20th August.

Their brochure blurb explains: “60 minutes, 12 notes and three idiots. Musical mayhem and expert clowning from the greatest band in the whole world… ever.”

Mr Chonkers was also nominated in this category.

Ivor Dembins without Edinburgh Council’s rubbish men (Photograph: Stephen O’Donnell)

CUNNING STUNT

Ivor Dembina

The 2022 Cunning Stunt prize goes to comedian Ivor Dembina, for his reaction to the Edinburgh bin collection strike, promoting the growing piles of uncollected rubbish as performance art.

 

ACT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A MILLION QUID

Sadowitz: offensive future millionaire?

Jerry Sadowitz

Originally scheduled to play just two shows at the Pleasance’s EICC venue as part of his national tour Not For Anyone, cult comic and former Hardee protégé Sadowitz made national headlines when his show was unceremoniously axed after its first night, with Pleasance claiming both “[we are] a venue that champions freedom of speech and we do not censor comedians’ material,” and “the material presented at his first show is not acceptable… this type of material has no place on the festival”. Coherent, much?

Judges explained: “Ironically, after being cancelled, Sadowitz is seeing a huge increase in ticket sales for the show’s tour, and is now adding a date at the 3,600+ seater Hammersmith Apollo in November.

“The Million Quid is getting closer for the most unlikely of reasons.”

*** *** ***

The usual, anarchic awards show was not able to take place this year, but a results ceremony was held at Bob Slayer’s infamous BlundaBus venue at 1.00am this morning.

The winners each receive a specially made trophy designed by inventor John Ward.

This year’s judging panel was Marissa Burgess, Kate Copstick, Bruce Dessau, Jay Richardson, Claire Smith and Ian Wolf.

The Malcolm Hardee Awards have run since 2005, the year of Malcolm Hardee’s death. They ended in 2017, however having been ‘much missed’ at the 2018 festival, they have now been revived by British Comedy Guide, with the blessing of original organiser John Fleming and the Hardee family.

Find out more about the awards and previous winners at:
https://www.comedy.co.uk/hardees/

Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe – organising anarchy

ITV’s Tiswas – Good clean family fun

I was a researcher on the final series of anarchic Saturday morning ITV children’s show Tiswas. It had been going for years at the point and everything ran fairly smoothly. It was broadcast live usually for 2-3 hours. I remember at least a couple of the live shows ran for 4 hours. I think the series I worked on ran for 39 weeks of the year. 

Because it was allegedly for young-ish children (and university students) all the items were very short because of their short attention span. The only long items were cartoons (about 7 minutes long) and live pop songs (about 3 minutes).

Everything else tended to be I guess no longer than around 30 seconds. 

On a live TV show – with guests, children, rock bands, cameras and crew in the studio, with anarchy being the format and with water, custard pies, electric cables and people moving all over the place all the time on the studio floor – this was a recipe for disaster.

The trick was to have one meeting early in the week with representatives of all the technical and editorial departments involved to pre-spot potential problems… and an editorial meeting late in the week to iron out the detailed practicalities.

One week, at one of these meetings, the producer lamented that everything ran far too smoothly on-screen. It was an ‘anarchic show’ but so well-planned that nothing ever actually went too wrong. How could we add in some genuinely unplanned chaos?

The answer was, really, that we couldn’t. Because the only way to run anarchy on stage or in a TV studio is to plan it carefully in advance, with fall-back positions, and then fly by the seat of your pants. You plan for as many possible contingencies as you can and then it is easier to cope with the ‘impossible’ things that actually happen on the day.

Which brings us to the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe. I used to run them but no longer do – so, when things go wrong, I can comfortably sit back in London and observe from afar.

(L-R) The 2022 ‘Million Quid’, Comic Originality and Cunning Stunt Awards, designed by John Ward

The format is that there are (over the years) 4-6 judges who decide on three Awards – Comic Originality, Cunning Stunt and ‘Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid’. In the past, the Short List of nominees was announced around Tuesday of the Fringe’s final week and the Awards were decided by the judges at Friday lunchtime, then announced and presented during a live 2-hour stage show just before midnight in the ballroom of The Counting House venue, which is part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival.

This involved me getting a taxi down to Leith as soon as the winners were decided… to get the names engraved on the three Awards… and rushing down again around teatime to collect them before the evening show. Meanwhile, acts for that night’s show would be dropping out or changing arrival times or causing creative chaos in sundry ways. 

During the show, acts would also not arrive at all or arrive an hour late or whatever. It was like juggling spaghetti. (Another thing I occasionally included in the show.)

Oh the joy of it all…

The ballroom had a 150 seating capacity and we got in trouble one year because too many people had been standing round the edges of the 150 seated audience. The fire regulations did not allow this.

The next year, we had officials counting numbers in and out of the room. With all seats occupied, no-one was allowed in unless someone went out. This meant, if you went out to the toilet, you might not be able to get back in again. I did wonder if some people just ‘did the necessary’ in situ rather than leave. If so, I suspect Malcolm would have approved.

Action-packed Russian Egg Roulette at the 2012 Awards

The live show was a Hardee-esque variety show of bizarre-as-possible comedy acts plus, in later years, a competitive Russian Roulette contest with eggs (organised by the World Egg-Throwing Federation) in which comedians smashed eggs against their forehead in a knock-out contest to find out which was the sole hard-boiled egg. It was messy.

I never booked the nominees or upcoming winners of the Awards to perform in these variety shows in case their acts were so bizarre the audience hated them…

I stopped organising the Awards in 2017 after ten years. 

There were no Awards in 2018 because I couldn’t find anyone to take them over – and nor could a top UK PR who tried to find sponsors for them.

They returned briefly in 2019 organised by the British Comedy Guide and then, of course, Covid hit. So there were no Awards in 2020/2021 although, in 2021, when there was a sort-of Edinburgh Fringe, Will Mars was given a Cunning Stunt Award.

The Awards re-started ‘properly’ this year, with the Edinburgh Fringe re-emerging from Covid.

The winners were due to be announced last night (Friday) during a live show in The Counting House at 11.30pm.

I am totally uninvolved in the Awards now but, as a courtesy, I am kindly kept in the loop by email, so I know roughly what is going on. 

On Thursday evening at 21.28, there was talk of cancelling the Friday show because “it wasn’t felt there were enough original acts here to put on a show and we’ve left it a bit late to organise a good show even if there were… (We) should be sending over the results and pictures that you can use in your blog first thing tomorrow”.

And, indeed, yesterday, Friday, the Counting House show was cancelled and moved to the upper level of former Award-winner Bob Slayer’s Blundabus venue (a double-decker bus), to start after midnight, around 01.00 .

I woke up this morning to an email sent at 02.59 telling me: “The news announcement (of the Award-winners) might be a little delayed… One bit proved quite controversial, so the judges are going to need a chance to decide on the wording first.”

Around 15.10 this afternoon, the Awards were finally announced: 

COMIC ORIGINALITY: The Flop.

CUNNING STUNT: Ivor Dembina & the Edinburgh bin collectors.

ACT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A MILLION QUID: Jerry Sadowitz.

The phrase “in light of the present unpleasantness” has been used on Facebook.

At the time of posting this blog, I know no more that you, dear reader.

I suspect more will follow in a further blog… AND IT DOES, HERE…

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Malcolm Hardee drowned in 2005. Karen Koren of Edinburgh’s Gilded Balloon venue produced this tribute at the time…

A word with a Ward, Award-maker, leaves worried BBC journo wordless

Dapper designer John Ward, earlier this week, wearing one of his many professional hats…

A couple of days ago, I posted a blog about this year’s Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for best publicity stunt at the Edinburgh Fringe. The trophy itself – as with all Malcolm Hardee Awards – was designed and made by mad inventor John Ward.

Dr David Weeks’ academic analysis…

Among John Ward’s many other accomplishments are writing a weekly column – Ward’s World – for the Spalding Guardian newspaper and ‘starring’ in psychiatrist Dr David Weeks’ 1995 academic book Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness.

Yesterday, I got an email from John Ward:

“A BBC Three Counties Radio bod rung me up just now – asked me about the Malcolm Hardee Award and asked was I willing to do an over-the-phone interview later today.

“Then he asked me if I had any connections with Edinburgh other than the Awards side. 

“I said: My psychiatrist lives there (as in David Weeks) and then things seemed to get sort of quiet and he said he would ‘get back to me later’.

“I have heard no more.”

Obviously the BBC has to ‘up’ its reporters’ inquisitiveness.

They should have been even more interested by the mention of a psychiatrist and should also have asked the obvious question: “If you live in the middle of England, why do you have a psychiatrist in Scotland?”

John Ward is also featured (among many other appearances) in the 2015 documentary film A Different Drummer: Celebrating Eccentrics by Academy Award winning director, John Zaritsky.

A DIY guide to getting and making an Edinburgh Fringe comedy award…

This morning, a month after this year’s cut-down-by-Covid Edinburgh Fringe finished, the 2021 Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award winner was announced. Yes, a month after it finished. 

The late Malcolm Hardee outside his childhood home

Alas no attempt was made to link the fact that the Award and the dead-but-impossible-to-forget comic Malcolm Hardee himself are both late.

Normally, there are three Malcolm Hardee Awards but, with no Fringe last year, with Covid still stalking the land and with staggeringly fewer shows at the Fringe this year, it’s a miracle there was any award at all.

As for the lesser Fringe awards… There were no Edinburgh Comedy (aka Perrier) Awards at all this year. And the eponymous TV channel did not attempt to award any prize for ‘DAVE’s Best Joke of the Fringe 2021’.

Fittingly, then, the winner of the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award this year was Will Mars, who announced his own ‘(Some Guy Called) DAVE Joke of the Fringe 2021’.

A cunning stunt indeed.

The TV channel’s annual prize is awarded after multiple allegedly top comedy industry professionals assiduously scout for jokes to nominate a shortlist and the final winner is decided by an allegedly carefully supervised public vote. 

This year, Will Mars just got together a few gags from people’s shows and then wandered up the Royal Mile in Edinburgh trying to find anyone called Dave who would pick a winner from the bunch.

Surprisingly, finding someone called Dave turned out to be almost as difficult as picking a winner.

The chosen winning joke was Masai Graham’s:

“I thought the word ‘Caesarean’ began with the letter ‘S’ but, when I looked in the dictionary, it was in the ‘C’ section.”

The shortlist of other jokes – inexplicably Caesar-centric – which Will had got together included:

Adele Cliff: “The Roman emperor’s wife hates playing hide and seek because wherever she goes Julius Caesar.” 

Ben Clover: “Getting a caesarian is dangerous in Russia. If they open you up and find a little girl, they open her up to see if there’s another.”

Ivor Dembina: “My therapist told me, ‘A problem shared, is a hundred quid’.”

Sameer Katz: “I think Chewbacca is French because he understands English but refuses to speak it.”

Leo Kearse: “Marvin Gaye used to keep a sheep in my vineyard. He’d herd it through the grapevine.”

Will Mars’ own: “My grandparents were married for forty years, but everything took longer back then.”

Tom Mayhew: “Me and my ex were into role play. I’d pretend to be James Bond and she’d pretend she still loved me.”

Rich Pulsford: “I don’t know what you call a small spillage from a pen but I have an inkling.”

The trophy for the one-off 2021 Award itself was designed and crafted by mad inventor John Ward, who has designed and made all the previous trophies.

But you can’t just knock-off a Malcolm Hardee Award in a minute or two. Oh no. Oh my dear me, no. Quality counts.

You need raw materials and then you have to decide what the fuck to do with them…

Once you have ’em, you have to shape ’em and craft ’em…

Then, if you’re talented like John Ward, you have to tart ’em up into a final trophy…

John Ward (he’s the one on the right) with the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award 2021

John Ward told me: “It’s basically Malcolm’s bonce, with real imitation hair, plus the specs mounted on an ‘H’ shaped base for Hardee.

“I used a BAFTA type theme but tried to take the piss out of it with the silver (on the right) symbolising the bland year and half it’s been with Covid and the golden ray of laughter (on the left) is pure (if that’s a suitable word) Malcolm with a hearty grin.”

“With real imitation hair?” I asked. “From where?”

“From a fabric shop I patronise for such things…”

“Such things?” I asked.

“I use it to make wigs and I buy it by the yard as you never know when you might run out of the hairy stuff…” replied John.

Here is a reminder of John Ward.

Here is Will Mars’ typically non-promotional speech accepting the 2021 Cunning Stunt Award…

 

And here is the base of John Ward’s trophy…

Thieves at BBC Studios nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award in Edinburgh

President Obonjo – the original by ten years

As mentioned in my blog last week, BBC Studios have outrageously sold a stolen concept to Channel 4/E4 either by blatant amoral plagiarism or because of a breathtaking lack of interest in or knowledge of the current and recent UK comedy scene – a non-broadcast pilot that has clearly been based on the theft of the intellectual property of comedian Benjamin Bankole Bello – his comedy character President Obonjo.

In what could be read as a two-finger sign to BBC Studios, ‘President Obonjo’ has today made a clean sweep in nominations for the three annual Malcolm Hardee Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The President Obonjo character has been nominated for Comic Originality (on the basis that the BBC have flagrantly ripped-off the basic idea)… and for the Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid Award.

I am not so sure about the latter as BBC Studios’ actions potentially have the outcome of destroying Benjamin Bello’s so-far successful ten-year career… and the cynical BBC people involved must clearly know this – they are apparently amoral, not actually stupid.

Malcolm Hardee admired cunning stunts…

Ironically, E4 and BBC Studios have been nominated in the Cunning Stunt Award category “for exponentially increasing the knowledge of, and sales for, President Obonjo with their ‘appalling theft of his character’.”

In an apparent further two-finger gesture to BBC Studios and E4, President Obonjo will be compering the traditional two-hour Malcolm Hardee Awards Show in Edinburgh’s Counting House venue starting tomorrow at 2359 – that’s midnight.

As it is part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival, entry is free. Whether you will exit with your soul unsullied is a matter for conjecture. 

The Award nominations are:

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COMIC ORIGINALITY

– Legs

– Sean Morley

– Joz Norris

– President Obonjo

– Charles Quarterman

– Jimmy Slim and Lewis Blomfield

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CUNNING STUNT

– E4 & BBC Studios – for exponentially increasing the knowledge of, and sales for, President Obonjo with their “appalling theft of his character”.

– Jimmy Slim and Lewis Blomfield – for creating and distributing flyers which have scratch-card like elements on them.

– West End Producer – for releasing a poster featuring 5-star reviews appearing to be from well known critics and producers (M Billington, L Gardner, S Clapp, C Mack, Andy Webber). However, the names mentioned were actually members of the public he phoned up (eg Andy Webber is a man who lives in Bognor Regis), who gave permission for their names to be used.

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ACT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A MILLION QUID

– Catherine Cohen – for her force-of-nature take on millennials and their outwardly perfect, inwardly bleak lives.

– Tom Crosby – for creating a highly addictive video game and getting people hooked on it during the introduction to his show

– Sophie Duker – for being a self-aware, increasingly prominent voice of intersectionality as it changes Western culture

– Candy Gigi – for having a world class voice that could go global and showcasing it in a new musical genre

– President Obonjo – for, in future, either winning a legal battle over ownership of his character or becoming leader of the country

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Malcolm Hardee’s children, Frank and Poppy Hardee, say: “One of our dad’s greatest qualities was finding and supporting new talent. This award in honour of our father will hopefully help to continue to promote new, exciting and slightly eccentric comedy acts at one of the world’s most famous comedy festivals.”

#JusticeForObonjo

 

Harvey Weinstein, Lewis Schaffer, an iPhone and Becky Fury’s fanny print

James Harris (with microphone) talks to his guests at the wedding party in Hackney this afternoon

This afternoon, I was at comic James Harris’ wedding party in Hackney. He got married yesterday to Ke Zuo.

I was sitting talking to Hannah George and to Toby Williams, the comic who used to perform as character Dr George Ryegold. I was suggesting to them that, when the inevitable movie of the sudden downfall of film producer Harvey Weinstein is made, Lewis Schaffer should play the part of Weinstein.

The Hackney wedding party included a non-hackneyed show.

Not because of Lewis Schaffer’s sexual proclivities (Brian Simpson, the English character actor who plays the role of Lewis Schaffer is gay) but because he would be able to play the New York Jewish character to a tee – ironic, given that Brian Simpson is neither Jewish nor a New Yorker.

Imagine my surprise then, dear reader, when my left nipple began to be tickled by the vibrations of an incoming text message on my iPhone.

The message was from a comedy promoter. It said:

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Where are you? Sounds like fun.

And why do you keep saying Lewis Schaffer’s name in vain interspersed with Harvey Weinstein?

Intrigued.

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The iPhone in my shirt’s breast pocket must have phoned the comedy promoter of its own accord by pressing itself against my erect nipple… Yes, the party was that exciting.

I sent a message back. It said:

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Oops! You can’t trust mobile phones.

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I put the phone back in my breast pocket.

A little later, it tickled my nipple again.

Janey Godley’s iPhone told her I had left a 10 second message

It was a text message from comic Janey Godley, in Aberdeen to perform two shows with Scotland’s former First Minister Alex Salmond. It said:

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John did you leave a message?

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I had not phoned her. But her iPhone told her I had left a 10 second audio message on her phone.

Mysterious cyberspace keyboard not sent by me to Aberdeen

And I also seemed to have sent her a photograph of a keyboard.

A little later, I got an email from comic Becky Fury, the winner of last year’s Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award who has taken to calling herself a double Malcolm Hardee Award winner because of a dubious event in a London pub.

Becky Fury’s new weekly show project

Becky’s email was inviting me on Tuesday to a new weekly show she is organising in Victoria Park, London. The show is called the Demokratik Republik of Kabaret but she has inexplicably abbreviated that not to DRK but to DPRK, the abbreviation for North Korea.

As the weekly comedy night is new, she wants acts who want to perform to get in touch with her.

Her message said:

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Anyone who wants to come down and try new or experimental material in a lovely venue please email Demokratik Republik of Kabaret with a submission – PeoplesCabaret@gmail.com

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Becky Fury – a woman in search of the bizarre and original

I am not a performer so I think Becky assumed I would not be interested in this message and that is why she included a story for me.

To hold my attention.

I do to know if the story is true or not.

I seem to live in a world in which comics pretend to be doctors. Or not.

And English character actors pretend to be Jewish New York comics. Or not.

And iPhones phone each other without asking permission from the people who own them.

Becky Fury’s message read:

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I went to see
Betty Grumble sex clown
(Not available for children’s parties)
And she gave me a paint print of her fanny
(If you think that’s bad you should see the one
Coco the clown did with his anal beads
That’ll be the last time he gets booked to play that village fete)
So I put a picture of it on Facebook
(The paint print of the fanny
Not the anal bead one
Coco’s management have taken out an injunction on that)
I put on Facebook ‘I went to see Betty Grumble Sex Clown and she presented me with this paint print of her fanny’
The next day this comedian comes up to me and says
‘I just went to see Betty Grumble
and she gave me a paint print of her fanny…
And she signed it’ I didn’t believe him
So I said
‘Where did she stick the pen?’
He didn’t know
So I said ‘Betty Grumble didn’t give you a paint print of her fanny, did she?
You didn’t get a signed paint print of Betty Grumble’s fanny, did you? You didn’t get an unsigned paint print of Betty Grumble’s fanny. You didn’t get any paint print of Betty Grumble’s fanny. You’re just saying that because you are jealous Betty Grumble chose to give me a paint print of her fanny
And I was angry
And a man on the way home said ‘What’s wrong?’
I put on Facebook ‘I got given a paint print of Betty Grumble’s fanny and this guy came to me and said ‘Well, I got a signed paint print of Betty Grumble’s fanny and I said ‘You didn’t get a signed paint print of Betty Grumble’s fanny, you didn’t get any paint print of Betty Grumble’s Fanny’
And the man said
‘Jesus you’re angry about who’s been given a paint print of a clown’s fanny
That is ridiculous
You’re meant to be a comedian
Do you not think that’s funny?’
And I thought ‘Yes, ridiculous. Ridiculous one-upmanship. Hilarious.
When I get home I’m going to put a post on Facebook saying
Marcel Marceau mimed/handed me a card which said ‘You are the best comedian in the world’
And a Malcolm Hardee Award made out of modelling balloons
And then Coco the clown gave me a necklace made of his anal beads

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That is the message that Becky Fury sent me.

I think I will go and lie down now. It has been a long day.

Sex clown Betty Grumble’s alleged fanny print as photographed by Becky Fury, cunning stuntress

Edinburgh Fringe, Day 24: The Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award winners 2017

The late, out-standing comic Malcolm Hardee.

The final increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show took place in the ballroom of Edinburgh’s Counting House.

The winners chosen by the five judges earlier in the day, with awards presented by critic Kate Copstick and Malcolm’s sister Clare Hardee during the show, were:

MALCOLM HARDEE AWARD FOR COMIC ORIGINALITY
Terry Alderton for his successful self-reinvention and, well, for originality

MALCOLM HARDEE CUNNING STUNT AWARD
Mark Dean Quinn for his simple yet successful subversion of the star system of comedy reviews by putting other people’s quotes and stars on his own flyers.

THE ACT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A MILLION QUID AWARD
Rob Kemp, currently performing in the Elvis Dead.

The Awards Show, compered by Molotov Cocktail street anarchist and comic Becky Fury, concluded with the increasingly prestigious annual Scottish Russian Egg Roulette Championship supervised by Andy Dunlop, President of the World Egg Throwing Federation and John Deptford, Vice President of the World Egg Throwing Federation.

Italian comic Luca Cupani is now officially the 2017 Scottish National Russian Egg Roulette Champion, having previously represented British comedy in Canada.

I have to add, with some humility, that I was also the recipient of a surprise prize for my work on the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards over the last ten years: 16 cans of Red Bull, bought by the three female members of the judging panel for supervisory services rendered.

Earlier in the day, World Egg Throwing President Andy Dunlop revealed to me that there has been a recent outbreak of exploding intestines across the UK.

“There is methane produced inside the human body,” former-fireman Andy explained, “and when you have surgery using laser scalpels, that is enough to ignite it and there have been a number of fatalities in operating theatres in which intestines exploded into the room.”

Vice President John Deptford, who (this is true) left for Peru four hours after the Awards Show finished, took 7 seconds of video footage of the two hour show.

Brevity can be a virtue.

Context is King.

The ballroom of The Counting House was left with some unfortunate egg stains, indelible memories and an inexplicable smell of paraffin.

You had to be there.

Edinburgh Fringe, Day 21: Tampons and how obscenity can be subjective

WARNING: USE OF EXTREME LANGUAGE IN THIS BLOG

Helen, sitting in a room with a Periscope and 1,200 visitors

In the afternoon, I took the plunge and went to Helen Wallace’s Up Periscope at Southside Social.

She claims it is the only Fringe show which can (and has) had one member in the audience and 1,200 people watching.

She livestreams it on Periscope, interacting with the live audience in the room (today, well into double figures) and with the online audience. More complicated than it sounds. Very well handled by her. And ripe for development in future years.

Being a woman of taste, she then packs up every day, leaps out and races to get to the increasingly prestigious Grouchy Club round the corner to The Counting House.

Today, the audience there included five of the people involved in Malcolm Hardee – Back From The Drink… a comic play to be put on by ex-squatters who were evicted from the late Malcolm’s Wibbley Wobbley floating pub. Nothing to do with me.

Kate Copstick (left) and Jane Hill in the lively Grouchy Club

Also there, was performer Jane Hill whose show is titled Cow.  I learned a lot in the ensuing discussion between Kate Copstick and Jane in that – something I had not known – calling someone a “cow” is, it seems, much more offensive in Glasgow than elsewhere in the UK – more severe, even, than in Edinburgh.

It seems – and I can only pass this on as discussed – that the word “cow” is a far more offensive word in Glasgow than the word “cunt”.

In Glasgow, as has oft been noted, the word “cunt” can be used almost affectionately just as, in Australia, the word “bastard” can be affectionate.

The Australian sentence “Ah, yah bastard, I love yah! Yer ma best friend!” can be almost directly translated into Glaswegian as “Ah, ye wee cunt, yer a lovely wee cunt, so y’are…”

But the use of the phrase “Yer a cow” in Glasgow is liable to lead to the use of cut-throat razors and the infliction of Glasgow Smiles.

These are the sort of useful life tips you can only hear amid the comedy industry chat at the Grouchy Club.

Jane Hill had actually arrived to clarify exactly how she had once made tampons, as I had mentioned it in a blog two days ago.

She was keen to point out that, rather than knitting condoms as part of a cottage industry, as I had fantasised, she had been employed in the “tampon hand assemblage” business in Portsmouth.

After that, I should point out, she pursued a highly prestigious career in independent radio and the BBC.

Sarah Morgan-Paul with a local body guard

Coincidentally, in the evening, though, I saw Tales From a Tampon, in which Sarah Morgan-Paul does straight old-school stand-up (that’s not in any way a criticism) about the history of the tampon while dressed as a tampon. As it is straight stand-up in a costume, it neither counts as Malcolm Hardee Award Comic Originality nor a Cunning Stunt… I vaguely remember someone wandering round the streets of Edinburgh a few years ago dressed as a tampon. Or it might have been a dildo. The memory plays visual tricks after too many years at the Fringe.

Suggestions for Cunning Stunts are, strangely, now coming out of the woodwork despite the fact the Malcolm Hardee Awards shortlist was announced on Monday.

Later tonight, I got a call from the director of the aforementioned squatters’ play Malcolm Hardee – Back From The Drink – with unlikely cunning stunt possibilities to publicise it… Alas, simultaneously too late for the Malcolm Hardee Award nominations AND too late to get any media publicity before tomorrow night’s performance.

Despite allegedly having done a lot of research on types of cunning stunt, said director had not realised I was involved in the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards. But he said they had been discussing a (non-destructive) stunt at the Awards Show (two days after his show, so hardly going to help publicise it.)

I am not sure which of us was more confused at this point.

I then opened my email and there was a message from the US highlighting, once again, the importance of advance research. It said:

---

Hi John,

I’d like to invite MALCOLM HARDEE to be featured on our TALK BUSINESS 360 “Industry Innovators” TV program which airs on American Airlines during the entire month of December 2017.

Our in-flight TV show is available to millions of business and leisure travelers, presenting one-on-one interviews with profiles of business leaders.  Recent guests include P&G, Dell, PwC, LG Electronics, Verizon, Bayer, Hilton Hotels, Stanford University, Suzuki and more.

The good news is we’re extending a remnant rate this week of only $3,995 (normally 11K) for production, distribution, and re-usage rights for a 2-minute video, making this an affordable vehicle to communicate your message and grow your brand.  Please contact me as soon as possible for more details as space is limited.

Sincerely,

Michael Smith
Producer
TALK BUSINESS 360 TV
TV That Means Business

---

I replied:

---

Wow, Michael,

Great rate and a real honour to have Malcolm recognised as one of the “Industry Innovators”!

Where would the recording take place and what date? I will then arrange to have Malcolm’s ashes shipped to wherever is best for you.

He drowned in 2005, so there will be a lot to catch up on in the recording. Will there be an interviewer?

Best wishes,

John

---

So far, no reply.

Edinburgh Fringe, Day 14: Sad comedy and Alex Salmond’s Comedy Award?

Luca Cupani makes a happy point at today’s Grouchy Club

At the Grouchy Club this afternoon, Kate Copstick got worried about the fact Italian comic Luca Cupani has a new girlfriend. Copstick is of the opinion that happiness is not a good ingredient for a comedian’s emotional make-up and that having children is worse. She lamented good, edgy comedians reduced to talking on-stage about their children’s cuteness.

I tend to agree. I remember Charles Aznavour being asked why all his songs seemed to be unhappy. Why did he never write songs about happiness? He said because, when people are happy, they are pretty-much happy in the same way. But, when people are unhappy, they are uniquely unhappy because of specific circumstances. So their stories are more interesting.

As with songs so, perhaps, with comedy.

Juliette Burton flies high in The Butterfly Effect

This afternoon, I saw Juliette Burton’s Butterfly Effect show in a totally fully room. She has sold out her last two Edinburgh Fringes, her recent Brighton Fringe shows and, so far, every one of her shows at the current Edinburgh Fringe. I know why. She makes audiences happy – and this show is about being kind to other people. The only criticism I have ever heard of her is that she is too Sally Sunshine happy. But, to get there, the actual meat of her shows is a string of madness, emotional turmoil and upset. What holds the happy-making shows together is actually the narrative glue of unhappiness.

Feelgood musical anecdotal autobiographical

Interestingly, tonight I also saw Shit I’m In Love With You Again. This is, in its effect on the audience, a feelgood musical anecdotal autobiographical show from Canadian Comedy Award winner Rachelle Elie. But, though feelgood and jolly, again the narrative goes through unhappiness to get to the comedy and the surprise ending, which may support Copstick’s point.

Meanwhile, as every year, from a slow start, people are now pulling cunning stunts in a desperate bid to win an increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award.

Nathan Cassidy (see yesterday’s blog) is now claiming the Best MC gong he awarded himself was a Malcolm Hardee Award (rather echoing Cally Beaton, who had already claiming an unconnected award she got last year was a Malcolm Hardee Award).

Man in a balaclava in a corner not saying anything

And, in today’s increasingly prestigious Grouchy Club, Sir Richard, one half of Bob Blackman’s Tray (the other half being genuine Malcolm Hardee Award winner Johnny Sorrow) sat in a corner and said nothing.

This evening, a webpage appeared, claiming he had been nominated for a new (fictional) award – The Malcolm Hardee Person Most Likely To Sit In The Corner And Not Say Anything Award – and got 5 stars from Scotsman critic and Malcolm Hardee judge Kate Copstick.

In fact, we do not fully discuss the nominees until noon next Monday.

I can exclusively reveal here, though, that one nominee for a Cunning Stunt Award may be Scotland’s former First Minister Alex Salmond – for hinting on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he was going to tell a sadomasochism story involving Kirsty Walk on his Edinburgh Fringe chat show.