The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band – soft anarchy & a concrete-floored ambulance

The flu, technology and utter laziness… Three recent enemies of this blog.

As my computer wiped photos, Michael Livesley (right) kindly recreated our meeting with Rod Slater (left) at a Soho pub.

On 15th April, I had a chat with former Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band member Rod Slater and Michael Livesley, reviver of Viv Stanshall’s eccentric epic Sir Henry at Rawlinson End. I was going to post a blog the following week. Three days later, the hard drive on my laptop computer corrupted, taking with it the photos I had transferred (and erased from) my phone though, fortunately, I still had the audio recording on my phone.

The newly-released version of Viv Stanshall’s classic album

So I thought the release of the new version of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End CD on 13th May would be a good excuse to write a blog. Then lethargy and flu set in.

The flu just-about cleared for a 20th May press launch publicising the new Bonzo tribute CD (not the same as the Sir Henry at Rawlinson End one) and their upcoming appearance at the London Palladium on 19th November.

Then flu and lethargy returned until now, dear reader, when mention of the Bonzo Dogs has reappeared here.

The new Bonzo album (not the Sir Henry one)

“It’s not live,” Michael Livesley told me about the Sir Henry at Rawlinson End CD (not to be confused with the Bonzo Dog one). We did it in the studio. It’s got Rick Wakeman on it and Neil Innes has done a bit on it. It took bloody ages to do because, when you’re recording a complicated concept album… Well, it’s a really complicated album.

“It’s strange that something which started as an album that I turned into a stage show is now an album again. It’s the first release on Rick Wakeman’s record label Rraw. The whole idea of the album was Rick’s. It comes with a 16-page booklet with all the photos.”

“The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band have really lasted,” I said to Rod Slater.

“Yes,” he told me, “the Bonzo Dog finished in 1970, but it’s just gone on. It started in 1962, for Godsake. I don’t remember all of it that well now.”

I said: “They probably thought Beethoven would be forgotten after 50 years.”

“That’s totally different,” said Rod.

“You,” said Michael to me, “were at the Bonzo’s last London gig, weren’t you?”

Poster for the Bonzo’s last London performance

“At the Regent Street Poly?” I asked. “No, I didn’t go. I just kept the poster.”

“I remember the very last show,” said Rod. “It was at Loughborough University. It was like a way of life had come to an end. I didn’t want to stop entirely, but some of the others were pissed-off and felt they could do with a break.”

“Pissed-off with what?” I asked. “The travelling and everything?”

“Yeah,” Rod replied. “Just the intensity, I suppose. We’d been doing it for about six years without a break, so it was getting a bit… Well… But, fuck me, I didn’t half miss it when it was over.”

“Was it getting a bit samey for you?” I asked.

“No, it went on developing. I think it came to a premature end, really, but, at the same time, it couldn’t have gone on really, because things were cracking up.”

“It’s usually better,” I suggested, “for things to end too early rather than too late.”

“I think so, yes,” said Rod.

(L-R) Michael Livesley, Stephen Fry & Rod Slater recreate the former glories of Viv Stanshall’s Sir Henry at Rawlinson End

“That’s why it’s great to be doing all this stuff now,” said Michael. “Because it’s worth continuing. It’s good quality stuff. I think we’ve lost sight of what we do best in this country from an entertainment point of view. You can’t blame the influence of America or the rise of dance music or any of that stuff. It’s nowt to do with that. We now live in a world – never mind a country – where it’s cool to be thick and it’s cool not to think too much about things and it’s cool not to question authority. We live in an age of conformity. What Viv and the Bonzos did was as far from conformity as you could get. But it was done with such whimsy and so gently. There was no kicking. It was like a soft anarchy with loads of humour.”

Michael Livesley (left) with Rod Slater at the album launch

“I think now,” mused Rod, “I would be far more vicious. I am a contrarist by nature, so nothing would ever be right for me. I’m not a confrontationist. There’s no point in getting your bloody head kicked in. But to confront things with humour and present them in a ridiculous way with the very definite clear message You should think about this! underneath. That’s the best thing anyone’s ever said about my work: It’s silly, but there’s something underneath it. I’m very much more like that now. I don’t think I was sophisticated enough in the 1960s to actually…”

Viv Stanshall’s original Sir Henry at Rawlinson End LP

“Especially with Viv,” suggested Michael. “Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is the biggest examination of our class system and the Empire and everything coming to a screeching halt into psychedelia that you could wish for.”

“What were the other serious issues?” I asked.

“What?” asked Rod. “When? Then?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well,” said Rod, “we were all likely to be bloody fried, weren’t we? The Bomb. And there was misogyny unlimited. Still is. All manner of… For Godsake, it was a totally different world. You couldn’t get away with a lot of it now, but no-one questioned it.”

“The next thing up,” said Michael, “is Glastonbury. We are doing Sir Henry at Rawlinson End at Glastonbury, which I think is the perfect setting for it.”

“How many people will be performing it?” I asked.

“Seven of us. Six days under canvas. It’s not for the faint-hearted. We are on at 8 o’clock every night in the Astrolabe Theatre.”

“When I went to Glastonbury before,” said Rod, “I couldn’t stand the shit on the shovel.”

“There are different toilets in the artistes’ area now,” said Michael.

“The best place to hang around then,” Rod continued, “was the BBC area. That was where the phrase ‘the remains of the Bonzo Dog Band’ was coined by some girl presenter.”

“After Glastonbury,” said Michael, “we will be gearing up for the Bonzo tour in November.”

A previous Bonzo Dog reincarnation back in December 2015

“Who are the Bonzos now? I asked.

“Me, Rod, Sam Spoons, Legs Larry, Vernon (Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell).”

“What does the tour involve?” I asked.

“One of the most exciting parts,” said Michael, “is playing the London Palladium on 19th November. That should be fun.”

“And the Sir Henry at Rawlinson End CD is already out,” I prompted.

“Yes,” said Michael,  “a good culmination of six years of working with different people. My brief for it was always: Just think of it as a Radio 4 play. The way to really get subversive comedy listened to is to have it masquerade as something else and I think there’s no more innocuous thing than a Radio 4 play. You think you’re going to hear croquet on the lawn with cucumber sandwiches.”

“That’s where the Rawlinsons came from,” said Rod. “We listened to those bloody plays when we were in the ambulance. Viv latched onto that. Those terrible plays and Mrs Dale’s Diary, which you can see in the early Bonzos’ stuff.”

“Ambulance?” I asked.

“Vernon,” said Rod, “bought this ambulance with a concrete floor and it had chairs in the back. Armchairs and all our equipment.”

“Why did it have a concrete floor?” I asked.

Bonzo Dogs’ ambulance had a concrete floor and a hand brake

“I don’t know,” said Rod. “but it did. There was a Dinky toy made of it.”

“It had reinforced concrete for the floor,” agreed Michael.

“One day,” mused Rod, “its brakes failed going down Shooters Hill and Vernon, with great presence of mind, pulled on the hand brake, which pulled his shoulder out and he was hospitalised. But he managed to stop the ambulance.”

“It was fortunate,” I said, “that he was in an ambulance.”

“Someone,” mused Michael, “sent me an article from the Fortean Times the other week about the Sitwell family. Dame Edith Sitwell was this early 20th century poetess.”

“Oh, they were all bonkers,” I said.

“They were like the Rawlinsons,” Michael continued. “This George Rersby Sitwell owned a 16th century castle in Spain that he ended up retiring to, because had had enough of the modern world. He made this place like the 16th century. He was even more bonkers than Sir Henry Rawlinson. So these people did exist and they were ripe for the picking in the 1970s.”

Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson

“The day Viv died,” said Rod, “there was actually a real Sir Henry Rawlinson who…”

“Yes,” said Michael, “who had died on the same day 100 years earlier. He died 5th March 1895 and Viv died 5th March 1995.”

“It was 5th or 6th March,” said Rod. “They don’t know whether he died before midnight or after.”

So it goes.

Malcolm Hardee, (deceased) patron sinner of British alternative comics

(Photograph by Vincent Lewis)

– R.I.P. MALCOLM HARDEE –
GODFATHER OF ALTERNATIVE COMEDY
BORN 65 YEARS AGO TODAY
DROWNED 10 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH
(5th January 1950 – 31st January 2005)

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Time Out, London:
“One of the great characters in the comedy business… Promoter, comedian, loveable and, at times, exasperating rogue Malcolm Hardee played a huge part in putting what was once known as alternative comedy on the cultural map. … his scams, scrapes and escapades will be talked about for years to come.”

The Scotsman:
“Notoriously outrageous and a prize prankster…a genuine original. His career was anything but straightforward but he had, with reason, been dubbed the irreverent godfather of alternative comedy. Hardee delighted in scandal.”

BBC News Online:
“Hardee became a comedian after being jailed a number of times for crimes such as cheque fraud, burglary and escaping custody. In the introduction to the book he wrote with John Fleming, Sit-Down Comedy, he said: There are only two things you can do when you come out of prison and you want immediate employment. You can either be a minicab driver or you can go into show business.”

The Times:
“Shamelessly anarchic comedian. A journalist once said of Malcolm Hardee that: To say he has no shame is to drastically exaggerate the amount of shame he has… Throughout his life he maintained a fearlessness and an indifference to consequences that was both a wonder and a liability. His comedy career seemed, to many, to be conducted purely for the hell of it… A kind, garrulous man without a drop of malice, Hardee nevertheless had a boyish ebullience that upset the faint-hearted.”

Daily Telegraph:
”One of the founding fathers of the alternative comedy scene… a former jail-bird, stand-up comedian and impresario instrumental in launching the careers of the likes of Paul Merton, Jo Brand, Vic Reeves, Harry Enfield and Jerry Sadowitz. A Hardee performance usually involved the flourishing of genitalia and was not for the fainthearted. He was famous as part of The Greatest Show on Legs, a three-man act in which he performed a ‘balloon dance’ stark naked except for a pair of socks and Eric Morecambe specs, a steadily dwindling bunch of balloons usually failing to preserve his modesty… Hardee’s most notable contribution to comedy was as godfather to a generation of comic talent in the 1980s, as proprietor and compère of the indescribably seedy Tunnel Club, near Blackwall Tunnel, and later of Up the Creek at Greenwich, venues at which fledgling comedians could pit their wits against some of the most boisterous heckling on the circuit.”

Chortle.co.uk:
“The most colourful figure of alternative comedy. He used to do a unique impression of Charles De Gaulle, using his penis as the nose. He was a much-loved regular at both Glastonbury and the Edinburgh Festivals. On one occasion he daubed his genitals with fluorescent paint and performed a bizarre juggling act. Another year he wrote his own glowing review for The Scotsman, posing as critic William Cook, and they published it. He had a unique approach to hecklers – urinating on them on more than one occasion – but encouraging them when it came to new open mic comics he was introducing.”

The Guardian:
“Patron sinner of alternative comedy, renowned for his outrageous stunts… Hardee also had a sharp eye for comic talent. He managed Jerry Sadowitz, helped to nurture the careers of rising stars like Harry Enfield, and encouraged Jo Brand (a former girlfriend) to go on stage. He also worked as a tour manager for his friend and neighbour Jools Holland.”

The Independent:
“The greatest influence on British comedy over the last 25 years (piece written in 2005)… a Gandalf of the dark alchemy of the publicity stunt. He was a maverick and a risk-taker. As anyone who ever saw him perform will know – he had balls.”

The Stage:
“A larger than life character whose ribald behaviour and risqué pranks were legendary… He was well known for outrageous behaviour, sometimes urinating on hecklers…. He wrote his autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake with John Fleming in 1996 – the title came from the incident in 1986 when Hardee pinched the cake from the Queen singer’s 40th birthday celebrations and gave it to a nearby retirement home.”

London Evening Standard:
“One of the most anarchic figures of his era… Hardee enjoyed some mainstream success in The Comic Strip movies alongside Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson and had a bit part in Blackadder, but lacked the dedication to be a star. Instead he relished a cultural limbo between jack-of-all-trades and renaissance man. An Edinburgh Fringe Award in his name would be a fitting memorial.”

___________________________________

THE ANNUAL INCREASINGLY PRESTIGIOUS
MALCOLM HARDEE COMEDY AWARDS
WILL BE PRESENTED ON FRIDAY 28th AUGUST 2015,
IN THE BALLROOM OF THE COUNTING HOUSE, EDINBURGH,
DURING A 2-HOUR VARIETY SHOW AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE
AS PART OF THE LAUGHING HORSE FREE FESTIVAL.

FREE ENTRY.

CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME ON EXIT.
AS ALWAYS, 100% OF ALL DONATIONS RECEIVED
WILL GO TO THE MAMA BIASHARA CHARITY

Punchlines: comics getting beaten up

Yesterday, someone drew my attention to a copy of The Stage dated 26th April 1990. One article was headlined:

ARTISTS FEAR HECKLERS’ REVENGE

and started:

“Alarmed entertainers fear violence from rowdy club audiences may be on the increase after a series of ugly scenes which have put artists at risk on stage.”

Apparently comedian Paul Ramone had got a black eye and swollen nose after being head-butted by a member of his audience during a gig in Twickenham.

Manchester hypnotist Paul Nyles claimed he had had to abandon his act after 15 minutes when an audience member bit through his microphone cable. There were no details of what happened to the heckler when he did this.

Comedians getting beaten-up seems to be a non-uncommon phenomenon although biting through the microphone cable to stop an act is uncommon.

Off the top of my head, I remember three Edinburgh Fringe stories. One is told in Malcolm Hardee’s autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake:

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Cognito maybe forgot Ricky Grover is an ex-boxer

An excellent performer called Ian Cognito was there and he was very drunk, as is his wont. When he’s drunk, he gets aggressive. Part of his Italian upbringing, I think. 

Ricky Grover had worked with him before, so said hello to him and Cognito grabbed him by his collar and said: 

“You’re a fat cunt!” 

Ricky doesn’t mind that sort of thing at all. He’s used to it.

So, not getting a reaction, Cognito continued: 

“You’re a fat cunt and you’re not funny!” 

Ricky still didn’t react, so Cognito added: 

“And your wife’s a fat cunt as well!”

This upset Ricky, because he’s one of those traditional people.

“Did you mean that?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Ian Cognito said.

“Can you repeat it?” Ricky asked.

Cognito said: “Your wife’s a fat cunt”. 

And, with one blow, Ricky just knocked him out. Unconscious. Displaced his jaw a bit. The lot. Ricky’s a professional, so he knows exactly where to hit someone.

Standing three or four yards away was Jon Thoday, who runs the Avalon agency. I looked over at Jon and said: 

“Oh, have you go that £500 you owe me?”

Funnily enough, the cheque arrived in the post about two days later.

---

Police said Ian Fox suffered “a small cut to his nose”

In 2012, comedian Ian Fox was randomly attacked in the street during the Edinburgh Fringe. The local police, who allegedly knew quite a lot about beating people up, told the Edinburgh Evening News: “The victim suffered a small cut to his nose during the incident,” but Ian’s face looked more like he had had an argument with a rhinoceros.

And, of course, most infamously, in 2013, comedy performer Ellis got beaten up in an Edinburgh street by an irate member of the public who was annoyed by Ellis & Rose’s appearance in Jimmy Savile: The Punch & Judy Show.

Comic Ellis claimed he suffered for his art (Photograph by Lewis Schaffer)

Except it never happened. In fact, Ellis had repeatedly hit himself in the face with the blunt end of a milk whisk so he could tell the being-beaten-up story to get publicity for Ellis & Rose’s Fringe show. When the blunt end of a milk whisk did not have the required effect, his comedy partner Rose punched him four times in the face to give him the required black eye. For this, they won a Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award.

To me, the most bizarre part of the 1990 Stage article, though, was a paragraph towards the end which said:

“Alternative comedian Malcolm Hardee, who was knocked unconscious by a heckler at a Glasgow club, claims attacks are on the increase because comedy has become more aggressive.”

That this had happened to Malcolm seemed very unlikely – although admittedly Malcolm’s Tunnel Club had to become membership only after beer glasses were thrown at Clarence & Joy Pickles (Adam Wide & Babs Sutton) during their act.

Throwing beer glasses at acts was not uncommon at the Tunnel but, on this occasion (when Malcolm was NOT the compere) a glass hit Babs Sutton in the face and drew blood, after which several acts refused to play the Tunnel unless Malcolm reined-in his audience a bit.

Malcolm Hardee – a comedian not unacquainted with alcohol

Anyway… Malcolm Hardee being knocked unconscious by a heckler at a Glasgow club sounded unlikely, so, yesterday, I asked Malcolm’s chum Martin Soan.

“This sounds unlikely,” I said. “Have you heard this story? Did he make it up?”

Malcolm making-up stories was not unheard-of, but Martin said surprisingly:

“Yes I do remember this. It is true after a fashion. The heckler sort-of pushed Malcolm in a friendly sort of way. Malcolm had drunk 13 pints of beer and some buckets of rum-and-coke and sort-of fell asleep for a bit… Talking of which, I had a knife pulled on me… twice. Once at the Old Tiger’s Head in Lee and once on the Glastonbury stage.”

Comedy can be a dangerous business.

Malcolm Hardee’s autobiography “will provide ideas that motivate that most difficult of audiences, the teenager”

Malcolm Hardee: comic, promoter, inspiration to teenagers

Malcolm Hardee’s autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake was published in 1996.

I co-wrote it with him. Well, OK, I wrote it from taped conversations with him.

It got quite well-reviewed:

“Hilarious” (The Scotsman)

“Blindingly funny” (The Independent)

“Makes you laugh in great snorts” (Daily Express)

“You will laugh out loud at least a dozen times” (Sunday Times)

“The funniest read in longer than I care to remember” (The Stage) 

“Characterful and not overly ghost-written…a feast of scabrous reminiscence” (Independent on Sunday)

It is now out of print, but Amazon has been happily selling occasional ‘new’ and ‘used’ copies for years.

Now surrealism has struck.

Comedy critic Bruce Dessau (about whom I blogged yesterday) has just drawn my attention to something.

An Amazon.co.uk person or, perhaps, computer has got their/its knickers in a twist.

Malcolm at Glastonbury in 2003

For those who don’t know, the late comic Malcolm Hardee was known for his outrageous behaviour. His autobiography tells anecdotes of sex, drugs and the time Malcolm had his genitals painted in luminous paint at the Glastonbury Festival.

Until recently – I think I looked a few months ago – Amazon’s description of the book was fairly spot-on. It was supplied by the book’s original publisher and (I think) read:

“The humorous memoirs of criminal-turned-comedy agent Malcolm Hardee, who recalls a life of crime and misdemeanours before finding fame and fortune in the comedy boom of the 1980s. He also recalls how he did in fact, as the title suggests, steal Freddie Mercury’s birthday cake.”

Currently, the book description on Amazon.co.uk reads:

Something has gone terribly wrong in amazon.co.uk’s listing

“For successful classroom teaching, your students need to be engaged and active learners. In this book, there is practical advice that is grounded in the realities of teaching in today’s classrooms on how to be an inspirational teacher and produce highly motivated students. This book contains 220 positive, practical teaching ideas that are relevant to both new and experienced classroom teachers. With reference to reflective practice, best practice and Continuing Professional Development (CPD), this book provides essential support for trainee teachers, new teachers and experienced teachers looking to extend their repertoire.”

Well, if teachers want to ‘extend their repertoire’ (Ooh, missus!) with impressions of French President General De Gaulle using only a pair of spectacles held atop a naked, flaccid penis representing his nose, then this is certainly the book to buy.

Amazon’s listing opens up a whole new audience for Malcolm

In the current Reviews section, the highly-regarded Teacher magazine is quoted as saying:

“This book will provide ideas that motivate that most difficult of audiences, the teenager.”

Absolutely true. It will certainly spice up biology classes.

The book also now has some excellent new quotes in the Reviews section including:

“I enjoyed this book, and got a lot of good ideas from it” (Chris Kilby, PGCE student)

“Puts a strong emphasis on the how” (Sarah Davies, Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University)

Well, that is true.

And there remain some older and more representative reader reviews…

At the Tunnel club, Malcolm Hardee (left) watches Chris Lynam with a firework up his bum. (Photo by Geraint Lewis)

“I’d recommend anyone to look up the balloon dance on the internet to witness how amusing it was, ditto the ‘banger up the rear’ routine. It takes the reader on a journey of… his touring, drinking, womanising… a great book” (5 STARS – Comedy Cum Hardee, 1st March 2012)

“A little piece of comedy history and an amazing insight into the Malcolm Hardie’s (sic) incredible life and journey.” (5 STARS – Sam, 19th May 2011)

“Full of cheeky chappies and crazy anecdotes guaranteed to generate random fits of laughter. Malcolm was a lovable rogue who liked to show his knob a lot!” (5 STARS Mitzi, Wales, 9th September 2009)

I am inclined not to tell Amazon about this balls-up and see what happens.

The book is available via them in both new and used editions. Copies of the used books currently vary in price (+ £2.80 delivery) from £7.98p to £999.00. Copies of the book in ‘new’ condition vary from £49.99 to £999.00.

Interestingly, it is the same seller – UK_Bookstore – who is selling both New copies for £999.00 and Used copies for £999.00. The difference seems to be that New copies are in pristine condition and Used copies “may have some underlines and highlights”.

In case you should think I have made all this up or have changed the Amazon listing myself, I have not.

Barry Ferns won Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award 2013 (Photograph by Keir O’Donnell)

The annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show is being held at the Edinburgh Fringe this year on Friday 22nd August. The three awards include a Cunning Stunt Award for best publicity stunt promoting a performer or show at the Fringe.

This Amazon surrealism is not a cunning stunt.

We simply – it seems – live in increasingly surreal times.

I am very glad of that.

 

Memories of the Falklands War, the IRA bombings and Glastonbury in 1982

Anna Smith, a peacenik in 1980s

Yesterday, I quoted a hedgehog memory of this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent Anna Smith. At one time, in the 1980s, she tried performing comedy.

“Possibly my comedy career did not advance,” she told me today, “because I was consumed with altruism for hedgehogs, meeting with Generals Against The  Bomb and rescuing young children who had inadvertently ingested pages of LSD at the Glastonbury Festival.

“In 1982, an elderly actor – George Walton, of Soapbox Children’s Theatre – was letting us stay for the summer in the spare bedroom of his house in Forest Gate, East London. Next door lived a young  boy who spent his days in his garden howling the Tarzan call – Ah-AH-ah… Ahhh-AH AH! – quite musically. I used to wonder if he would write Tarzan – The Opera, when he grew up. Sadly, he didn’t.

“I remember I was staying at this house in Forest Gate not long after the IRA bombing of a bandstand in Regent’s Park. George Walton was upset about the bombing as his nephew had been one of the musicians playing in the bandstand when it exploded. The nephew was not killed but, tragically, he was made deaf. After that, I always made a point of crossing the street near embassies, unless it was one that I was protesting outside of.”

1982 was also the year of the Falklands Conflict.

The Falklands 1982 – same year as IRA attacks

“The war with Argentina was of especial interest to me,” Anna tells me, “because I was born in Argentina and thus an Argentine citizen for life. So, technically, I could have been considered an enemy alien. I remember in English kindergarten in Argentina I had been taught that the islands in the South Atlantic were The Malvinas in the morning and The Falklands in the afternoon, depending on who was teaching the class…

“When I travelled in and out of England during the Falklands War to my striptease assignments in Brussels, the British immigration officials would look askance at my place of birth – though some, seeing my Canadian passport (and shapely figure), added kindly: Ah well, you can’t help where you were born, love…

“In some parts of East London, there were street parties being held under banners saying  SIXTY MORE ARGIES KILLED!!! and the like.

“It was the same year I went to the Glastonbury Festival.

“We had met a child called Joseph when we were selling anti-nuke badges at a small festival at Crystal Palace. He looked a bit like a monkey. His ears stuck out. He was about eleven. He seemed to be a precocious and unusually solitary child, very outgoing, but always alone. At Crystal Palace he lagged about our area, talking very intelligently. We wondered whether we would see him again and he then asked if we were planning to go to Glastonbury. We were and told him we would be near the train ride.

“A month later he found us exactly there. He had very much enjoyed the train ride and he came round to talk with us frequently.

1982 Glastonbury Festival – children on acid

“On the last day of the festival, he popped by and I was not there. When I returned, my friends said he had been there with some strange sheets of paper with tiny cartoons printed on them. He had wondered whether the papers might be drugs. My friends did not know and he had wandered off into the crowds…

“I realised that it was likely LSD and we started looking for him. We tried to get to the main stage so they could announce that there was a missing child wandering around Glastonbury alone and probably very high, but they wouldn’t let us anywhere the stage, because Alexei Sayle was on and they thought we were merely rabid Alexei Sayle fans trying to get near him, touch him or whatever. So we were stuck with the futility of trying to explain: NO WE DONT WANT TO TOUCH ALEXEI SAYLE!

“Eventually we got them to make the announcement – I think it may even have been Alexei Sayle who made the missing child who resembles a monkey announcement – and the crowd laughed at first, not sure if it was a set-up for a joke. We only mentioned the monkey because of his ears, poor kid…

“He was found and brought to the Samaritans in an enormous white tent overflowing with cots and stretchers and people crying, overdosing on drugs and vomiting and lying on blankets.

“Most of the volunteers were very concerned about the location of the remaining acid. But, at some point, one of the supervisors realised that the emergency tent with its Samaritan acid scavengers and vomiting addicts was not a good environment for any child and Joseph was moved to the cosy living room of the Eavis farmhouse, where he was cared for and we sat waiting for his parents to show up while he hallucinated, seemingly happy, as green lasers lit up the darkness outside.”

Anna lives in Vancouver now.

“I was out at the river yesterday,” she told me. “At 6.00pm. the CBC announced that some of the salmon fisheries seasons were open. Several species of salmon have arrived at the mouth of the Fraser. At 8.00pm I was out watching the fish jump.”

Different times, different lives.

“I hope Joseph is OK now,” said Anna.

Juliette Burton on what it’s like to sing at Scotland’s T in The Park rock festival

(A version of this piece was also published on the Indian news site WSN)

Comedy performer turned rock chick Juliette

The annual T in The Park is Scotland’s equivalent of the Glastonbury music festival.

This year, the acts included Snoop Dogg, Paloma Faith, Killers, Mumford & Sons, The Proclaimers, Dizzee Rascal, Stereophonics, Travis and comedy performer Juliette Burton, who is staging a show at the Edinburgh Fringe titled When I Grow Up.

In it, she recounts how, this year, she tried to be all the things she dreamt of being when she was a child – including a baker, an artist, a Muppet and a pop star.

Performing yesterday at T in The Park was her “research” for being a rock star. She sang one song – Dreamers (When I Grow Up) – which is on sale for charity now and online as a music video later this week.

“What was it like yesterday?” I asked her.

“Unusually,” she told me, “there was no rain. But it got so dusty I am still sneezing dried mud out of my nose. I thought I had got a tan but when I had a shower this morning I realised it was just dust.”

“I’ve been to Glastonbury a few times,” I said, “but never to T in The Park. It’s much the same I imagine?”

Juliette about to go on stage

“Well,” said Juliette, “there were the obligatory sightings of men and women peeing in public. That was expected. But there was an unusual fashion I hadn’t realised existed where young women wear hot pants cut so high that their bottoms hang out. I played ‘spot the arse’ which was a fun game. Sometimes it wasn’t bare cheeks I spotted but arses of a different kind – young men. I learned a lot about how to spot people on different types of recreational drugs.

“Then there were the tanked-up teens who decided to play volleyball in the middle of the crowd dressed as Monty Python-esque characters. There were some other excellent costumes around: the panto horse, the superheroes, the men dressed as bananas and a guy with a hoodie that just said CUNT on it. I was not sure whether he was advertising it or wanted to find some or he just wanted to let people know he was one.”

“So it was a different audience to the normal comedy show audience you’re used to?” I asked.

“Yes,” agreed Juliette. “Normally my audience keep their shirts on. There are usually far fewer nipples on display at a comedy show.”

“Were you more nervous?” I asked.

“I was trying to cope with the nerves by not thinking about it until it happened,” replied Juliette. “Which is a great coping strategy… until it happens. Before going on stage I was more of a bundle of nerves than I’ve been in a long while. I felt physically sick. I was worried I’d not be able to pogo in the shoes I’d chosen, worried I’d forget the words and worried about being bottled by the crowd.”

“So it was much scarier?” I asked.

Juliette on screen and (tiny on the right) on stage yesterday

“Terrifying,” said Juliette. “My comedy isn’t stand-up exactly – and stand-up is terrifying for much the same reason as T in the Park was terrifying – the crowd. But a comedy crowd – especially during the Edinburgh Fringe – comes to see a show because they love comedy. They want to watch a show you’ve put your heart and soul into creating.

“The crowd at yesterday’s T in the Park gig was not there to appreciate the fact I wrote a pop song to realise my childhood dream of being a pop star. They were there for the beer. They were mainly men, already pissed and enjoying themselves.

“I’ve never taken drugs – because I’ve already had a psychosis and nowadays I like to get my highs from laughter. So some of the young men may have also been on something else. It was a music a music festival after all. I don’t know about that. But I do know they were loud and a little aggressive. And they just wanted more beer.

“Even the compere of the show said they were the toughest crowd they’d ever had and the crowd was terrifying because they weren’t listening. So seeing that crowd before I went on was absolutely the scariest thing. I mean, what if they bottled me? Or chucked pints of pee at me?”

“So how did it go?” I asked.

Juliette had to fend off marriage proposals from front row

“Actually,” said Juliette, “it was frickin’ awesome. I owe a lot of that to the amazing comperes – Ben and Rufus. They introduced me in a way that meant the crowd (even that crowd) would warm to me – We want you to go crazy for this lady. Imagine she’s Rhianna and Beyoncé’s love child! – and they said they’d give free beer to my biggest fans…

“So, with that sort of introduction and bribery, I was lucky. Some of those guys, though, took the biggest fan thing really seriously. I got proposed to mid-song by two of the guys in the front row.

“I was told by the lovely team backstage that another thing in my favour was the fact most of the guys in the audience were ‘laaaaaads’ who, when they see a woman, just revert to Animal mode. And that’s Animal from The Muppets. They just end up shouting WOMAN! WOMAN! in their minds. The fact I wore a sparkly dress also meant they were distracted by something shiny.

“So lots of different tactics meant I didn’t get bottled. If they had been preparing pints of warm liquid excreted from their bodies especially for me, they kept them reserved for another band later on – maybe The Killers or David Guetta… I hope it was the latter because The Killers were fantastic.”

“And afterwards,” I asked, “you felt what?”

It looks like not everyone in the audience yesterday was a lad

“I imagine,” replied Juliette, “that will be how it is for the first performance of my actual show at the Fringe in the Gilded Balloon – terror and then fun. That’s why performing is amazing – it’s real life. A mix of the best and the worst. Maybe the preview reviewers might get their nipples out too… I don’t know.

“After the show yesterday I was so high – on life, not whatever those guys in the front row had been taking. I wanted to do it all again. I don’t know… Maybe I will get the chance again one day.

Juliette foregrounded by either arms or legs

“Emotionally, my inner tweenager was overjoyed – I’d just realised a childhood ambition. All those days I had dreamed of singing a song to adoring fans, wearing a cool dress; all those days I had fantasised about it in my bedroom at home and drew little pictures of myself performing on stage – putting those pictures in a little homemade magazine inspired by such intellectual publications as Bliss magazine – I was NOT a cool little girl.

“And then finally, yesterday, I had realised that little uncool girl’s dream. It felt brilliant. But not as good as I imagine the first show at the Fringe will feel – That has been fewer years gestating but I think I care about it in the long term far more.”

“How does yesterday fit into your Fringe show?” I asked.

Juliette wants to recreate T in the Park orgasm

“The pop star section is at the end of the show,” explained Juliette, “and there will be proof of all that I’ve done in all this mad research on video and in photo form throughout the show on a Powerpoint. I don’t want to give too much away, but the pop star bit is a big climax of the show. Much like the orgasm I had walking off stage at T in the Park yesterday. It’s meant to be euphoric, life-affirming and uplifting.

“What did you think when you woke up this morning?” I asked.

“Did that really happen?” said Juliette. “Followed, right now as I’m talking to you, by thinking: Seriously – anything can happen. We can make anything happen if we want it to – and if we work hard enough for it.”

“Did you video yesterday’s performance for YouTube?

“Yes, some kind fellow performers filmed it for me. And I did a little introduction to camera afterwards to explain it. I’ll be editing that in the next day or two and get it online. And, if I can do a plug…”

“Yes you can,” I said.

Downloadable Dreamers from iTunes, Spotify & Amazon

“Anyone can buy the song I performed yesterday from iTunes, Spotify and Amazon – Just search for Dreamers (When I Grow Up).

“All the money raised until the end of the Fringe is going to Children in Need.

“As is all the money raised from auctioning off the When I Grow Up Dreambook – which is being signed by all kinds of exciting people – already including Janey Godley, Robin Ince, Stewart Lee and more. They’re all writing in it what they wanted to be as a child and what they do now. It will be on eBay during or just after the Fringe.”

“And when is the pop video you shot for the song – which I blogged about – going online?”

“Hopefully later this week.”

“So,” I asked, “what you have learned from all this is…?”

“That I think the Fringe might actually be a more restful time than this past week,” laughed Juliette. “And it would be a terrible waste of a life if we didn’t do something we at least enjoy, right?”

YOU CAN SEE A VIDEO OF JULIETTE’S PERFORMANCE HERE:

Glastonbury, Comics, Gits, Canadians and the fire on Anarchist Mountain

The Glastonbury Festival ten years ago – back in June 2003

As I write this, the annual Glastonbury Festival is in full swing.

I wish I were there. It started  last Friday. My father died last Thursday, back in 2001, twelve years ago. So it goes.

Last night, in my car, I listened to an unreleased CD by The Gits, a punk-like band from around 1990 which comprised English comedy performers Steve Bowditch, Stephen Frost and Canadian Alan Marriott. (These UK-based Gits are not to be confused with the Seattle band The Gits.)

They played at Glastonbury.

The UK-based Gits.

Alan Marriott returned to Vancouver in 2008.

I was going to blog about them this morning – the UK-based Gits.

Once heard, never forgotten.

But, when I woke up this morning, I received an e-mail from this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent Anna Smith. Like Alan Marriott, she lives in Vancouver. She has been having medical problems, as previously mentioned in this blog. Today she wrote:

_________________________________________________________

Anna Smith, recently blogged-about, in a Vancouver hospital

It is so dull here at the moment.

I am in an apartment near the edge of Stanley Park.

In the summer, the cacophony is zoo-like… gulls screeching, small dogs yelping, noisy joggers, cyclists and skateboarders yelling, patio party drunks roaring with loud laughter, drunker heart-broken young people howling as they run down the echoing corridors of 1970s apartment buildings, women cackling, toddlers wailing, cars pumping out disco music, horns honking, motorcycle engines roaring….

Soon we will have the Gay Pride Parade and the Festival of Fire (a fireworks competition) and the whole of downtown Vancouver will be clogged with suburbanites with toddlers pissing down their necks.

The bear attacks in the suburbs have subsided and the surgical mask bank robber has been captured, after about fourteen hold ups.

The navigator who was in command of the Queen of the North ferry, when it sank four years ago, has been sentenced to four years in jail. But his ex-lover is still on the loose. New laws are being drafted to prevent ex-lovers from being alone together on the bridge of a ship. There is no evidence that they were ex-lovers, though, as nobody has a clue what they were doing when the ship ploughed straight into the rock.

All the excitement at the moment seems to be occurring on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, where the floods have detached much of the city of Calgary and a city called High River is still under water, despite the ring dykes which are dotted across the prairies. Most of the water is draining into the Hudson Bay.

Too bad none of the floods wash through the civic governments in Toronto, Montreal and Laval, which are having so much difficulty cleaning themselves up.

Ottawa is making too much money to even bother.

On this side of the Rockies, it is just more of the usual summer accidents – people getting lost in the woods, drowning in waterfalls, small planes and gliders crashing into mountains.

Anarchist Mountain caught fire several weeks ago and more fires are expected, as we become engulfed by heat waves from the south. It all is very satisfying for the pine beetles.

It has suddenly become quiet outside. I think the sun must have set.

My health is OK.

Did you ever meet or speak with Arabella Churchill?

She very kindly used to telephone performers in the early spring to ask if we wanted to do the Glastonbury Festival. She died not too long ago. She was very encouraging to young comedy performers and had very kind and disarming manner.

_________________________________________________________

Arabella Churchill in 1967; she is remembered fondly

Arabella Churchill died on 20th December 2007. So it goes. She ran the Theatre and Circus fields at Glastonbury, which included the Children’s and Comedy areas.

I wrote back to Anna this morning:

“I talked to Arabella on the phone a few times but never met her, despite walking past her organisers place at the Glastonbury Festival a few times. A pity.”

And, after I read Anna’s e-mail, I checked out Anarchist Mountain.

It was named after Richard G. Sidley, a settler from Ontario who arrived in 1885 and was appointed the first postmaster of the town of Sidley in 1895. He was later made Justice of the Peace and Customs Officer, but he was often called an anarchist, and the plateau previously called Larch Tree Hill became known locally as “the anarchist’s mountain”.

The name Anarchist Mountain was officially adopted on 6th June 1922.

Richard G. Sidley is remembered only as the origin of the mountain’s name.

So it goes.

I wish I were at Glastonbury. But, on the other hand, I am going to the World Egg Throwing Championships in Lincolnshire today.

So that is good.

There is a clip on YouTube of the fire on Anarchist Mountain.

I wanna tell you a meandering story which ends with a large sexual organ

No truth in obituaries

When the late comedian Malcolm Hardee died, the surprisingly voluminous obituaries quoted some of the many bizarre stories linked to him. But, often, the stories were slightly wrong. It was fairly obvious the obituarists had read Malcolm’s autobiography (which I wrote with him) but were slightly mis-remembering and mis-quoting the anecdotes.

One story involved his genitals getting painted in day-glo paint. It happened at the Glastonbury Festival but at least one obituary claimed he regularly did this at comedy clubs.

Now, because the mis-quoted and mis-remembered stories were printed, the myth will become fact.

Malcolm would have liked that.

Yesterday afternoon, I bumped into top rock fiddler Bobby Valentino in a street in Greenwich.

Somehow, the subject of calling people ‘Wally’ came up – as in “He’s a Wally,” meaning “He’s an idiot.”

I said: “I think that started at some rock festival in the West Country, didn’t it?”

Was it originally Wally from Essex or Wally from Wessex?

“No, Essex,” said Bobby Valentino. “There was a Weeley rock festival in Essex in 1971. I was still at school and a mate of mine, Barry Bartlett or Spot Hughes, came back from the Festival and said, Oh, I’m Wally from Weeley, and, from then on, everyone was called Wallies.”

“The story I heard,” I said, “was that an announcement kept being made Could Wally please contact the organisers about something and eventually people started to yell out Wally! as a term of derision and, when they left the festival and spread out to their homes across the country, the name spread all over the country too. That’s the story, isn’t it?”

“As far as I know,” said Bobby Valentino. (Update for regular readers of this blog: his dispute with PRS over royalties for past work continues.)

When I got home, I looked up Wikipedia, which currently reckons a Wally chant did develop over the course of the Weeley Festival weekend in 1971, but that it had been a continuation of the same behaviour at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.

I had heard the term ‘Wally’ had started in the West Country. This seems to have been because (again according to Wikipedia) in 1974, a group of New Age travellers encamped near Stonehenge were being evicted and, to hinder the eviction, they all gave their name as Wally of Wessex.

Stories take on their own life. And, you may have noticed, I have been quoting what is in Wikipedia as fact. Always a dubious thing to do. But people do.

Later yesterday, I got an e-mail from Bobby Valentino:

“After I saw you today,” it said, “I remembered an Edinburgh Festival story which I hope is true.

“Some years ago one of Kirk Douglas’s sons – the one who had the drink and drug problems – fancied himself as a comedian and booked himself a slot at the Festival. At one of his shows, he wasn’t going down at all well, brick-like in fact. He then said completely the wrong thing – Do you know who I am?… I’m Kirk Douglas’s son.

“A quick witted member of the audience immediately piped up: No, I’m Kirk Douglas’s son!  to be followed by another audience member… and another… and another.”

(For extraordinary people who have never seen the movie, this is a reference to the scene in Kirk Douglas’ Spartacus where, at the end, everyone in the hero’s army stands up and says I am Spartacus.)

“As far as I know,” I told Bobby Valentino, “the story is totally true, but it happened at the Comedy Store in London.”

I said this with some authority, having heard the story several times. But who knows if it is actually true?

“I think I might blog about stories tomorrow,” I told Bobby Valentino.

“If you do,” he said, “you should point out that there are two sorts of people who tell stories more than they actually do what they’re supposed to do – musicians and fishermen.

“John Sebastian wrote a song about it called Stories We Can Tell.  The Everly Brothers covered it and I played it with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.”

After all this, last night, I went to Vivienne and Martin Soan’s monthly Pull The Other One comedy club in Herne Hill, South London.

In May 2011, I posted a blog about a very weird night there which included, in the audience, a very large black man with one eye, a speech defect, a shaven head and a beard.

He was there again last night and sat right by the stage.

Michael Smiley and audience member last night

About a third of the way through the wonderful Northern Ireland comedian Michael Smiley’s act, which involved tales of coming to Great Britain 30 years ago, the very large black man with one eye, a speech defect, a shaven head and a beard asked in a conversational tone:

“Are you Scottish?”

“No,” replied Michael Smiley to loud laughter. “Are you Pakistani?” he added to louder laughter (including very loud laughter from the black gent).

When the laughter subsided, Michael asked: “Do you love people from Scotland?”

“I am the last king from Scotland,” the very large black man with one eye, a speech defect, a shaven head and a beard told Michael Smiley.

“You’re the last king of Scotland?” Michael Smiley said. “You’re not mate. Let me spread a few more rumours for you. What else have the voices been telling you?”

“You can get on with the show now,” the very large black man with one eye, a speech defect, a shaven head and a beard, said languidly.

“Well,” said Michael Smiley amiably, amid laughter, “if you’ll shut up, I will.”

“Alright,” said the very large black man with one eye, a speech defect, a shaven head and a beard.

“Thankyou,” said Michael Smiley.

The audience laughed and then added in a few ironic Owwwws of sympathy.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Michael Smiley, joining in, “He comes in, sits at the front, shouts out mad shit all the time, I try to get on with my shit, I try to get him to shut his shit up and I’m the feckin’ bad guy!”

The audience roared with laughter.

“I might have to stand up here and wank off a pig for you by the end of the show, just to weird the whole thing up just a little bit more. White middle class Herne Hill come out for a bit of weirdness!

“Just so you can say to your friends tomorrow: You shouldn’t have bothered your arsehole with that new restaurant down in Brixton Village. We were up in Herne Hill last night in the dark like a firecracker and there was a mad black bloke at the front and a really angry Northern Irish guy on stage. That was two stereotypes for the price of one! I couldn’t believe it! All we needed was a fuckin’ midget on a unicycle… There’s an angry lesbian poet on at the end. This is like shit time travelling. All you people who bought your squats in the 1980s are just flipping out now. When you get back to your house, there’ll be a re-run of Boys From The Black Stuff on TV and you’ll come in your pants!…”

The audience roared with laughter.

It was a very weird night

And that is without even mentioning the very attractive young girl Mina The Horse prancing around the stage with a tail sticking out of her bottom or Richard Vranch and Pippa The Ripper giving a chemistry lesson with hula hoops or George Egg producing a large bowling ball from a small suitcase and sharing with the audience the fact that, to encourage their greyhounds to win races, owners smear mustard on the dogs’ arseholes when they put them in the starting traps.

After the show, my eternally-un-named friend who used to work for the late comedian Malcolm Hardee told me: “He once asked me to get a large penis for him.”

This was at his Up The Creek comedy club in Greenwich.

“I think he was being a bit… well, he might have actually wanted it but there was one somewhere – was it in the dressing room upstairs?” she asked me.

“Search me,” I said.

“Or maybe it was behind the upstairs bar,” she continued. “I think it was a prop.”

“You think it was a prop?” I asked. “But it might not have been?”

“You always ask me these things when I’m very tired,” my eternally-un-named friend complained. “It’s not fair. It was a prop. I don’t know what he was actually using it for at that point, because I hadn’t seen it in anything, but then I didn’t see the shows, did I, because I was in the box…”

“So did he…” I started to interrupt.

“…office,” she completed.

“So,” I continued, “did he suddenly just say Get me the giant penis?”

“It was after a show and everything was winding up,” my eternally-un-named friend explained, “and there was a large penis upstairs and I can’t remember now because I’m very tired, but I think it was a papier-mache one. Whether it was worn on the head or on another part of the body I don’t know. Maybe an act had had it and left it behind or whether Malcolm actually wanted it…”

“But you found it?” I asked.

“Well, he told me where it was,” she replied. “I think it was in the dressing room and there was a muddle of stuff up there, but it was obvious which one it was.”

“How giant was it?” I asked.

My eternally-un-named friend held her hands apart.

“That’s about 18 inches,” I said. “What colour?”

“I don’t remember,” she said. “It was the early 1990s and I’m very tired, but I think it was a life-likey thing. I can’t help thinking it might have been some sort of headgear…”

“For a dickhead?” I asked.

“…or a prop,” she continued. “To be honest, I don’t even remember if it was papier-mache. You know who might know? Martin Soan. He might say, Oh yes, there was a giant penis we used.”

“Were there a lot of dickheads around Up The Creek?” I prompted.

“You know what Malcolm was like,” said my eternally-un-named friend, ignoring me. “There was a point where he has this stuffed cat, which you could easily get from the Nautical Shop.”

“That’s where he got it,” I said. “I was there when he bought it.”

But that’s another story.

Tales of comedian Malcolm Hardee in prison and at the Glastonbury Festival

Malcolm at Glastonbury in 2003

So I was talking to Jacki Cook who runs the Emporium vintage clothes boutique in Greenwich and she was telling me about her friend, the late ‘godfather of British comedy’ Malcolm Hardee.

One of several prisons Malcolm was jailed in during the 1970s was Ford Open Prison in West Sussex.

“One day,” Jacki told me, “Malcolm said, Let’s go to Ford!

“So he took all the floorboards up in his house to find where Pip, his partner, had hidden his car keys, because he knew they would be under the floor somewhere.”

“Why had she hidden to car keys?” I asked her.

“Because,” she replied, “obviously he had been banned from driving under various names – Hardee, Hardy, lots of names – he’d been banned under various names on various licences and had run out of ‘clean’ licences and Pip didn’t want him jailed again.”

“Who was he visiting at Ford?” I asked.

“Nobody. He was going to do a show somewhere near there, so he said to me: We’ll go via Ford and chuck some cigarettes and whisky and everything over the fence to them inside.  

“Another time, he actually did a comedy show inside Ford Prison. You’re not allowed to go back into a prison after you’ve served time there, but he managed to get back in. You’re not even allowed to go visit people in there. But he so wanted to go back in, he managed to arrange to do a show there – I don’t know how he did it. He wanted to do it so much. He said he just had to go back in so he could go on stage and start his act with the words: Oy Oy – Another captive audience…

“And he also wanted to stand on stage and say… It’s so hot in here, even the governor is melting… because the poor man had had plastic surgery on his face and Malcolm said his face looked like it was melting.

“I always remember being at Glastonbury with Malcolm. He was the worse for wear and he was in his little tent near the big comedy tent and he was supposed to be on stage and the audience was getting very restless because he was supposed to be on stage and we tried to get him up and he just muttered Moan, moan moan, some people! The audience were clapping and being rowdy because he was meant to be on stage – thousands of people in there.”

“I think Malcolm once told me,” I said, “that you could squeeze 3,000 people in that tent. But he might have been drunk.”

“Big tent,” said Jacki. Thousands of people. You’ve gotta be on the stage! I told him.

“Eventually, he fell out of the tent. He was in bad shape. Fully clothed. Still in the sailor suit he’d had on all week. He stands up and looks at the big comedy tent and does a tiny little Oh… then goes Oooh, oooohh, oh, ooohhh...! and he’s walking wobbly, going Oooh, oooohhh… staggering along. I thought he was going to the lavatory to put a bit of water on his face. But No.

“I say to him Liven up!

“Moan moan, he says and he staggers up onto the stage.

“They were roaring with laughter at him. But he wasn’t putting it on; it was for real.

“And he didn’t say anything. Nothing but Oh, oh, ooohhh, oh…

“And there was another Glastonbury we heard about from our friend Young Jon. He said it was about 4 o’clock in the morning when everybody is wandering around. It had been pouring with rain and all the people wandering around are off their heads. And he said, out of all those thousands of people coming towards him, he saw Malcolm.

“All Malcolm had on were his underpants and his spectacles. He had fallen in the mud and the whole of one side of his body was black from the mud, but the other side was all clean – even his spectacles.

“Black mud one half; white skin the other half; 4 o’clock in the morning in his underpants.

“At another Glastonbury, I remember he was peeing on that bridge where you weren’t allowed to pee and he was on top of the bridge peeing so everybody could see him and people were going underneath and he was saluting them.

“And do you remember that night he was carried out of his club on a stretcher? He’d taken all those drugs and he couldn’t speak.”

“I wasn’t there that night,” I said.

“Somebody,” Jacki continued, “had given him ecstasy and coke and everything – and Viagra.

“He was on the stretcher in a real bad shape and he couldn’t move a limb. He could not move. And he had a massive erection. He was lying on the stretcher with this massive erection. We were killing ourselves laughing. He couldn’t speak he was so off his head. Just lying on the stretcher with an erection.

“That was Malcolm.”

This year’s Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show will be compered by Miss Behave and is being staged as part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival at the Edinburgh Fringe on the evening of Friday 24th August.

Getting a mouthful in London with comedy godfather Malcolm Hardee

Malcolm Hardee at Glastonbury

In yesterday’s blog, I quoted comedy scriptwriter Mark Kelly’s story about almost being a member of the Nashville Teens rock group. But he also told me a story about Malcolm Hardee, oft called the godfather of British alternative comedy. This is what Mark told me:

_______________

It was the late 1990s and we had performed at the Glastonbury Festival. It was one of the years it was particularly rainy and muddy and we were all in a real state.

I was due to come back to London on the Monday morning with Malcolm and Martin Soan in Malcolm’s taxi – at that time, he owned a second-hand taxi instead of a car.

Martin had driven all the way down there and it was Malcolm’s turn to drive back. I can’t drive. When we got up, Malcolm was still drunk from the night before and he was not able to drive.

I had, for a variety of reasons too complicated to go into, had very little sleep the previous night.

Martin Soan was not best pleased to discover he had to drive all the way back to London, but we set off with Martin driving and me and Malcolm in the back of the taxi. Martin was enclosed in the driver’s section of the cab and could not hear what we said, so Malcolm told me: “I’m not pissed at all. I just didn’t fancy driving.”

He was, indeed, completely sober. He and I did the cryptic crossword in The Times and I am fairly good at those sorts of things, but Malcolm was better. We had a very long chat all the way back and it went absolutely fine.

When we got back to London, Martin – having twigged there was actually nothing wrong with Malcolm – not unreasonably decided that the first point of call was his own place.

“I’m getting out first and going to bed,” Martin said.

So he gets out and Malcolm gets in the driver’s cab. I am still in the back. Malcolm drives me to no more than two minutes away from my flat, then leans back through the sliding window and asks: “Do you fancy going for a curry?”

I say: “No. I got no sleep last night, I’m really knackered. I’m not hungry. I just want to go to bed.”

Naturally, Malcolm’s response to this was: “Oy Oy. Off we go for the curry, then.”

He swerves off and we head towards London Bridge. He has a favourite curry house in the East End.

So, having got to almost within sight of my flat in South East London, where I desperately want to go to bed, I now find myself crossing the River to go for a curry with Malcolm.

We get there and the street is fairly full with cars, but there are a few small spaces.

Malcolm asks me: “Do you think I can get into this space?”

“No,” I say. “It looks a bit small.”

So, obviously, he decides to have a go.

He reverses straight into this very new, very flash-looking car, doing a fair bit of damage – not a huge amount, but it’s very noticeable.

Then these Asian guys come running out of the restaurant which we were about to go to. It turns out the car belongs to the manager of the restaurant. It is his pride and joy. He is not there at the moment, but his workers are and they are very loud and animated about it.

I say to Malcolm: “Just give them your details and we’ll abandon the idea of a curry and go home.”

I am really tired. I have somehow forgotten what Malcolm is like. Malcolm is indicating to the increasingly loud Asian men that producing his papers is not possible.

He says to me: “The best thing to do is to go in for a curry and I’ll think of something.”

I suggest to him that going in for a curry is probably not a good idea because these restaurant guys look very angry.

“It’ll be alright,” Malcolm mumbles. “It’ll be alright, be alright…”

“No,” I tell Malcolm. “No. They’ll probably piss in the food or something. This is not good.”

“I’ll think of something while we’re in there,” he insists.

So we go in and I think these restaurant guys are a bit taken aback that we’ve actually come in and expect to be served.

Malcolm is still resolutely refusing to produce any papers.

He tells them he’ll sort it out when the manager arrives.

“The food here’s great,” Malcolm mumbles to me. “Great. The food here’s great.”

We order. The curries arrive. I take only a small mouthful, because I have a premonition.

And it is, indeed, like trying to swallow the sun.

This curry is internally powered by nuclear energy. It’s extraordinary. They have quite clearly deliberately made it as hot as possible. I have only taken a small mouthful. Not even a mouthful. A small bit. And I can’t stop hiccupping for five minutes.

Malcolm pretends there is nothing wrong with it. I am sitting opposite Malcolm and his face is melting with the sweat. He is mumbling: “Mmm. I told you it was good, Mark, Good, innit? Good. Nice.”

I am picking out odd bits of potato, scraping the sauce off, trying to make some sort of effort, hiccupping and drinking huge amounts of water. Basically, I have given up.

Malcolm gets halfway through, then looks at me and mumbles: “Mmm! Can’t eat this!”

“So what are we gonna do?” I ask.

“I’ll sort it out,” he mumbles. “I’ll sort it out.”

“Well,” I say, “I’m going to go to the toilet now. I’ve drunk loads of water.”

So I go to the toilet, come out and Malcolm has gone. His coat has gone. He has left.

I think: “Oh Fuck! He’s done a runner!”

These unsmiling restaurant guys are standing by the door.

I think: “Fucking hell!”

I don’t even know where I am particularly. Somewhere in the East End. And I haven’t got any money particularly, because Malcolm has not yet paid me for Glastonbury.

I probably foolishly think: “I’ll just try to walk out and see what happens.”

I walk to the door – no sign of Malcolm at all.

As I get to the door, the men still don’t smile, but they open the door.

I walk out. They close the door behind me.

And then, from down the street, I hear a honking sound.

Malcolm is in the middle of the road in his taxi with the door open.

“Oy! Oy! Get in, Mark! Get in!”

I think: “He can’t have done a runner, because they wouldn’t have let me out.”

I get into the cab and – of course – it turns out Malcolm has not got any papers – he has no insurance, he is banned from driving and he has paid them in cash with all the money he got – including mine – from Glastonbury. Hundreds of pounds. He has paid them everything he has – well over the odds – to avoid them reporting him to the police.

We drive off and Malcolm asks: “Do you fancy going for a game of pool?”

“No I don’t fancy going for a game of pool!” I tell him. “I just want to go to bed.”

So I finally get home and go to bed with this incredible burning sensation in my stomach.

In a way, it encapsulates a lot of my dealings with Malcolm: curry, dodgy dealings, not getting paid and a slight edge of danger.

Afterwards, I did try to point out to Malcolm that driving without insurance or a valid licence was incredibly irresponsible though, obviously, it was utterly pointless.

But the taxi did work.

Surprisingly, Malcolm did eventually pay me the Glastonbury money and, when he died, even more surprisingly, he owed me nothing.

Though his brother did.