Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe – organising anarchy

ITV’s Tiswas – Good clean family fun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh the joy of it all…

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

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

Action-packed Russian Egg Roulette at the 2012 Awards

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

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

I stopped organising the Awards in 2017 after ten years. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Around 15.10 this afternoon, the Awards were finally announced: 

COMIC ORIGINALITY: The Flop.

CUNNING STUNT: Ivor Dembina & the Edinburgh bin collectors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The late, out-standing comic Malcolm Hardee.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brevity can be a virtue.

Context is King.

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

You had to be there.

The Edinburgh Fringe bog blog, toilet humour + replacement for crystal balls

Me with Copstick at yesterday’s Grouchy Club in Edinburgh

Yesterday’s Grouchy Club was fairly full and, on the audio recording, not perfect with the sound of a fan – well, we actually had two fans, something the Laughing Horse Free Festival is very good at providing for stuffy Fringe rooms.

When Kate Copstick and I arrived, we found a small brown ‘willy warmer’ aka ‘cock sock’ on the floor. No surprise there. This is the Edinburgh Fringe.

The educational part of yesterday’s Grouchy Club for me, though, was comedian Luca Cupani telling us that some woman had been putting on a show in which she told people’s future from reading their cocks. I’ve heard of people looking into crystal balls, but this was a new one. Comic Paul Ricketts told us that the woman had discovered her ability “at a party” though it was unclear what sort of party and, indeed, how she read the future in men’s cocks. There were a couple of feminist queries about whether she could read ladies’ futures. But sadly she has now left Edinburgh, so we can’t ask her.

Paul Ricketts was also able to tell us about his adventure the previous day in which he performed a comedy event – Now Wash Your Hands – Again! – at all of the Big Four fringe venues.

Well, more specifically, he had performed a comedy show with guests in the gents toilets in all four venues.

“It was done,” he told us, “to protest at the unreasonably high cost of the Big Four venue rooms by performing one show within each of the four venues’ toilets on one afternoon.”

He was angrily ejected by staff at the Underbelly and Gilded Balloon, politely ejected by the Pleasance and, of the four, only Assembly wholeheartedly embraced the concept.

There is a brief video of Paul’s toilet crawl on youTube.

His quick rundown of the previous afternoon’s events is:

1. The Pleasance Courtyard – only Chella Quint, who was going to sing a song about menstruation, turned up for the four guest spots. Chella hid in the gents toilet cubicle awaiting her introduction but unfortunately we were thrown out (very politely) before that could happen. A disappointed audience of four were ushered away.

2. The Underbelly (Cowgate) – An enthusiastic crowd of eight turned up with more trying to get in but, after 7 minutes, a very annoyed member of staff ejected us from the building. He asked if we had permission to perform or film. We said No… He was very confused: “You’re filming in the toilets,” he stammered. “It doesn’t make any sense!”  

3. The Gilded Balloon (Teviot Place) – A tough toilet to perform in. Too big, too empty, too bright, too many urinals for my taste. We did 15 minutes but only one bloke stayed for the whole show.

4. The Assembly (George Square) – The disabled/baby change toilet was perfect. It was easy to flyer potential audience members and even fellow comedian Jimeoin thought it was “a good idea and a good venue”… But unfortunately had just been to the toilet. A lovely audience of five turned up after our first punter came in, stood on my iPhone and then pulled the door behind him to use the convenience for its intended purpose. A member of the Assembly staff came in to have a look, laughed and let the show continue. 

“Was it worth it?” I asked Paul.

“I made £2.15p,” he told me, “but we proved that you can perform in the Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance and Underbelly venues without paying thousands of pounds – as long as you’re prepared to do it in the smallest room.

It seemed suitable – having established the level of humour – that standout shows I saw yesterday included Christ on a Bike – a fine show in which the Saviour, St Peter, Mary Magdalene and the ‘Three Wise Men’ (ladies with skimpy skirts and painted-on beards) gyrated and sang for an hour courtesy of The Voodoo Rooms, this year doing good business with bad taste. I look forward to Mohammed on a Moped next year.

Miss Behave watches as her lovely assistant ‘Harriet’ dances

My evening was rounded off by Miss Behave’s Gameshow, with a riotously happy audience split between iPhone owners and ‘Others’. I got a point for the iPhone owners by being the oldest person in the room. If only I got £5 for every time this was the case. I think there is more to develop in Miss Behave’s Gameshow, as there is an admirable foundation of cynicism underpinning the whole thing demonstrating that, in life, fairness and honesty are not what you should expect.

Returning back at my flat around midnight – fairly early for the Fringe – there was an e-mail from Andy Dunlop, President of the World Egg Throwing Federation.

In this blog three days ago, I mentioned he was in the the cardiac care unit of Lincoln Hospital sniffing nitroglycerin.

His message last night told me:

Just back from operating theatre. 5 cm of artery completely blocked. Rodded. Two stents fitted. Morphine wearing off a bit. No pain, just zonked. Won’t be allowed to travel to Edinburgh.  Have a good one.

The annual national Scottish Russian Egg Roulette Championships will be supervised by his deputy, John Deptford, during the increasingly prestigious two-hour Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show at the Counting House, Edinburgh, on Friday 28th August.

Cunning Stunt obsessed comic steals all three Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards

Adam Taffler – Grouchy Club last year

And so the insanity has begun.

The Edinburgh Fringe has started.

Three-and-a-half weeks when anarchy is the norm.

Yesterday, it turned out that both the Grouchy Club and comedian Paul Kerenza’s show are booked into the same room at the Counting House 3.45-4.45pm on 14th August. So – as it does not affect us as much – and because we are so sweet – Kate Copstick and my Grouchy Club chat shows will now start on the 15th August not the 14th.

Performing at the Fringe is like a needle in a haystack trying to get noticed in the Amazonian Jungle. The haystack may stand out when you see it, but the Amazon is a big place. And, even after you find the haystack, you still have to find the needle.

Paul Ricketts who, in this blog two weeks ago, mentioned he was organising a comedy show in a toilet, tells me he now has several comedians interested but still has no confirmed (or maybe that should be engaged) venue:

Women wanted for stand-up urinal comedy

“There’s interest in the show,” he says, “and it’s been nominated on the Sell This Gig Out! Facebook page, even though it’s impossible to sell-out a show when no-one knows what day or in which toilet it will be held. But there is already standing room only. And I would also like to reach out to women comics to get involved and break down this last bastion of male oppression. If any ladies want you to do stand-up comedy in a Gents, they can contact me via the event page on Facebook.“

Paul helpfully sent me a link to the YouTube video of his last toilet exploits.

Twonkey says this “haunting photo” is from a final rehearsal of Twonkey’s Stinking Bishop

Meanwhile the inexplicable Mr Twonkey sent me an inexplicable photo of what he claims was the final rehearsal for his show Twonkey’s Stinking Bishop.

And the unavoidable Lewis Schaffer, appearing in his first play since his schooldays, sent me a message: “I’m super busy trying to remember my lines so I don’t destroy Giant Leap the play I am in AND also I am thinking about the funny stuff I need to say at my own show Lewis Schaffer is Free until Famous, £5.”

Lewis Schaffer is never knowingly under-sold.

Which brings us to the core of this blog.

Lewis Schaffer (extreme right) in rehearsal for the Giant Leap

As I – perhaps foolishly – decided this year to come up to Edinburgh on an overnight coach rather than by car, I – perhaps foolishly – left the three increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards with performer Juliette Burton. She promised to deliver them to me later today – she is driving up from London to Edinburgh today. At least, that is what she claimed.

Juliette has always shown an obsessive, possibly unhealthy interest in the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award.

Now, this morning, I have received an e-mail from her with photos attached and a link to an 8-second online video. The photos are of a letter she has written to me. It says:

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Dear John

Ransom letter, page 1

As you know you gave me your awards. Thankyou for trusting me/falling prey to my masterplan. 

I’ve wanted to get my hands on these awards FOR YEARS! Now I have them I thought about not letting them go. I thought about holding them to ransom (because, let’s face it, that’s the only way anyone performing at EdFringe will make any money, right). 

But I’m keen to challenge mental health stigma and misconceptions about people like me, a known nutcase, so I thought the image of “crazed mad person holding awards for ransom; psycho lunatic threatens Fleming” may not help that cause… 

Ransom letter, page 2

So instead I thought I’d permanent-mark my name on all 3. But my own plan was foiled… I awoke today, ready to head to Edinburgh with the awards, with permanent marker in hand… only to find the attached security camera footage. And 3 empty boxes.

Your awards seem to have escaped.

If you want to see your 3 empty boxes again, please send me £1,000,000,000,000 … in Scottish notes. 

Ransom letter, page 3

With that, I might break even this festival.

Yours,

Juliette.

PS No, I don’t know why I wrote this and then emailed you the picture of it rather than just type it in an email… Artistic? Old fashioned? Crazy?

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This is the 8-second video she linked to.

Juliette is fast catching up with Lewis Schaffer in the self-promotion stakes.

Juliette proudly displays 2014 Russian Egg Roulette medal

She is also appearing in the official Scottish National Russian Egg Roulette Championship at the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show on 28th August. At least, she thinks she is. She will learn I am not a man to mess with.

But, even if I ban her from that, she is still up at the Fringe performing her Look At Me show (6 performances only) AND her Happy Hour show (9 performances) AND is appearing in the tenth anniversary Abnormally Funny People shows.

Inevitably – this being the Fringe – entirely separate from Juliette, last night I was sent a link to the new Abnormally Funny People video.

And now I have very slight toothache.

Fairly regular – every third year or so – I get toothache in Edinburgh and have to get dental treatment.

Welcome to the Fringe. Share my pain.

Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award winner attacked after Edinburgh awards show

So, last night, the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show was held at the Counting House in Edinburgh as part of the Free Festival at the Edinburgh Fringe. The award winners were:

• for Comic Originality – Candy Gigi
• for best Cunning Stunt – Christian Talbot and 12 year-old daughter Kate
• for Act Most Likely To Make a Million Quid – Luisa Omielan

You can find more details about them in the blog I posted when the nominations were announced.

Miss Behave: co-host of Malcolm Hardee Awards (Photograph by Stephen O’Donnell)

Most unexpected parts of the evening for me (apart from co-compere Miss Behave dragging me on-stage and setting the top of my head on fire (true) were a whole series of random comedians doing worryingly realistic 20-second imitations of comic Lewis Schaffer’s on-stage persona. In the ensuing chaos, Lewis Schaffer appeared to award himself a fish.

And, in the Scottish national Russian Egg Roulette Championships (basically smashing eggs on your forehead), co-compere Janey Godley’s daughter Ashley Storrie (who agreed to compete a few weeks ago) withdrew because she remembered only yesterday afternoon that she is allergic to eggs… and Janey was (reluctantly and genuinely loudly protesting) forced to stand in and actually won the increasingly prestigious Scottish Egg Roulette title.

I will not mention exceptional singer Danusia Samal, Maori singer/dancer Mika with his gay haka, Doug Segal doing a Boy With Tape On His Face mind-reading act, Sharnema Nougar being almost dropped by three literally supporting comedians while she sang and played a ukelele, Lindsay Sharman as a Scottish poetess, Vladimir Putin singing gay anthem Ukrainian Men with a line about shooting planes down, Johnny Sorrow and his balaclava mystery man and Tim FitzHigham drinking a pint of lager through a bugle then playing The Last Post for Malcolm Hardee and Comedy in general.

Kate Copstick (arm in sling) with Richard Herring last night (Photograph by Stephen O’Donnell)

But I will mention that other Russian Egg Roulette contestants included Richard Herring and Juliette Burton. For the second year running, Juliette (a farmer’s daughter who reckons she can spot raw eggs from the aura round their shells) trounced Richard but came second – this year to Janey Godley.

The show probably finished around 1.30am, so lasted its normal two hours.

At 3.01am, I had a text message from worthy Cunning Stunt Award winner Christian Talbot.

Relevant to this might be the fact that, at yesterday afternoon’s Grouchy Club, critic Kate Copstick said another Edinburgh Fringe performer (surprisingly not Lewis Schaffer) had contacted her about a 3-star review she gave their show. The performer said they thought it deserved 4-stars. Her reaction was: Well, I did not and I am the reviewer. He told her bitterly: I think you took one star off me because of the content.

Well, yes, reviewers do tend to award stars and write their reviews on the basis of the perceived quality of the content. The same thing goes for giving increasingly prestigious awards.

Bear this in mind, dear reader.

Christian Talbot (centre) with his award, me & Kate Copstick

Now back to award-winning Christian Talbot’s text to me at 3.01am this morning.

One of the other nominees in the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award category had been comedian Luke McQueen.

Christian Talbot’s text read:

Had Luke McQueen’s girlfriend grab my trophy off me in Brooke’s Bar (the Pleasance Dome venue’s bar for performers) and try to smash it. It’s not too damaged. What a lovely person she is.

I texted back: Are you sure it was his girlfriend?

She was with him and drunk, Christian replied. Not positive it was his ‘girlfriend’. Could have been a friend that is a girl. I can’t remember what he called her. She was very aggressive.

How did you know it was McQueen’s girlfriend or friend? I asked.

Christian replied: She was with him talking when I came in. I went to talk to him as I kind of know him. When I did, she grabbed the trophy from me. I assumed girlfriend as she was so aggressive with me.

How did McQueen react when she tried to smash the award? I asked.

He told her: “Oh, don’t do that.” He said congratulations to me, but that honestly he felt he should have won. Then I went home.

I forwarded Christian’s first message to fellow Malcolm Hardee Award judge Kate Copstick.

She texted back: Bloody hell! We made the right choice!

Christian’s increasingly prestigious Cunning Stunt Award

I wholeheartedly agree. (Only one of the four Malcolm Hardee judges had initially voted for Luke McQueen, then changed their mind and went with Christian Talbot too.)

Meanwhile, outside the Fringe bubble…

Anyone who read my blog two days ago may remember a passing mention of my farting chum Mr Methane being invited (under his own name, so the sender would not have known he was Mr Methane) to a Christmas gig by Michael McIntyre at the Tower of London.

Yesterday, I received a very polite e-mail from Michael McIntyre’s agent Off The Kerb, saying: “I hope you’re well. I just wanted to drop you an email to let you know that the information posted on your blog re. Michael McIntyre performing at The Tower of London is completely false (blog post 21st August). Michael is not performing at this event.”

I have removed the reference from my previous blog.

Mr Methane at a previous Malcolm Hardee Awards Show

When I forwarded the news to Mr Methane, he was gobsmacked.

“An elaborate scam,” said Mr Methane, “that seeks to ruin the good name and reputation of Michael McIntyre with fake offers for non-existent tickets starting at £1,500 for a non-existent Christmas gig? Keep me posted!”

Mr Methane is currently on his holidays away from showbiz and continued:

“I’ve been staying at Hartington in the Peak District where I’ve been trying out different makes of electric bicycles on the Monsal, Tissington & High Peak trails, I have now moved on to the Ramada Consort budget hotel at Robin Hood Airport, Doncaster, which is ideally situated to visit the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft which houses the world’s largest collection of historic trolleybuses.

“But its not an all-electric vacation, as finally I’m moving on to stay at Adlington, Cheshire, which is where my mum used to live during the war with grandad before she got married. It is also conveniently placed for a visit on Monday to the Anson Engine museum for a bit of diesel, steam and gas-powered stationary engine action.”

I can only dream of such a life.

Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show at Edinburgh Fringe potential shambles

The chaos I have seen over years of Hardee annual shows… !

When I started the Malcolm Hardee memorial shows in 2006 followed, in 2007, by the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Shows, I realised I was in a win-win situation. If the shows were a shambolic mess, I would get credit for honouring the true spirit of Malcolm. If they went smoothly, I would get credit for putting together a good show in his memory.

In a sense, I welcome chaos.

The Awards themselves were thought-up not just to get me free access to Edinburgh Fringe comedy shows for ten years but because the existing Fringe awards had got a bit stale and serious.

So there was – if you want to look at it that way – bad news AND good news for me yesterday.

A bit of rising chaos.

First of all, in the morning, it turned out that a show was listed as not following on from our show after a decent gap but actually overlapping us in the same venue. They were due to start at 0045. We were due to end at 0100. That was sorted. Our show will end spot-on 0100 and they will start slightly late, with us encouraging our audience to see their show.

Luca Cupani and Copstick heard a comic was fleeing the Fringe at yesterday’s Groucho Club

Then, in the middle of yesterday afternoon’s Grouchy Club show, an act who had, two days before, agreed to appear in Friday’s increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show, said he had decided to abort the whole of the rest of his own Fringe show’s run and return to London.

Shortly afterwards, it turned out there was a show in the same venue as our Friday Malcolm Hardee show which was not billed on the Free Festival listings but which was billed in the main Fringe Programme and which ended at 2315. Our show starts at 2300. This was sorted-out by agreeing to start the Malcolm show slightly later than billed, as soon as the previous show ends.

Last year, we had to turn people away from the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show. We were full.

Who knows what chaos may ensue when we start late this year?

My advice: get there early to ensure a seat. Be physically prepared with sandwiches. Be psychologically prepared for cannibalism. Allegedly we may start 20 minutes late. But I have not yet won the Lottery.

The exact length of the show now depends on our uncertain start time. Think of the joy. Fortunately, co-hosts Miss Behave and Janey Godley can cope with anything.

More chaos will ensue because this year’s show is being videoed for a charity DVD/download release.

A few months ago, I got an e-mail from Colin Simpson of AVProductions.

AVProductions will shoot comedians at random during show

“We’re a small cottage industry based in Durham,” it said. “We’ve got a lot of comedians up for filming their DVDs this summer/after the Fringe and we’ve just filmed a TV pilot with Phill Jupitus and Ross Noble.

“But I’m looking forward to the Fringe right now and can think of nothing better to get us started than a charity DVD of the show I had the most fun at last year. It was beyond brilliant last year: I was sat at the front of the audience between Tanya Lee and Stewart Lee and, aye, I bloody loved it!

“Basically, we’re working for free/for expenses now as we build our name up, so a charity gig is a great idea, I’m a full-time carer for my gran so I have that £59 a week carer’s allowance to live on while I spend every spare hour I have editing stuff together that I’ve filmed.

“We have all the industry standard equipment – over £15,000 worth of cameras – but now I’m stuck in Durham looking after me gran I’m trying to replicate what I was doing at BBC 6 Music, but with comedy as well as music.”

So three cameras will be videoing this year’s increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show on Friday just after 11.00pm sometime. Profits from the DVD/downloads will go to Kate Copstick’s Mama Biashara charity as will (as every year) any donations made by the audience at the end of the stage show.

I do not cover any of my costs in staging the show and take no money of any kind in any way.

The video crew are shooting the stage show and editing the result for free. They will recover the physical cost of producing DVDs etc and the actual cost of selling the end result. But they will take no profit of any kind. I will take no money of any kind. All profit goes to Mama Biashara.

If it all falls apart, if it will be a fitting tribute to Malcolm.

That will be my position.

Juliette Burton (right) defeats Richard Herring (left) in the Russian Egg Roulette at last year’s Malcolm Hardee Show (Photo by Keir O’Donnell)

The show will include the official Scottish national Russian Egg Roulette Championships.

It may – or may not – also include a series of comedians doing impressions of comic Lewis Schaffer.

Lewis Schaffer will judge which is best and will give a fish to the winner.

What could go wrong?

About a week before I came up to the Fringe, I had a check-up at my dentist. He said one tooth might cause problems, but he was loathe to touch it in case it triggered anything during the Fringe.

Last week, the tooth started giving me slight, intermittent twinges. Paracetamol has been bought.

Similar but not identical panda has been lost in Edinburgh

Yesterday, I left my iPhone/iPad charger somewhere. Possibly in the Pleasance’s Brooke’s Bar or in the Underbelly’s Abattoir. Possibly not. The very very amiable staff at both have not had it handed in. It is a white iPhone charger with a panda on it. Yes it is.

Last night the toilet cistern in my rented flat started being iffy on the flush. No shit.

I thought: Phew! I am safe now. That’s the Rule of Three things going wrong – tooth, charger and toilet cistern.

This morning the bulb in the tiny, windowless toilet/shower room of my rented flat died.

I think a plague of locusts may be about to descend on me.

When an oeuf is an oeuf at the annual World Egg Throwing Championships

World Egg Throwing Federation President Andy Dunlop with enthusiastic young tosser

At the annual World Egg Throwing Championships in Lincolnshire, no edible eggs are used, so no food is wasted. Sort of.

There are long-distance egg throwing and catching contests. There is the Trebuchet competition where contestants use home-made giant catapults (based on medieval siege engines) to throw eggs. And, of course, there is Russian Egg Roulette.

In 2012, I was runner-up in the Russian Egg Roulette Championship. I had high hopes of doing even better last year but, beneath my hard-boiled exterior lies a wobbly centre. I cracked under the pressure of high eggpectations and was beaten in the first round. For months afterwards, my mind was scrambled and I was merely a shell of the man I had once been.

My view as smashing Englishman Jerry Cullen fails

This year – the year of the Scottish Independence vote, when my country of birth may at last free itself from the yolk of English oppression – I had hopes I could show the heathen English what true Scotch eggs competitors are made of.

World Egg Throwing Federation President Andy Dunlop tells me that 64 people started the Russian Egg Roulette Championships yesterday. He may be over-egging it. I think there might have been 32. But there were certainly a lot.

To remind you, Russian Egg Roulette is the sport in which two contestants face each other across a table on which there stands a box of six eggs: five hard-boiled, one raw. Contestants take turns to smash an egg on their forehead. The one who discovers the raw egg loses. It is a knockout competition. Sometimes literally.

I let down myself and the entire Scottish nation yesterday (Photograph by Gail Deptfod)

Yesterday, I triumphed in the early rounds, beating my 2012 nemesis Jerry Cullen – who was wearing an England football shirt, I think, just to rile me.

I triumphed in the Quarter Finals, but then I was shamed by Fate in the Semi-Finals. I suspected fowl play.

I consoled myself by talking to former World Gravy Wrestling champion Joel Hicks.

Joel Hicks was scrambling for safety yesterday

When we chatted for my blog last year at the World Egg Throwing Championships, he was a human target dressed as a boxer and as a Samurai Warrior. This year, he was the anarchist hero of V For Vendetta.

“You been doing anything interesting this week?” I asked him.

“I did the Mud Runner Oblivion yesterday,” he told me. “That’s a 10k mud run near Gloucester. I’m absolutely shattered. I write for Obstacle Race magazine, so I do all the mud runs.”

“Obstacle Race magazine?” I asked. “Has that got a big circulation?”

“Yes,” said Joel. “It’s sold in WH Smiths. It is a massive, massive industry these days. Things like Tough Guy, Tough Mudder. There’s so many and it’s a million dollar industry.”

“Tough Mudder?” I asked.

Joel Hicks: a man egged-on to do charity work

“Tough Mudder,” Joel confirmed.

“Do you get paid for any of these events?” I asked. “It’s all for charity?”

“It’s all part of the Always With a Smile Foundation, which is what I do in my spare time to try and keep people smiling. It’s tiring stuff sometimes, though not as painful as today.”

“Painful?” I asked.

“Yeah. You wanna stand here and have eggs hurled at you by grown men at 100mph who have no thought for how it feels when it hits.”

“Do you wear a cricket box over your genitals?” I asked.

“No. Every year, I think I should have some protection but I kinda feel it’s cheating.”

Joel Hicks with the Championships’ l’eggman John Deptford

This coming Saturday, Joel is taking part in The Color Run in Manchester.

“It’s a race franchise,” he told me, “where you run 5k and start in white but every kilometre they throw coloured powder over you. Then, on Sunday, it’s a trip to Wales for The Naked Run, which is 5k, usually in good weather. The weather affects some men more than others.

“The weekend after that, on Saturday I’ll be down on the South Coast for the Worthing Birdman competition where they build flying machines and jump off the pier. And then back up to Wolverhampton on Sunday for the Tough Guy event called Nettle Warrior, which is their summer obstacle course race.”

“Nettle Warrior,” I said, “sounds painful.”

“It IS very painful,” replied Joel. “A 10-12 mile cross-country run followed by a 2-mile, purpose-built, multi-million pound assault course.”

One little girl yesterday was right on target with her egg

“An assault course of nettles?” I asked.

“No no,” said Joel, “all sorts of contraptions. The nettles come in, really, in the 10-12 mile cross-country run.”

“Have they put the nettles in for you?” I asked.

“They grow naturally,” said Joel. “Six or seven feet high all on their own. They design the course to the features on the ground. Ah! There’s some nettles! We’ll make then run through that bit!”

A typical egg-plosion yesterday. The pun never ends.

“I’m busy all through the year. Fifty-odd events every year.”

“Very odd,” I said.

“Every weekend and sometimes twice,” said Joel.

“Out of the frying pan…” I said.

In August, World Egg Throwing Federation President Andy Dunlop will be supervising the Scottish National Russian Egg Roulette Championships during the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show. He may or may not be accompanied by his trusty l’oeuftenant John Deptford.

I was glad to see the back of Andy Dunlop yesterday

In a few days, Andy is off to Holland for their Egg Throwing Championships. He will be back.

But John Deptford is going to Siberia on Friday and has no idea when he will be back, if at all. The insects may kill him. He is going to Mirny where, he tells me, “the mosquitos have been known to carry babies away and the best mosquito repellent is a shotgun.”

Yesterday, as I left the Championship Field in Lincolnshire, Andy Dunlop was being pelted with the remaining eggs. I hope this will become an annual tradition. Andy does not. This morning, he told me he had a serious lip injury.

For more on Eggmen, I refer you to The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus…

World Egg Throwing Championships: cheaper and funnier than the Olympics

(Versions of this piece were published by the Huffington Post) and on the Indian WeSpeakNews website.

Consequences of failing to catch

I woke up this morning in the middle of a dream about comedian Helen Keen riding at breakneck speed atop a camel racing along Old Compton Street in Soho while her writing partner Miriam Underhill kept pace by calmly walking with a large brown bird (not a falcon) on her ungloved hand.

I used to regret that I could never remember my dreams. Now I should perhaps be concerned that yesterday was almost as surreal as my dream.

I went to the World Egg Throwing Championships in a very large field at Swaton in Lincolnshire. There were teams from Germany, Greece, Holland, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the USA

John Ward with his grate egg Olympic torch

Events included long-distance egg throwing, the egg throwing static relay, the World Egg Trebuchet Challenge and, terrifyingly for me, the World Russian Egg Roulette championship. Why the Russian Roulette event was personally terrifying I will explain later but, initially, I was there to support my chum, mad inventor John Ward, who turned up wearing a Mat Hatter’s top hat and holding what he called an Olympic Egg Torch. This appeared to be a gold-painted cheese-grater on top of a gold-pained cracked wooden egg on top of a silver bicycle horn.

“I thought other people would be dressed up too,” he told me in a vain attempt to explain the hat. “Egg throwing is the People’s sport,” he added. “It’s cheaper than the Olympics.”

John Ward and others catapulting eggs

John Ward also came with a nine feet high wooden catapult, because the World Egg Trebuchet Challenge not surprisingly involves trebuchets which are, according to my dictionary, “machines used in medieval siege warfare for hurling large stones or other missiles”. There were five in the contest. John Ward had only had time to spend three days building his and competed valiantly for Queen and country but, maintaining an age-old British tradition in field sports, failed.

Which brings us to the Russian Egg Roulette event in which John Ward was also competing.

This involves two seated people facing each other across a table – as in The Deer Hunter, but with a box of six eggs instead of a revolver with one single deadly bullet. The twist is that five of the six eggs are boiled and one is raw.

An Irish competitor comes to a not very unusually sticky end

Each competitor then takes it in turns to smash an egg of their choice onto their forehead. If the egg is boiled, it does not explode into sticky gunge all over their forehead. If it is the raw egg, then… erm… it does. Obviously, the person who smashes the raw egg onto his or her forehead loses. And gets sticky.

Imagine my surprise, dear reader, when I heard my name called for this event.

This is one of the downsides of having worked on the slapstick children’s TV show Tiswas. When I was a researcher on the show, people I met (for research purposes) felt duty-bound to ram a custard pie in my face to show they had a sense of humour. Oh my! How I laughed.

Organiser Andy Dunlop provides ammunition

At the World Egg Throwing Championships, very highly efficient organiser Andy Dunlop thought he would surprise me by putting me in the Russian Egg Roulette event and announcing me as “former Tiswas wordsmith John Fleming”.

In fact, I was never a Tiswas scriptwriter. In my day, that considerable honour was held by David McKellar, a man eternally worshipped by me for having previously written the weather forecaster line: “And now, bad news for 4-foot dwarfs… 5-foot snowdrifts.”

Aaaannnny-way……

One of the other Russian Egg Roulette contestants was one of the two identical twins representing Greece, but the organisers were unsure which one it was.

World Gravy Wrestling Champion fails in Russian Roulette

Another was handsome hunk Joel Hicks, male model and World Gravy Wrestling Champion, who had come stripped to the waist and dressed in shorts and boxing gloves as Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky. Earlier, he had been the human target in a rather random Target Egg Throwing event and, as a result, spent the whole afternoon covered in dried egg yolk with fragments of embedded eggshell sticking out of his face.

I triumphed in the Russian Egg Roulette heats in face-offs with two small children – who seemed to be the only children in the contest, the others being egg-hardened professionals. As my second tiny opponent smashed the raw egg against her forehead, the crowd roared and I heard event organiser Andy Dunlop yell out: “Now that’s fun! THIS is entertainment!”

I fail to mask my gloating at the sticky shame of a Dutch girl

I was equally successful against a very attractive Dutch girl. I suspect Dutch girls smashing eggs on their foreheads commands a very high price in some quarters.

I had decided to represent Scotland in this contest, as I had been wantonly and incorrectly introduced as: “John Fleming representing England” and so I started singing Flower of Scotland, which was an unfortunate choice, as I discovered I only knew the first four words – Oh flower of Scotland… No-one was impressed.

John Ward smashes the thankfully losing egg on his forehead

Bizarrely (as, by its nature, it is not possible to ‘fix’ a Russian Egg Roulette contest) I faced John Ward in the semi-final. I triumphed again. He had the minor consolation of an in-depth interview (I kid you not) by an unsmiling film crew from some Russian television station and he later told me: “The interviewer guy said It will not be transmitted until July – I imagine they must be vetting the footage for any coded messages.”

My nemesis: clearly a man of extreme brutality

In the grand final, I then unfortunately faced a large man called Jerry Cullen dressed in black wearing sunglasses. Very intimidating he was. Hard-boiled, some might say, but not me. Oh no, not me.

The first four of the six eggs we smashed on our foreheads were, indeed, hard-boiled, leaving only two more eggs – one for each of us.

At this point, a lesser egg contestant might have cracked and, admittedly, I resorted to saying, “I’m doomed, I’m doomed,” in the best John Laurie (from Dad’s Army) accent I could muster.

It was like a penalty shoot-out in a football match, so I was relieved not to be representing England.

The man in black went first… smashed the egg against his forehead… and it was hard boiled. He had won the contest.

Cameraman + small child gloat over my ignominious defeat

But this meant I had to smash the final egg against my forehead knowing it was raw and would explode into yellow gunge. I thought of bravely saying something like, “The yolk is on me,” but even I baulked that. So I just smashed the egg onto my forehead as the – I felt somewhat unsympathetic – onlookers rhythmically chanted “Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat!” until the deed was done.

A broken man with mangled egg and a medal

The good news was that I got an unexpected runners-up medal – a silver star with a picture of a hen on it – with a red-white-and-blue ribbon to go round my neck. My chest swelled with patriotic pride. I felt I had not totally let down the nation of my birth.

Though, unlike the Olympic Games, there is no xenophobia at the World Egg Throwing Championships. The static relay event was won by a team of Germans, Greeks, Irish and English. I chatted to two of these fine athletes: Reg Marchant from Catford and his partner Sandy Winterton from Dagenham.

“I understand this is your first time being a tosser in public,” I said to Reg.

Reg and Sandy: two triumphant tossers amid trebuchets

“Yes,” Reg answered, “but I do actually practise tossing every other day. Sandy does it for me quite a lot. Sandy said to me Do you want to toss in public at the World Championships, so we came and it’s been great.”

“It’s been wonderful,” agreed Sandy.

“We’ll be back next year,” Reg told me, “to try to reduce the time it takes. Sandy and I have to fine-tune our tossing technique over the next year.”

At this point, John Ward wandered across to join us.

“It’s been an interesting afternoon,” he said.

(There are video news clips – with me briefly at the very end – on the ITN site here, the International Business Times TV site here and I actually get to speak in the middle of the report on the Chinese 7M Sports website here)