Writer Robert Wringham returns to live comedy. Plus a chicken sexing fall-back.

Robert Wringham is what Americans would call a hyphenate. He does all sorts of things. Basically he is a writer of humorous books; plus he has written two histories of alternative comedy; and he is editor of the New Escapologist magazine which “takes the stance that work has too central a position in Western life”.

He has appeared in previous blogs here and is currently co-producing Melt It! a documentary film about The Iceman.

We were supposed to be having a chat about Robert’s live performance at the Glasgow Comedy Festival this week. But I am not one to keep to the subject…

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JOHN: The Iceman has transitioned from a performance artist with added humour to a ‘proper’ painting-type artist… He’s sort of an outsider.

ROBERT: Yes. But he refuses to see himself as an outside artist. He was just given the chance to show his art in Paris under the premise that he is one of several ‘outsider’ artists. But he wasn’t happy with that, because he sees himself as an ‘insider’ artist.

JOHN: Define an outsider artist?

ROBERT: People who are not professional artists. They’re usually mentally ill or children or animals.

JOHN: I think he qualifies on all three. Do you think you are an outsider writer?

ROBERT: No… Well, yes.

JOHN: You’re a mad, childlike animal?

ROBERT: The thing I aspire to is… well, I always look to Simon Munnery. To many comedy fans, he’s the finest comedian there is, but he is not a household name and I think that’s the way to be. To try and create something integral, something different. He used to have a mantra: We aim to fascinate, not entertain. 

That’s what I like: Simon Munnery, Chris Lynam, The Iceman. People like that.

JOHN: You said ‘integral’ there. What does that mean in this context?

ROBERT: They haven’t ‘sold out’, they haven’t been chasing the Eddie Izzard market. 

JOHN: You mean they’re not recognised by the average punter standing in a bus queue?

ROBERT:  They have their own standards and been successful in what they want to do.

JOHN: They’ve become admirable cult successes. So what’s this show of yours: The Annotated Audiobook?

Annotated Audiobook annotated…

ROBERT:  I’m doing a live show for the first time in fifteen years.

JOHN: It’s part of the Glasgow Comedy Festival and you’re performing in the Peaks Bar of the Drygate Brewery.

ROBERT: Yes, it’s literally a piss-up in a brewery So what could possibly go wrong?

JOHN: It’s happening this Wednesday – which is the 13th. 

ROBERT: Like I said, what could possibly go wrong?

JOHN: Why did you stop doing live shows fifteen years ago?

ROBERT: Because really what I like to do is write. I got my start in stand-up comedy but I never considered myself a stand-up. I was basically just dabbling in something I was a fan of. I always loved stand-up comedy of the 1980s and speciality acts.

It was my start, but then I realised: Yes, I want to write funny stuff, but I don’t want the comedian’s lifestyle – I don’t want too be touring and fretting about performance all the time; I want to be writing short pieces and that’s what I’ve been doing all this time. But your real question is Why now?

JOHN: Is it? Oh… Why now?

ROBERT: Good question. People are nostalgic about the pandemic now because they’ve all had to go back to work. But, for me, the pandemic was utterly depressing – stuck in my flat, alone, without much to do. So, when we came out of the pandemic, what I wanted to do was live, real entertainment again. Collaboration with people. Going out. Engaging with real life again. Not just the internet.

I thought: How can I turn my comedy writing into performance again? And I think I’ve found a way. 

The Iceman book, currently being shot as a documentary

So I’m working with other people. There’s the Iceman film Melt It!, of course, with Anthony Irvine and Mark Cartwright – YouTuber GingerBeardMark. And I have a novel in progress with an American artist called Landis Blair.

JOHN: An artist? So he’s illustrating it?

ROBERT: He is writing long-form for the first time. It’s a comedy fantasy. There will be illustrations, but it won’t be a comic book. It’s a novel. 

JOHN: Lke Charles Dickens’ novels, which had illustrations?

ROBERT: Yes. If you think of those Sherlock Holmes novels where there’s occasionally an illustration.

All these works are not just me on my own; they involve other people.

JOHN: So you’re basically just being lazy and letting other people do the work?

ROBERT: (LAUGHS) I wouldn’t go that far.

I want to get my works out and actually read them in public. I’ve always wanted a theatrical premise to go with the reading. Whenever you go and see someone doing a reading, it’s fine if you know what you’ve signed up for. But, in a comedy environment, you kinda want something a bit extra. You want a premise.

So my premise is it’s an audio book recording for which I want a live audience; so the audience are coming to play a part in that. A little bit of participation from the audience and, if nothing else, I’ll capture their noises.

That’s the premise of The Annotated Audiobook and I’ll be riffing around the material. It won’t just be me reading it verbatim from the page, I’m going to be telling the story behind the story, commentating on what happens in the room and things like that.

So what do you think, John. Is it a clever idea or is it all doomed to failure?

JOHN: Everything’s doomed to failure. We’re all going to die. Eventually, the sun explodes and destroys everything.

ROBERT: I was thinking a little more short-term than that.

JOHN: It’s a one-off, isn’t it? You can’t say every time you perform that it’s for an audio recording.

ROBERT: Originally, I had no interest in actually recording it. It was just a theatrical premise. But I think next year you could see a Robert Wringham audio book come out of it.

JOHN: Will that sell as well as a printed book?

ROBERT: What I hear is a lot of people don’t read ‘old-fashioned’ books; they only want audio now.

Robert Wringham with two of his own many ‘old-fashioned’ print books

JOHN: So have you a grand tour planned?

ROBERT: No. The Glasgow show will either be the beginning of something or the end of something. Kind of a pilot. If it goes well, I’d like to do more shows like The Annotated Audiobook. I’d like to do them occasionally. 

I want to bring my books to the stage and I think I’ve found a cheeky, crafty way to present that.

JOHN: …and you’ll make loads of money out of all this, like Simon Munnery and The Iceman…?

ROBERT: Of course not. No. Simon Munnery recently worked as a cleaner in a chicken processing plant.

JOHN: Is this common knowledge? Can I print that?

ROBERT: Well, he talks about it in his act. It’s all real stuff. He brought some innovation to the job. He made some sort of extended vacuum cleaner that could get into places the regular vacuum couldn’t get. 

JOHN: I’ll tell you where the money is: chicken sexing. I once met a man who travelled the world chicken sexing. He was making an absolute fortune because it’s really commercially important to know whether these tiny chicks with tiny genitals are male or female.

ROBERT: You’ve told me that before.

JOHN: I am a man of few anecdotes.

ROBERT: It’s very strange, because The Iceman once worked in a chicken factory as well. It seems like that’s the social safety net for comedians who don’t make fortunes.

JOHN: There was Chic Murray… but what did The Iceman do in the chicken factory?

ROBERT: He was a security guard.

JOHN: To stop chickens escaping or cats invading?

ROBERT: He says they were worried about Animal Rights protestors getting in. But he says, as a vegetarian, that if they had broken in he would have just let them carry on.

JOHN: I may have gone off-subject.

ROBERT: Yes… The Annotated Audiobook at the Glasgow Comedy Festival this week…

JOHN: Oh yes.

The future of comedy…

Is The Iceman’s upcoming movie MELT IT! a documentary or a piece of Art…?

Anthony Irvine aka The Iceman recently had a book Melt It! published about him – crafted by multi-tasker Robert Wringham. I posted a blog about it.

Now the book has inspired a forthcoming movie Melt It! The Film of The Iceman.

The selling line is: “In the 1980s and 1990s, Anthony Irvine was a comedian and cabaret performer. His act was a little unusual. As the Iceman, he went on stage – to melt ice. But what happened next and where did he go?”

The documentary is co-produced by Robert Wringham and director Mark Cartwright.

I talked to Robert and Anthony via Zoom… Mark was elsewhere, possibly in Wolverhampton.

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JOHN (TO ROBERT): Did you approach Mark or he you?

ROBERT: I was trying to promote the book and Mark has a YouTube channel where he interviews comedians and musicians. His interviews are very intelligent.

JOHN: Oh dear.

ROBERT: He likes fringe comedy so I thought maybe he’d like to interview the Iceman. And it turned out he had been looking for appropriate subject matter to direct a documentary. Someone from the fringe pockets of comedy. The book made him realise there could be a film in the Iceman.

JOHN: So what’s next? A Disney animation? You’re already doing a film of the book of the act. Disney could do an animation of the film of the book of the act, then do a live-action version of the animation of the film of the book of the act.

ROBERT: We do have dreams of getting our film in cinemas. We’ve just signed up Michael Cumming to be the executive producer. He directed Brass Eye, Snuff Box, the Toast projects – Toast of London, Toast of Tinseltown etc. His current project is Oxide Ghosts, where he shows cutting room floor material from Brass Eye and does Q&As. He’s very familiar with the whole indie cinema circuit.

JOHN: In the film’s Kickstarter appeal for funds, the selling line is: “How much permanence and success can we assure for this man whose entire act was about impermanence and failure? Back the film and be among the first to find out”… Isn’t there an irony about trying to be successful with a film about failure?

ROBERT: (LAUGHS) I’m aware of that and I’m actually concerned it will spoil the true legacy of the Iceman!

JOHN (to the ICEMAN): Is that a real moustache you have on there?

ICEMAN: Yes. Traditionally, I put on a moustache for all Zoom meetings.

JOHN: I hate Zoom. What is that thing you have?

The Iceman (bottom) with rubber duck, Tapwater Award and irrelevant pot…

ICEMAN: It’s a Tapwater Award which I won at the Edinburgh Fringe.

JOHN: The alternative to the Perrier Award…

ICEMAN: It has been touched by Malcolm Hardee and Charlie Chuck. 

JOHN: Without mentioning ice once, why are you doing this film?

ICEMAN: It’s going to be a sophiceticated film. In the production team, there is quality and creativity and a seri-iceness of purpice. I think it’s an adventure that will give coherence and professionaliceism to the Iceman concept. So, late in the day, The Iceman is going to be distanced from the incoherence and chaos of the original act…

JOHN: (SILENCE) 

ICEMAN: The core of it is based on the Melt It! book. So a lot of it is talking. But there will be an element of Battleship Potemkin, Luis Buñuel, Stanley Kubrick. There will be a lot of art involved and interviews with people saying they remember the so-called legend that was the Iceman. And the whole concept of the ice blocks living on will be part of it.

The question is: Will The Iceman outlive the blocks or will the blocks outlive The Iceman?.. Having a film might suggest the blocks will outlive The Iceman.

There will be touches of Federico Fellini and…

JOHN: Sam Peckinpah? It needs conflict.

ICEMAN: There’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Have you seen that? It’s about a painter painting a portrait of a model who didn’t want to be painted.

JOHN: Is there a car chase in it? You have to have a chase sequence. You could chase someone round the block. The ice block.

ICEMAN: (SILENCE)

The Iceman with duck, block of ice and a Melt It! movie poster

JOHN: When is it going to be finished?

ICEMAN: Well, due to public demand, I have been invited back to the famous art gallery in Stalbridge, Dorset – Guggleton Farm Arts – for an exhibition of my paintings – from 15th July to 14th August this year. I think the idea is we have a finale there where we film the public filing in to look at my pictures… and buying them… in cash.

ROBERT: There are strands. Old footage of Anthony doing the Iceman stuff. Interviews hopefully with comedians and artists. And it’s all going to come together with where Anthony is today, which is that he has been accepted into the Art world. The Guggleton Arts event will be a kind of a denouement.

ICEMAN: Because, as we all know, The Iceman is now a contemporary visual artist known as AIM. Hopefully we can get famous comedians to say: “Yes.. He was a legend.”

JOHN: “Was?” In the past tense. In order for that to work, you would have to die. 

(LONG SILENCE)

ICEMAN: I’m painting a picture at the moment called Riced in Pice.

JOHN: Riced in Pice?… Ah!… Rest in Peace? Why?

ICEMAN: Because I’m thinking very much about mortality and Will the melting blocks outlive me? So I’m confronting death in this picture. It’s basically me at my own funeral. I’m not being morbid. I’m just toying with the idea of…a church made of ice blocks and… that sort of thing. Do the blocks live on in some form? They must.

The Melt It! Iceman movie poster

This is a serious film. I notice when you write these blogs with me, it’s always completely confusing conversations. I am going to answer every question seriously from now on.

JOHN: Why do boxers not have hair on their chests?

(SILENCE)

JOHN: You have developed from performance art into Art art. Are you now going to get more into movie making?

ICEMAN: I am going to stick to oil painting. But film is a visual medium and it’s quite exciting to see me slightly objectified. The film will include reference to the painting. I’m quite happy to have this parallel artistic life.

I’m quite interested in filming a block of ice melt for the entire duration of the film. Like Andy Warhol’s film of the Empire State Building. It maybe sound a bit naive, but I think there could be quite a lot of interest. It obviously couldn’t be TOO big a block or it might take 400 days. But, if you had maybe a day’s melt, I think there’s a film there.

JOHN: Surely, to become successful, all artists have to become bullshit artists? You have to say: “This is a representation of global warming. It is Art”, Then Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art in America will beat a path to your door and you’ll make a fortune.

ICEMAN: Well, I WAS the first green artist.

JOHN: Eh?

ROBERT: The idea that the ice is melting anyway. Once Man is involved, it accelerates.

ICEMAN: Ah!

JOHN: Ah! 

ROBERT: Ah!

Anthony demonstrates the effect of Man on a melting ice cap

JOHN: Have you seen the movie The Iceman about a real-life killer who had that nickname?

ICEMAN: Yes, that’s rather unfortunate. I’m a bit worried that, when you Google “Iceman” this murderer comes up. I want my film to overtake his film.

ROBERT: Is he still alive? Maybe we could interview him in prison.

JOHN: It’s all coming together now. The ideal way to promote your film is for you to be dead. The Iceman kills The Iceman to promote The Iceman movie.

ICEMAN: I ‘received’ the title Iceman. I didn’t make it up: it was given to me.

JOHN: By whom?

ICEMAN: By all the other comedians of the time.

JOHN: What were you billed as before? Just Anthony Irvine?

ICEMAN: Yes. The film, in a way, is a tribute to the performance artist who disappeared and then returned as an artist. I think it’s going to be professional, which is in contradiction to my actual live performances. But, as you know, I’ve always had a very serious side. I have a feeling the film is going to highlight my metaphysical thoughts.

Have you heard the pop song Melt It?

JOHN: No, I’ve not heard it. But you should record some songs to promote the movie when it comes out.

ICEMAN: I’m quite a heartfelt singer but I can only sing if I’m trying to be funny.

JOHN: As a defence mechanism in case people think you can’t sing properly?

ICEMAN: Possibly. I don’t know what the psychological reasons are. I can only sing to satirise the song I’m singing. That way it becomes quite moving and funny at the same time. Which is what a German woman picked-up on in Edinburgh. She stayed behind to say: “I loft yor singeen” and I knew she meant it, because I looked in her eyes.

I think what we’re hoping for from you is a serious blog. Is it an art film or a documentary film? I suppose it’s both.

ROBERT: I agree.

ICEMAN: I think the whole concept of the blocks disappearing and changing is quite deep. And that’s why some audiences follow me round going: “Deep!… Deep!”

I might even say something like: “Well, I have to go now,” and people will go: “Deep! Deep!”

JOHN: Anthony, why have you actually got a block of ice with you on this Zoom call? You are not about to do a performance. Why have you a block of ice?

ICEMAN: Well, this is a…

(AT THIS POINT, THE ZOOM CALL CUT OFF…)

AIM: The Iceman’s “clearance sale” and exhibition of 1,000+ unique paintings…

AIM, the artist formerly known as The Iceman

What is The Iceman? Who is he?

Comedian Stewart Lee describes him as “a blank canvas. You project your own ideas onto him: fun, single-mindedness, commitment, a love of life and its inherent absurdity”

As a performance artist, he’s The Iceman. As a painter/artist, he’s AIM – comic Simon Munnery says AIM creates “absurd beautiful art”.

As himself, he’s Anthony Irvine. And he occasionally turns up in this blog.

This week, on Friday, for the first time in ever, AIM will be exhibiting his paintings all based on The Iceman’s performance art.

Well, the exhibition runs from 7th July to 5th August.

The exhibition is called AIM: The ICEMAN PAINTING CLEARANCE SALE and it’s at Guggleton Farm Arts – ‘The Gugg’ -in Dorset.

That’s right. It’s a farm which is an art gallery.

We had a chat about it.

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AIM has a penchant for bunging AIM/ICE letters into words

JOHN: As well as the exhibition of your art, you are going to do a ‘big’ painting there – live…

ICEMAN: Yes, I’m going to do it on site. Maybe find a bit of an old stable or door or…

JOHN: …a horse?

ICEMAN: No. But people can come and watch the progress of it. My idea is to name it PEG IT!

As well as the gallery where I’m going to hang the bigger ones up with bamboo, I’m going to peg all the smaller paintings onto long lines of BT rope across the farm.

JOHN: BT rope as in British Telecom rope?

ICEMAN: I don’t know. I guess so. It was just abandoned next to a litter bin. I thought That could be useful. I’ve got 1,000 paintings. Then I had to buy bulk pegs. A thousand plus.

JOHN: Over a thousand paintings?

ICEMAN: Yes, it’ll take some time to hang them all up with the pegs. The show is billed as A CLEARANCE SALE… 

JOHN: I suppose all gallery exhibitions where you can buy pictures are clearance sales…

ICEMAN: PEG IT! Do you like it? It has a double meaning.

JOHN: Sounds like you’re going to die.

ICEMAN: Yes. 

JOHN: Well, that’s not untrue. Local Trading Standards can’t complain.

ICEMAN: Over one thousand paintings.

JOHN: They’re all for sale?

ICEMAN: Yes. And there will be a raffle ticket. People have to guess how many paintings I will actually manage to sell and, if they get it right, they get a free painting… though I’m just a bit worried they might decline the painting…

JOHN: Is there an entrance fee?

ICEMAN: No, you just come through the farm gate.

On Friday (7th July) I’m being interviewed by a poet called Roshan Doug – He was Birmingham City’s Poet Laureate.

JOHN: Really?

ICEMAN: Yes. Dr Doug – He’s a doctor of philosophy. (He wrote an appreciation  of The Iceman’s work HERE.)

JOHN: Where are you staying during the show?

IDEMAN: I asked if I could sleep in the barn. I was originally going to stay in Sherborne where I do educational work at the International College, but that fell through.

I’m not used to publicising art; I’m more used to comedy.

JOHN: That jacket, that hair, the neckerchief… You’re the biz… What biz I’m not so sure…

ICEMAN: I have a friend in Bournemouth who likes my act and has written a song and I’ve done the chorus: Melt it! Melt It! Melt it!

JOHN: Cool. 

ICEMAN: I see what you did there.

JOHN: What is the song called?

ICEMAN: Melt It!

JOHN: Seems reasonable.

JOHN: It’s called Melt It! after the title of your recent book?

ICEMAN: Yes.

JOHN: Very trendy.

ICEMAN: And I’m on Tik Tok.

JOHN: So the Chinese will know about you. Good sales potential…

ICEMAN: I’ll show you one of my Art films on Tik Tok? I’m not boring you, am I?

JOHN: How long’s the film?

ICEMAN: It’s a short. Look. I’ve built a boat out of cardboard. Do you think I could be a film maker? I’m quite amused by the sliding block of ice.

JOHN: You can’t beat a video of a sliding block of ice for entertainment value.

ICEMAN: I think I might get labelled as an outsider, a Jean Dubuffet type. In the text publicising the exhibition, I have put that AIM – that’s my painting name – “declines to be categorised. He just paints pictures of himself with a block of ice”.

JOHN: Again, undeniably true.

ICEMAN: But what if no-one comes?

The Iceman with his book on a train by a toilet

JOHN: If no-one comes, you just say it was a massive success, massively crowded and, if no-one came, no-one knows otherwise and all anyone knows is that it was a massive success. That’s the eternal default position for Edinburgh Fringe shows. If it gets round that you’re a massive success but unknown, you could end up at the Saatchi Gallery in the blink of an eye.

ICEMAN: I’m already on a little website  which acquired the name Saatchi Art. No connection.

JOHN: (LAUGHS)

ICEMAN: It looks impressive.

JOHN: I’m impressed.

“I had an old-fashioned kitchen sink and, for some reason…”

ICEMAN: When I first went on it, I put really ridiculous prices: £100,000 or something. But now I’ve reduced them. There are about 70 pictures of mine on it. The one I claim is extra-valuable is the one I’ve called Crazy Larry’s – a painting of the very first block of ice I ever did at a Chelsea club. Rory Bremner and people like that were there.

JOHN: Why Crazy Larry? That’s another name for Wild Man Fischer…

ICEMAN: Crazy Larry’s was a Chelsea club.

JOHN: Maybe it was named after Wild Man Fischer,

ICEMAN: Maybe. It’s no longer in existence.

JOHN: Nor is Wild Man Fischer.

ICEMAN: It was the craziest block I ever did. I had an old-fashioned kitchen sink and, for some reason, I brought that along and I remember being mainly horizontal. People thought I was actually insane.

JOHN: And the strangest thing of all is that you’re not.

ICEMAN: You can buy Crazy Larry’s – the painting – for £3,000.

JOHN: Well, if you like it and you have that sort of money, then £3,000 isn’t a lot. Have you seen The Laughing Cavalier?

ICEMAN: Yes.

JOHN: It’s a tiny little thing. I expected a big OTT canvas. Tiny. Must be worth a bit more than £3,000. Like Kylie Minogue.

ICEMAN: I think my art is definitely different. I’ve called my most recent series of paintings OneOne – I just do one brush stroke. Then I also have TwoOne, which is two brush strokes. But with multiple colours on my paint brush. Big brushes. Then the other series is EightOne… 

JOHN: Let me guess.

ICEMAN: Eight different brush strokes.

AIM – Guess the Brush Stroke title…

JOHN: I have to say that sounds totally mad and therefore the sort of thing that the real Saatchi Gallery or someone like that might be interested in.

ICEMAN: Normally I’m very fussy in my paintings. But I think I’m onto something here with OneOne. For me, it’s all a slight game, I want to do the most unlikely thing and sell my Art against all odds.

JOHN: I know nothing about the Art trade but it seems to me the thing to do is to create something you want to do for yourself, then think of some more or less random blurb words that make it sound intellectual. It has to sound intellectual. So you say something like: “It encapsulates a post-Covid re-awakening of post-modernism with the unique twist of icy Brexit cynicism”.

ICEMAN: Mmmmm… Guggleton Farm Arts in Dorset, 7th July to 5th August.

(…UPDATED HERE…)

Award-winning act The Iceman has a new book out… no waffle, but lots of ice

The Iceman with ice in a cup and rubber duck in hand at London’s South Bank Arts Centre…

Occasionally, The Iceman turns up in my blog.

As my avid reader in Guatemala will know only too well, The Iceman’s stage act involves attempting to melt a large block of ice using increasingly desperate methods.

I first met him in 1987 when I auditioned him for Channel 4 TV’s The Last Resort With Jonathan Ross.

I would have booked him.

The powers that be did not agree.

Now, with Robert Wringham, he has a new book out called Melt It! The Book of The Iceman.

It is illustrated, according to publishers Go Faster Stripe, “in thrilling Instamatic colour”.

I met The Iceman for a chat on London’s South Bank and co-author Robert Wringham (see my May 2022 blogs) joined in from Scotland via FaceTime.

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THE ICEMAN: Last year, John, you mentioned my book Thespian Follies in a blog and, about five minutes before I met you today, I got an email from the drama people, saying: “You have been selected to receive an award regarding your publication Thespian Follies and we have an item to post to you.” Isn’t that lovely? It’s a New Author award.

JOHN: And now there’s your new book Melt It! You’re on a roll…

THE ICEMAN: The exciting thing is there’s a lot of fine art in this book.

The Iceman, in London with duck looking on, holds up a near-invisible ice cube to Robert in Glasgow

JOHN: So how did this book Melt It! come about, Robert? You wanted to be put in touch with the Iceman and I gave you his contact details.

THE ICEMAN: I was at the top of the Himalayas, I think.

ROBERT: The thing I knew about the Iceman was that he took a photo of each block and recorded it in a ledger. I thought: Ah! Maybe that would be a nice photo book! and he was amenable to that but he only had 56 Polaroids.

JOHN: How many ice blocks had you melted over the years?

THE ICEMAN: That’s a good question. I used to be meticulous, but… Somewhere between 800,000 and 5 I guess.

JOHN: So basically you’ve done a 184 page book with 56 photographs of different blocks of ice.

THE ICEMAN: There’s a lot of text as well…

ROBERT: I had not known that, as well as taking Polaroids, he was painting pictures of the blocks. I wanted to interview him to get some answers, at last, about his motivations, because there are people that want to know. And I wanted to know. We spent a day together at Battersea Arts Centre and we ended up with a 15,000 word interview with no waffle.

The Iceman book as seen from Glasgow via cyberspace

So I approached some publishers and they all told me to get fucked. But then Chris from Go Faster Stripe saved the day. He’s got the right audience for it. Thousands of people with an interest in niche or fringe comedy and a lot of them know of The Iceman and want answers too.

THE ICEMAN: Rob was very good at glueing it all – freezing it all – together. He is hard-working; he’s a grafter; he works fast.

ROBERT: I’m always worried that I’m going to lose interest or that other people will lose interest.

THE ICEMAN: Rob is resuscitating The Iceman and I’m game for anything. After my retreat in the Himalayas, it’s time to be back. I like working with Rob.

JOHN: You can see royalties on the horizon?

THE ICEMAN: Money is not my main priority.

ROBERT: We may do a book launch in London.

JOHN: Simon Munnery wrote the Foreword to the book and Stewart Lee wrote the Afterword. They are both big fans. Stewart put you on at the Royal Festival Hall.

THE ICEMAN: Yes, and Simon wrote quite an incisive Foreword – He concentrated on an ice block in Sydenham at the Greyhound pub. I think it was Block 126. He said it was “beautiful art”. I was quite touched by that.

ROBERT: Neil Mullarkey described your set with the repetitive music – the one I saw for The Last Resort With Jonathan Ross – as…

THE ICEMAN: …a riposte to showbusiness…

ROBERT: When Neil saw that act, he said the only people in the room laughing were him, Mike Myers and Ian Macpherson.

THE ICEMAN: …and Ian Cognito.

JOHN: I wonder whatever happened to Mike Myers.

THE ICEMAN: He died didn’t he… on stage… like all the greats.

JOHN: Mike Myers?

THE ICEMAN: Ian Cognito. He used to bang a nail into the wall at the start of his shows. The audience was scared from the word Go.

JOHN: He was certainly tempestuous. You don’t bang nails into walls, but you have turned from performance art to fine art painting of late…

THE ICEMAN: I’ve actually got a formal exhibition at the Guggleton Farm Arts – ‘The Gugg’ – in Dorset. It’s on 7th July to 5th August this year (2023). Four weeks of solid ice work. It’s a farm. I’m in the pigsty.

JOHN: Literally?

THE ICEMAN: (LAUGHS) Well, it’s an art community farm now. It’s owned by the Countess Isabel de Pelet. I’m going to have ‘security’ there.

JOHN: What? To try and keep you out? They have specifically talked to you about security? Why?

THE ICEMAN: I used to live on a houseboat on the Grand Union Canal.

JOHN: That’s not an answer.

THE ICEMAN: It was called the Tivoli… It sank… It was a converted lifeboat… I can ask the Countess if she will stock my book. That’s why I need security.

Guggleton Farm Arts – now more tasteful gallery than a pigsty

JOHN: It’s a farm; they’re used to having stock. She’s turned the farm into a gallery?

THE ICEMAN: It’s been going 25 years, but not many people know about it. 

JOHN: They approached you?

THE ICEMAN: I approached them. A friend had an exhibition there. I thought: Ooh! They could exhibit MY art! And they said Yes… You know I worked in a circus? I know all about animals.

ROBERT: …and in a chicken factory.

JOHN: You worked in a chicken factory?

THE ICEMAN: You need to read the book.

JOHN: Long ago I met someone who used to ‘sex’ chickens. It’s very difficult with animals that small to…

THE ICEMAN: …to see?

JOHN: Yes. To see the relevant bits. And it matters because of breeding. It matters if they’re male or female. So he made lots of money travelling the world checking the sex of chickens at speed. If your book doesn’t sell and the ice work dries up, you could look into becoming a chicken sexer.

THE ICEMAN: It sounds a bit intrusive to the chickens’ privacy.

(THOUGHTFUL PAUSE BY JOHN AND THE ICEMAN)

ROBERT: Look! The book is full of The Iceman’s beautiful art.

THE ICEMAN: I’m glad you got the better quality paper.

“This is the book I’m proudest of… It’s so… so pure…”

ROBERT: Yes. This is the book I’m proudest of. It’s so… so pure…

THE ICEMAN: Pure… Pure…

ROBERT: There’s not a single regret in it. 

THE ICEMAN: Pure… Pure… 

ROBERT: When I look at my other books, there’s always some weird phrasing or something I wish I’d done differently. This is just a perfect book.

THE ICEMAN: What more can we say to ‘sell’ the book? I want to be a businessman like Andy Warhol said.

JOHN: He did?

THE ICEMAN: He said “Good business is the best type of art”.

ROBERT: I don’t like that quote.

JOHN: No. Surely art is the best type of business?

ROBERT: Ice is the best type of art.

JOHN: What’s your next project, Robert? How can you follow The Iceman?

THE ICEMAN: By turning the book into a hardback.

ROBERT: Yes. An Iceman hardback. Also, I’ve written a novel.

THE ICEMAN: Is that The Man in The Bath?

ROBERT: Yes. Well, it’s actually called Rub-a-Dub-Dub, but it’s all about a man in a bath. (MORE ABOUT THAT IN A PREVIOUS BLOG.)

THE ICEMAN: I love my rubber duck. (MORE ABOUT THE DUCK IN A PREVIOUS BLOG.)

The once but maybe not future cover…

ROBERT: There was going to be a rubber duck on the cover of Rub-a-Dub-Dub, but I’m not sure now.

THE ICEMAN: What about your James Thurber thing? You were going to go to the States.

ROBERT: That’s a long way away…

JOHN: …about 3,000 miles.

THE ICEMAN: He’s very keen on James Thurber.

ROBERT: Things like that generally. I like short humour.

JOHN: Charlie Drake?

(A LONG, LONG PAUSE, THEN…)

THE ICEMAN: Poor… Poor…

JOHN: I did Latin at school. Now I’m reduced to this…

(THE ICEMAN’S WEBSITE IS HERE…)

(…AND THERE IS A BOOK TRAILER ON YOUTUBE… )

A bit of a chat with Robert Wringham – Part 1 – The Stern Plastic Owl man…

Robert Wringham describes himself as a ‘humorist’… His latest book is 2021’s Stern Plastic Owl.

His first book, in 2012, was You Are Nothing (about Simon Munnery, Stewart Lee et al’s comedy show Cluub Zarathustra).

After that, he wrote A Loose Egg (2014), which was shortlisted for Canada’s 2015 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.

His 2016 book Escape Everything! was a spin-off from the New Escapologist, a lifestyle magazine he edited and published 2007-2017 and which continues as a series of online essays. New Escapologist describes itself as “the journal of the art of getting out of things” and suggests that “work has too central a position in Western life”.

Escape Everything! was successful enough to be translated into German and released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as Ich Bin Raus and then, in 2018, in South Korea as [책] 탈출하라. No doubt to further confuse readers, it was also republished in the UK in 2021 in English as I’m Out: How To Make an Exit.

Meanwhile, in 2020, in English, Robert had written The Good Life For Wage Slaves, which was re-published in Germany as Das gute Leben.

He had also written a regular column 2016-2020 in The Idler, a magazine whose declared aim is to “return dignity to the art of loafing” and had written for a variety of other esteemed outlets including Meat, The Skinny, the British Comedy Guide, Playboy etc etc etc.

Obviously, I had to have a chat with Robert.

It would have been churlish not to.

He lives in Glasgow and Montreal (his partner is Canadian), so we talked via FaceTime.

---

JOHN: You have said: “The highest form of human activity is the shenanigan”…

ROBERT: It makes sense, right? What could be better than a mischievous, spontaneous act?

JOHN: ARE you a mischievous, spontaneous act?

ROBERT: That’s what I aspire to.

JOHN: You describe yourself ‘a humorist’.

ROBERT: There’s a thing on Wikipedia at the moment about the definition of ‘humorist’ which says it’s “an intellectual who uses comedy to get his or her point across”. And that nails it for me. I don’t want to think of myself as an intellectual, but I do like the idea that I’m trying to communicate a ‘point’ packaged nicely with humour, so you can get inside somebody. It’s the sugar pill, right?

“I think it’s to do with anti-pigeon…”

JOHN: Why is your latest book called Stern Plastic Owl?

ROBERT: That’s a theme. My previous similar miscellany book was called A Loose Egg because I got hung up on that phase “a loose egg”. It came about by accident, because there was a loose egg in our fridge back in Canada.

Stern Plastic Owl is a random phrase too. Like all comedians and writers, I have a notebook nearby at all times, including by my bed. There is an idea that sleeping should be when your fertile ideas come up although, really, what I write down in the night is gibberish. But it feels like it’s a resource I should use and one of the phrases that stood out was Stern Plastic Owl. I didn’t know what it meant.

So there is a story in the book where I try to work out what it means. It’s kind of a detective story in the middle of the book.

JOHN: So did you find out what it means?

ROBERT: Not exactly. But I think it’s to do with anti-pigeon, do you know what I mean?

JOHN: No.

ROBERT: An anti-pigeon device. You’ve got an owl and you put it up on your roof to scare pigeons away. There’s one nearby and I think I must have seen that and it came back to me in a dream. So I tried my best to write a piece around one of those stern plastic anti-pigeon owls.

JOHN: I’ve never heard of this before. Are you telling me, if I come up to Glasgow there are fake owls on window sills and roofs all over the place.

ROBERT: They’re everywhere.

JOHN: You were a stand-up comic.

“I never got a horrible heckle ever…”

ROBERT: One of the very brief things from my very brief stand-up period was my come-back to hecklers: “Sir, you cannot count the number of cylinders I’m firing on”. I’m still happy with that. I never got to use it, but it was just there on standby. I never got a horrible heckle ever.

JOHN: You were too loveable?

ROBERT: Probably too young. A lot of audiences are just polite if you look very young.

JOHN: Why did you give up stand-up?

ROBERT: My favourite thing was writing the jokes and fine-tuning them. The hardest part was making it sound good, sound spontaneous. I didn’t enjoy the late nights or the Green Room badinage. I have met a lot of wonderful comedians in Green Rooms but I never felt I was holding my own in those conversations.

JOHN: You wrote that one great climb-down of your life was “pointing your imagination in the direction of writing rather than performance”.

ROBERT: Well, that’s not really true. That’s just what I put in the book. It didn’t really feel like a climb-down. I just didn’t want to tell the story in the other direction which was I was travelling in a favourable direction to the thing I wanted to do. I didn’t think there was any comedy in saying that.

JOHN: Is it a book full of lies? Like comedy routines?

ROBERT: Oh completely. The idea of what is true is something that is always on my mind a lot. For example, my real name is not Wringham. My actual passport name is Westwood. Robert Westwood.

 I wanted to change my name and be a persona. So, when I’m on the page or on the stage, it’s a separate thing. 

JOHN: Why Wringham?

Agraman aka The Human Anagram, John Marshall, c2018

ROBERT: I was always entertained by people like The Human Anagram (aka Agraman aka John Marshall) in the 1980s, but I wanted to do something else. I like horror novels and there’s one called The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

 It’s of the age of Frankenstein, but it’s Scottish and I think that’s why no-one has given a shit about it and it’s unjustifiably obscure. The villain in that is called Robert Wringham.

So, when I moved to Scotland, I thought: I’m taking that name! It’s sort of similar to mine and the thing about that book is it’s about doppelgängers. So I thought: My persona is going to be my evil twin. He’s going to do the stuff that I don’t do in real life.

(… CONTINUED HERE … )

Robert’s books have been published in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and South Korea

 

More stories of comedians using other comedians’ lines – OK – stealing things

Picture of Ian MacPherson used without his permission or his knowledge from his website www.ianmacpherson.net

Yesterday, I blogged about Martin Soan’s version of how his late friend Malcolm Hardee appropriated – well, OK, stole – fellow comic Ian MacPherson’s gag.

The gag was to open your performance at a venue by saying:

“In show business, there’s a saying that you play (enter name of venue) twice in your career. Once on the way up. Once on the way down. (PAUSE) It’s good to be back…”

Martin Soan had heard (from Malcolm Hardee) that Ian McPherson had jokingly asked to be paid when Malcolm stole the gag and Malcolm had – much to Ian’s shock – actually paid several hundred pounds.

When he read yesterday’s blog, comedian Rob Thomas told me that a different version of what had happened was published in the British Comedy Guide in 2008, in an excellent piece by Robert Wringham.

I contacted Robert and asked him if he was happy with me quoting from his piece. “Is there anything you want plugged?” I added.

“You could mention my little book about Cluub Zarathustra,” he told me. “You helped out on that, I’m certain. I know I quote you in it.”

This surprised me because, in fact, I had nothing to do with either the book or with Simon Munnery’s show Cluub Zarathustra beyond seeing and immensely enjoying it at the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe. It is a fascinating show which was turned into a BBC2 TV series Attention Scum! directed by Stewart Lee in 2001.

The BBC have never released a DVD, but there are clips on YouTube.

BBC executives never liked the series and hid it away on BBC2 on Sunday nights at 11.50pm. They cancelled the series which was then – embarrassingly for them – nominated for the Golden Rose of Montreux as best TV entertainment show of the year. As I understand it, BBC executives then had to fly with Simon Munnery to Switzerland and sing the praises of the series which they had cancelled because they hated it.

There is almost a sitcom in that saga in itself.

But back to Ian McPherson and the gag theft by Malcolm Hardee.

In Robert Wringham’s 2008 piece in the British Comedy Guide, Ian said he first did the gag in the early 1980s at the Earth Exchange, a tiny vegetarian comedy club on the Archway Road in London.

Later, Malcolm nicked the gag, much to Ian’s annoyance.

Malcolm with distressed shoulder in his Up The Creek office (Photograph by my eternally-un-named friend)

“And,” Ian told Robert Wringham, “as he’d done it on some pap-for-the-masses TV programme, it looked as if I’d nicked it off him. So I had to drop it. He also put about that he’d bought it from me. Which he hadn’t. He then offered to buy it retrospectively. Fuck off, Malcolm, I quipped. So I fined him a pretty modest sum for theft. I was pretty furious about it at the time, but he had his eye on other stuff I’d written, so I was also warning him off. He ignored the fine at first, but he was just about to open (his own club) Up The Creek, so I gather some comedians refused to play there till he paid up. Which he grudgingly did. I also made it plain in words of one syllable that I was not, repeat not, selling the line. He muttered something about 6 seconds of material but, as I pointed out, It was 7 and a half seconds, Malcolm. You should have nicked my timing.

“Simon Munnery told me he does it too, but attributes it to me. Which is fine. No problem there. Good man Simon. I was told that Simon Fanshawe did it on radio. No attribution. I wrote to his agent at Noel Gay Artists three years ago for a clarification but he must be a slow typist. No response as yet. But not everyone is called Simon.

“A young film maker contacted me last month. Apparently he’s doing a documentary on Malcolm Hardee. Wanted to know if I wrote Malcolm’s gag. Malcolm’s? Apparently some of the older comedians who’d first seen me do it had told him it was mine. Anyway, he intimated they would be using the TV clip of Malcolm doing my gag and, er, was I okay with that. And maybe it was the Irish blood coursing through my veins, but my response was a good deal less than civil. Listen, I said. You people stole my country. I’m fucked if you’re nicking my act. Does that answer your question?”

All those quotes from Ian have been stolen by me from Robert Wringham’s original article in the British Comedy Guide.

Well, not really stolen. I look on my use of them as an homage to Robert’s work and I recommend you buy his book on Cluub Zarathustra, a show that deserves to be remembered.

Robert Wringham’s assuredly excellent book which I have not read… But buy it

As a post-script to this tale of joke theft, I should also mention that juggler Steve Rawlings, who often played Malcolm Hardee’s clubs, also got in touch with me yesterday after reading my blog.

It is a widely-read blog and has probably had bits repeated from it without attribution.

Malcolm Hardee had handfuls of oft-repeated catchphrases. He used one of them to put-down anyone unwise enough to heckle him. He would say: “Isn’t it a shame when cousins marry?”

Yesterday, Steve Rawlings told me: “He got that line from me. I’d got it from a big-headed American juggler who was doing put-down lines on the other acts while we were sat drinking before a gig.

“He came out with three when I was sat alone with him.

“One was the when cousins marry line.

“One was It’s hard to believe out of millions of sperm you were quick enough to get there first.

“And the last was Living proof that Indians DID fuck buffalo, which was never going to work in England.

“I had the first two lines to myself for about two months and they were killing.

“Then Malcolm phoned me and said: Oy oy – Is that ‘when cousins marry’ line yours?

“I said: No, I nicked it off this American act.

“He said Oy oy again and hung up.

“Not long after that, everyone was using it. But for just a little while I had it to myself.”

I did ask Ian McPherson yesterday if there was anything he wanted to add to his British Comedy Guide tale of Malcolm stealing his opening routine. He said: “Say hello to Martin Soan and Steve Bowditch. Lovely, lovely boys and a credit to their respective mothers.”

Both are members of The Greatest Show On Legs which included Malcolm before he drowned and both are currently performing in Switzerland, where BBC TV executives had to smile and accept compliments for Simon Munnery’s cancelled series Attention Scum!

What the relevance of that is, I have no idea, but it sounds good – something which should never be underestimated.

Here is a YouTube clip of Steve Rawlings juggling.