The Poster Menace who stalks the streets of the Edinburgh Fringe

(This piece was also published by the Huffington Post)

The Poster Menace? Or is it Keyser Söze?

“They’re just weird posters that people look at. They read them and they don’t make sense. I really do it just to see what the reaction is. Barry Humphries used to do things like leave a cooked chicken in a wastepaper bin by a bus stop. He would get on the bus one stop further back, get off the bus, pick the chicken up and start to eat it in front of people. And he did that just to see the reaction.”

Thus spake The Poster Menace.

“So I can’t really name you?” I asked The Poster Menace when I met him this week.

It’s all in the wording

“Really, I would prefer you didn’t.”

“You’re like Banksy.”

“But without the money.”

“It’s OK to photograph you?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your favourite poster?”

“A few years ago,” he told me, “I did a poster that was blank apart from the words:

SIGN HERE IF YOU WANT THIS POSTER REMOVED

“The bottom half of the poster had about fifty spaces for signatures. I left it up for about 20 minutes – with a pen tied to a piece of string – and, when I came back, every single box was signed.”

“And you felt you’d succeeded there”

“Yes.”

The Poster Menace lives in Derbyshire

A couple of years ago, I picked up a book of his posters.

“So when did you start doing your posters?” I asked him.

“About five years ago.”

“Why?”

“My father died of mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos. He was a builder and he’d been moving asbestos sheeting. So, to raise money, it was either run a marathon or do these posters.

“I print the posters. I stick them up. I take photographs. And then I publish the photographs in a book which I sell and that money goes to a cancer charity. There have been two books so far, because you have to build up. It takes me maybe two years to get enough photos.”

“So there should be another one due next year?”

“That’s right.”

“So are you a frustrated photographer/comedian?”

“A stand up? No, no. But I’ve got a website with what I would consider serious photographs.”

“And where do you put the posters up? On private property?”

“All over, but not private property. I might do it somewhere in the Gilded Balloon, but I don’t go into people’s houses.”

Public service messages are a speciality

“Starbucks?” I asked.

“I have been known to do that.”

“Did they take this kindly?”

“Well, I put this poster up which basically said

IS YOUR LIFE POINTLESS?

ARE YOU SICK OF EVERYTHING?

DO YOU WANT TO END IT ALL?

WHY DON’T YOU COME IN AND HAVE A CAPPUCCINO?

“I do like Starbucks coffee, but I don’t think the poster fitted in with their corporate strategy. I put it up at the entrance and I saw several of the customers reacting to it in quite a positive way, but the manager didn’t think it was as hilarious as they did. He immediately tore it down and went round asking people at the tables if they’d seen anyone put it up. He asked me. I said I’ve no idea.”

“You said the punters reacted in a positive way. Given this was actually encouraging them to commit suicide, what would a positive way be?”

“What I generally find with my posters is that people either photograph them or, increasingly, they nick ‘em. That’s a problem as I’m trying to photograph people looking at them.”

Some of the 50+ posters for 2012

“How many posters are you thinking of putting up in Edinburgh this year?”

“Around fifty different ones. I see things over the course of the year which give me ideas and I print them up for use at the Edinburgh Fringe.”

“That’s good quality paper,” I said, feeling a couple.

“It’s 180 gm.”

“That’s better than most Fringe show posters. Almost card.”

“I use good quality paper to get a good picture quality,” the Poster Menace told me. “and also A4 paper is quite difficult to put up quickly because it flaps about. Good quality paper is easier to put up. In the early days, I used to try and put them up really surreptitiously, Ninja-like. But, in the end, I decided to just go and stick them up in full view of everyone. In Edinburgh at this time of year, sticking a poster up is expected of everyone. I am going to attach a cheese-grater to this one,” he told me.

I looked at the poster. It said:

DIY TATTOO REMOVAL

And, when I looked up – Phoopph! – He was gone. Like Keyser Söze.

Later, The poster Menace e-mailed me this photo he had taken in an Edinburgh street of two passers-by:

Miss Behave and an encounter with Kunt at the Edinburgh Fringe

Last night at the Edinburgh Fringe, I went to see Miss Behave’s variety show The Mess at Assembly in George Square.

She may have been laid low with meningitis for weeks, but Miss Behave sure knows how to put on a show.

It’s not often you get in one show, clowns, music, Phil Kay in full manic flight, Charlie Chuck and his plank of wood, magician Paul Zenon, a host of other top acts and 25 circus stunts in 5 minutes. And it is a different show with different acts every night.

Leaving George Square later, I bumped into stuntmeister of the moment Kunt and the Gang with comics Ian Fox and Ashley Frieze.

Ashley is, it seems, a great fan of Kunt’s magnum opus Shannon Matthews: The Musical.

Kunt promised to give me a copy and he told me that the Edinburgh Council men, who threatened him with a £3,000 prosecution for inciting audiences to stick paper penises onto other acts’ posters, were tremendously amiable. They told him – he swears this is an exact quote:

“We’ve been round 100 sites, pulling cocks off.”

Ian Fox has posted online some of the random penile graffiti, which he photographed before the council men went around doing their civic duty.

More worrying than the threatened £3,000 court case, though, Kunt has heard a rumour that managemrnt/promotion company Avalon may sue him for £50,000 for… I am not quite sure what for… damage to their acts’ images?… inciting audiences to deface random posters with sticky cocks? As Kunt did none of the cock-sticking himself, it is a tough call. I am not sure if ‘incitement to commit graffiti’ is on the statute books.

But maybe this rumour is just the sign of a stunt that has gone beyond control and now has a life of its own. Or maybe Avalon are now in the race for next week’s Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award.

Whatever.. Kunt now has 4,300 sticky paper penises left over.

If anyone has a good suggestion about where to stick them, then let him know.

‘Cockgate’ – the cunning stunt from Kunt and the Gang gathers momentum

It seems some people will do anything in an attempt to get a Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award. Who knows, in the swirling maelstrom of orgasmic lust for an award in Malcolm Hardee Week next week, exactly what may or not be true and the lengths to which people may or may not go to win one of the glittering prizes?

According to Bob Slayer, unofficial Kunt spokesman, it is day 3.5 in the ‘Cockgate’ saga in which Kunt and The Gang (who are one person) got sticky paper penises plastered on other people’s posters all over the Edinburgh Fringe.

Mild-mannered Kunt, as a result, has been issued with a £3,000 fine.

Last night, according to Bob – over beers in the Gilded Balloon’s exclusive Loft Bar and in front of witnesses – Tommy Sheppard, owner of the Stand comedy club, offered to pay for the defence of Kunt in any prosecution and/or pay the £3,000 fine.

Sheppard’s paraphrased reasoning, according to Bob, was: “The poster sites are an eyesore around Edinburgh. If I got my way they would all be removed. They are a rip-off for the shows that fund them and only exist to inflate promoter egos… Cocks are funny full stop and I would be happy to welcome them on any Stand posters…”

This may not be altogether altruistic as, of course, if the other venues’ posters were removed, it would be less competition for the Stand’s all-year-round profile in Edinburgh.

However, as I believe there are around 4,500 sticky paper penises left, it will be interesting to see if they do, indeed, appear on any Stand posters.

Kunt of Kunt and the Gang had this to say:

“I thought I was going to have to go back to Basildon and do something horrible on a building site in order to raise that kind of cash… But thanks to the support from nice Mr Tommy I can continue to pedal my filthy ditties to packed audiences every night…”

According to Bob Slayer – a Malcolm Hardee Award nominee last year who is clearly also trying to suck up to the judges this year – comic Stewart Lee (last year’s winner of the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award) has already reserved the front row for the remainder Kunt’s Fringe free shows at The Hive and (according to Bob) “is very interested in picking up stage and TV rights to Shannon Matthews: The Musical penned by Kunt.”

Bob asks: “What can you do to support the Basildon One and in turn uphold the very spirit of the Fringe?”

I think he’s doing very well on his own.

At least someone is trying to uphold the Malcolm Hardee legacy of cunning stunts…

Cunning stunts and a Kunt apology

I complained in my blog yesterday that there were no classic Malcolm Hardee style cunning stunts around at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.

And, of course, since then people have been telling me about broken bones and hospitalisation. I’m not sure these totally count as publicity stunts – more like the wrath of humourless god. But…

First of all Adrian Rox told me about comedian Jeff Mirza being physically attacked as he walked down the Royal Mile dressed as Colonel Gaddafi. The reason remains shrouded in mystery. Possibly some American tourists, famously weak on geography, thought they had accidentally wandered into Libya, got drunk and lived out their dream of being SEALS. The near-constant rain might have stoked their aquatic fantasy.

Then Kate Copstick, aka Cruella de Cowell from ITV1’s Show Me the Funny, told me about Tim Fitzhigham’s extraordinary run of bad luck while preparing for and performing his show Tim Fitzhigham: Gambler.

He has chipped and broken multiple bones. Malcolm Hardee only destroyed his body with excessive drink and occasional drugs. I think Tim may be trying too hard to win a Malcolm Hardee Award next week.

Then we have the lovely and very highly talented Miss Behave, host of the upcoming Malcolm Hardee Award Show on Friday 26th August. She has been laid low in London with potentially-fatal meningitis for the last few weeks and only a few days managed to struggle up to Edinburgh to host her extraordinary variety show The Mess at Assembly in George Square.

I wandered over to George Square to see her in the rain yesterday afternoon and found her wearing what I think was a bear costume. Well, it was quite cuddly and had bear-like ears. She was not wearing this for publicity purposes, she was not in public view and it was around six hours before her show started. She was just dressed as a bear. Perhaps I should have asked questions. I did not.

Last night, in The Mess, she recreated the Malcolm Hardee/Greatest Show on Legs’ naked balloon dance with original GSOL member (and what an appropriate word that is in the circumstances) Chris Lynam, Steve Aruni and Bob Slayer. I could not be there because I was watching Janey Godley storm Paul Provenza’s jam-packed Set List: Standup Without a Net, which has had to move from the Tron to the larger Caves to accommodate the punters.

Bob Slayer tells me that, back in George Square, after the balloon dance, he “ended up running around the Assembly area  naked – as one does – and I caused Tim Key a suitable level of confusion by hugging him and doing a poem”.

I suspect this is only a low-key start to the mayhem that Miss Behave may visit on unsuspecting, unprepared Fringe-goers who attend The Mess.

Bob Slayer – you would not think it to look at him – is keen on Kunt and the Gang and I would not be surprised if they connived on publicity. In 2009, Lewis Schaffer showed the value of apologetic press releases in garnering publicity with a press-released ‘apology’ to the Edinburgh Comedy Awards which managed to plug his own show twice – in detail.

I was never totally convinced by Kunt’s recent scam of sticking paper penises on other shows’ posters. But yesterday’s ‘apologetic’ press release manages not only to get publicity for himself but to add in what are, in effect, review quotes from other performers. I print the apology below without comment, but it possibly deserves a review of its own.

_______________

Sorry About The Cocks:

Kunt and the Gang would like to apologise to anyone who is upset about the ‘crudely drawn cock’ stickers that have been appearing all over posters in Edinburgh. When we had 5000 of the cock stickers printed in the run up to the Fringe Festival we just thought it would be a light-hearted alternative to flyers. The plan was to give them to our audience each night so they could go out and vote with their cocks by sticking them in amusing places on posters. It was intended to be one big jolly jape that everyone laughed along with. This I now know was a badly misjudged joke that horribly backfired.

Unfortunately it was brought to our attention that some comedians were extremely angry at seeing their posters adorned with an effigy of a male member. This culminated in myself being physically threatened by one irate comic who failed to see the funny side of his poster being decorated by a member of the public with a crudely drawn image of a man’s winky.

Further to this, after only four nights of the audience being handed stickers at the end of my show, I received a warning from the Fringe Police and was told that Underbelly had threatened action should any more of my stickers be handed out. I suspect the cock that broke the camel’s back was the penis that ended up in Christine Hamilton’s wine glass on their flagship poster on Bristo Square. The same night I received a visit at my venue from Edinburgh Council Environmental Dept who told us that they had spent the day pulling off over a hundred cocks. They showed us examples of cocks they had found on posters, including the one of Russell Kane with his mouth open, the one of Richard Herring lying on a bed and the one of the Spank Comedy Club with that bird bending over. I gave them my assurance to that no more cock stickers would be given out.

I would like to take this opportunity to say my cocks were not meant maliciously or designed to annoy anyone and I sincerely apologise if one of my cocks got up anyone’s nose. Admittedly I didn’t think it through properly. I mistakenly thought everyone would share my enthusiasm for seeing Edinburgh covered in crudely drawn cocks for a month. In retrospect I realise I was like America selling Weapons of Mass Destruction to the Middle East without a thought for who my cock shaped missiles would be affecting. Furthermore I would also like to apologise to any of the performers who have had a cock removed and are now left where the sticker once was or a ‘ghost cock’. I’m sorry if my cock cheesed anyone off.

Kunt (Kunt and the Gang)

Notes to Editors

– Yesterday Stewart Lee, the thinking man’s comic, went to see Kunt and the Gang, the most puerile show on the fringe, for the second night in a row. Mr Lee, and his wife Bridget Christie, once again laughed like drains throughout renditions of classic Kunt songs such as: Wanking Over a Pornographic Polaroid of an Ex-girlfriend Who Died, Fucksticks and Hurry Up and Suck Me Off Before I Get Famous.

– Serial prankster Lewis Schaffer was asked what he thought about it all and he said: “Well I was thinking of going to see Russell Kane’s show but when I saw his poster I was worried that he might be a cock sucker and so have decided to give it a miss.”

– Russell Kane: “I actually found it fucking funny! Keep printing cocks and saying it too. It’s proper funny.”

Why I am pictured in Mensa Magazine (twice) holding a man with an erection

How did a man sporting an erect penis with a dog on the end of it get published (twice) in the current issue of Mensa Magazine, the glossy monthly publication for members of British Mensa?

And why am I holding the man?

Well, that’s an interesting question. Thankyou for asking.

Sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and pay close attention.

Preparing for Edinburgh Fringe shows in August tends to start way back in December or January each year.

I am organising Malcolm Hardee Week in the final week of the Fringe – basically two debates, two spaghetti-juggling contests (anything to get noticed at the over-crowded Fringe!) and a two-hour variety show during which the three annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards will be presented.

I am normally a shrinking wallflower where self-publicity is concerned but, because I am chairing the two Malcolm Hardee Debates and there are precious few other photo opportunities, I had some pictures taken, courtesy of lecturer Peter Cattrell, by photography students at St Martin’s College of Art (where, it turned out, no girl came from Greece, though they did have a thirst for knowledge).

I had brought along a giant dice box for no reason other than the fact it looked interesting. Student Cody Cai had brought along a pair of comedy spectacles and student Kerstin Diegel took a photo of me wearing the glasses and holding the box.

I remember thinking, “Oy! Oy! Malcolm Hardee could be Photoshopped into this, popping up out of the box!”

So now, dear reader, we have to take a time trip with wobbly special effects transitions back into the mists of last century – probably to the late 1990s, when the world was young and the Twin Towers still stood in New York…

London photographer David Tuck took some photos of comedian and club owner Malcolm Hardee, including an iconic one of Malcolm apparently doing shadow puppetry with his hands – you know the routine – you link your open hands together, flap them and it allegedly looks like a bird – except that the shadow on the wall behind Malcolm looks like a dog and, with the shadow of his arm included, it also looks like he has a giant penis rising out of his groin in the foreground… with a dog on the end of it.

David Tuck cannot remember exactly when the picture was taken, but it was a couple of weeks before Malcolm opened a short-lived comedy club in Harlesden, which would make it the late 1990s. Memories of Malcolm seldom come with exact dates.

David tells me: “The image Malcolm originally had in mind was that he would be doing a simple bird shape with his hands and a magnificent eagle would be the shadow image. This was before the days of Photoshop so, to get the image onto a piece of black and white photographic paper, I had to cut the image out of card and physically lay it on top of the picture during the darkroom process.

“My abilities with the scalpel weren’t exactly up to creating a photo-accurate eagle in full flight, so we talked about other possibilities and, when he mentioned a dog, I thought: Yeah, a dog I can do!

“I remember afterwards someone saying that it was funny because it appears to be coming out of Malcolm’s flies, like some sort of shadow penis. Just to set the record straight, that wasn’t the joke. I didn’t even notice until someone said it.”

From such random accidents do iconic photos come!

For anyone who knew Malcolm, it will come as no surprise that he never actually got round to paying David Tuck for the publicity photos he took and that this shadow puppet photo was used widely for years afterwards without David ever getting any money or even any credit for taking the photo.

When I used the photo on Malcolm’s website after he drowned in 2005, I found out David had taken it and have always tried to give him credit for it.

Around 2006, comic Brian Damage, at heart an arty sort, was playing around with images. Brian says:

“I was in the middle of my second or possibly third mid-life crisis. (You lose count after a while) It could have been age-related or something to do with giving up smoking or both.”

He played around with the David Tuck photo of Malcolm and basically ‘cartoonised’ it.

I thought it was excellent and got Vinny Lewis to design a poster using this image for all subsequent Malcolm Hardee shows at the Fringe.

Vinny had designed occasional artwork for Malcolm’s Up The Creek comedy club and had created the printed programme for both Malcolm’s funeral and the first Hackney Empire memorial show in 2006.

He added a coloured background to the cartoon and played with details.

So, when I got the St Martin’s photo back from Kerstin Diegel, I got Vinny to Photoshop the Malcolm shadow puppet image into the photo and the result is now available for The Scotsman or anyone else to publish to plug Malcolm Hardee Week at the Edinburgh Fringe.

‘Anybody else’ turned out to be Mensa Magazine who printed the image on the contents page of their July issue and, inside, to illustrate a piece on Malcolm Hardee Week.

I suspect it may be the first time Mensa Magazine has published a photo of a man displaying an apparent cartoon erection with a dog on the end of it. Their defence is clear – that even David Tuck and (possibly not even) Malcolm noticed that the shadow was of an erect penis.

It’s a funny old world.

You can see the photo here.

It was created by Kerstin Diegel, Cody Cai, David Tuck, Brian Damage and Vinny Lewis.

Nothing is ever simple.