Award-winning Janet Bettesworth: her Mercenaries novel and a Ukraine song

Walking a tight-rope on a roller-coaster

Stand-up comedian and comedy club promoter Janet Bettesworth has published her first novel Mercenaries. 

The blurb says it “plunges into the no-holds-barred dark world of Airbnb machinations” in which “Carla, a comedian, and Louise, an actress, are bribed by an elderly landlady, Alice to… extract revenge… A mélange of gruesome memories emerges as events unfold”.

And… “This plot line walks a tight-rope on a roller-coaster! And includes all you need to know about Butlins Holiday Camp Margate, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, racism, Airbnbs, #MeToo, bribery, the Royals, insects, coffins, croissants, failed comedians and revenge.”

Janet started creating the book by posting a series of her portraits of characters on Facebook (I blogged about it in 2020) and asking people to suggest their backgrounds.

So I had a chat with Janet and fellow comic Peter Stanford at her undeniably prestigious book launch in South London.

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JOHN: So why write this book?

JANET: The genesis was when I won £1,000 in a writing competition.

JOHN: From whom?

JANET: The Oldie magazine. The topic was The worst job I’ve ever had.

JOHN: Which was?

JANET: Being a waitress at a Butlin’s holiday camp in Margate. I had to go to the Garrick Club where The Oldie held their Award thing. I went with (comedian) Will Franken. 

The evening dragged on and they hadn’t told me when the presentation was going to happen. I really needed to go to the loo and thought: When on earth is it going to be time to give out the prize? Everyone was drinking away so I thought I’ll quickly just nip to the loo and the next thing I knew there was a banging on the door of the toilet and it was Will Franken…

JOHN: This was the Ladies toilet? 

JANET: Yes.

JOHN: Was he dressed as a lady?

JANET: No. But, by the time I got back, they had lugged (comedy icon) Barry Cryer on to fill the gap because there was no Me to be seen anywhere… Barry Cryer was in the middle of one of his parrot jokes but they kind of wheeled me on and I looked a bit shamefaced… When they wrote it up in The Oldie, it was all my fault this had happened: the person who didn’t really know what they were doing.

PETER: One would have thought they would have checked you were there before making the announcement…

JANET: Exactly! OR told me when it was going to happen.

JOHN: … or done the presentation in the toilet.

JANET: Before all that, I had been going round the room talking to various people who didn’t know anything about me. But, after the presentation, everyone was incredibly much more friendly. So I talked to Maureen Lipman and also to this really nice woman called Elizabeth Luard and she said: Have you ever thought of writing a book? And I said I genuinely felt it was beyond me.

I’d read hundreds of books and quite often I would be so full of admiration for the writer but I would think it was one step too far: I wouldn’t be able to do it.

JOHN: So why did you do The Oldie competition if you weren’t interested in writing yourself?

JANET: Well, I could write short things. Like for comedy writing….

But Elizabeth Luard said: If you can write something like the short Oldie piece, all you need to do is get ten more bits of that length and sew them all together.

JOHN: So the book is not so much a novel, more like a series of vignettes.

JANET: You’ve not read the book, have you?

JOHN: No.

Former art teacher Janet’s portrait of Peter Stanford…

PETER: Do you even own a copy of the book?

JOHN: I was hit by a truck in 1991 and can’t read books. I can write them, but I can’t read them.

PETER: You could always buy it and not read it…

JOHN: When is the audio book coming out?

JANET: Actually, a blind friend of mine asked the same thing. But I’ve never had anything published before and I’m completely new and it’s a strange world to me. My husband reads to me every single day, usually in the afternoon. I love being read to and he loves reading things out loud. We’ve read the Diaries of Alan Clark and… 

PETER: Does your husband do all the voices?

JANET: Yes. He always does the voices. I have actually had part of Mercenaries read out loud by a voice artist: Seanie Ruttledge.

 He read out the very first bit, which is quite pornographic.

JOHN: That’s a good start. If they read the first five pages, they’ll get some porn.

JANET: Oh, there’s plenty more after that.

JOHN: Why is the book called Mercenaries?

JANET: One of the themes is the difference in outlook between the generations. You have two women – the slightly younger generation – who are tangentially in the comedy or acting worlds. One of them is a vegan and she is very Me Too; and the other one is an elderly woman called Alice. So it’s the way she is viewed.

JOHN: Autobiographical in some way? 

JANET: I am 77 at the moment. When I was about 68, that’s when I started doing stand-up comedy and, in a way, going to all these gigs was a bit like going back to my youth. The kind of atmosphere of going to all these gigs was like a kind of renaissance, in a way.

Janet’s impression of me as an East End street trader…?

JOHN: It gave you a new lease of life?

JANET: Yes. And it gave me a sort of different prism to see the world.

JOHN: And the relevance of that to the book is…?

JANET: Well, they’re both aspects of me.

JOHN: So, if you’re describing different aspects of yourself, did it make you understand something more about yourself?

JANET: (DUBIOUSLY) I suppose so, yes. The hard part was trying to put it more together so there was some sort of plot.

JOHN: The easy bit was the pornography?

JANET: I dunno.

JOHN: You are an arty person as opposed to a wordy person. You were an Art teacher…

JANET: (DUBIOUSLY) Is it not possible to have both interests?

JOHN: Yes, but I thought maybe you were a fulfilled arty person and an unfulfilled wordy person.

JANET: I suppose. 

JOHN: Have you an idea for another book in your brain?

JANET: I did have the other day, but… 

JOHN: I know. I can’t remember what happened yesterday.

JANET: All the proceeds are going to the Ukraine, by the way. 

PETER: The book was published after the Russians invaded Ukraine.

JOHN: So the profits go to Ukraine charities for how long? Forever?

Janet checks the Ukrainian song’s lyrics…

JANET: Why not? Until Ukraine stops needing it, I suppose.

JOHN: So, if it’s all going to Ukraine, you’re going to earn nothing from this.

JANET: Great.

JOHN: So are you going to write another book?

JANET: I don’t know. I just have to wait for…

(AT THIS POINT, PETER PULLED OUT A PIECE OF SHEET MUSIC…)

PETER: We can sing. Here’s a song in Ukrainian. 19th century.

(JANET, WHO CAN READ MUSIC, STARTED SINGING “A PRAYER FOR UKRAINE”…)

John’s UK Coronavirus Diary – No 6 – 86-year-old Lynn Ruth Miller is angry

Globetrotting American comedian, author and occasional burlesque dancer Lynn Ruth Miller is very pissed-off at being forced into a total lockdown in London. She has written about her recent trips in this blog (Search for her name). And she was due to perform in Europe, Scandinavia, the Far East, Australia and North America in upcoming months, but has had to cancel. Now she is VERY annoyed. She explains why in this open-letter plea to Westminster… which she rounds-off with a 90-second song…

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In 2020, there are more people over the age of 65 than there are under the age of 5 – a ratio that has never occurred before, according to Deutsche Bank (and they should know; they are German).

And now the UK government has kept all of us over 70 confined to our homes in a lockdown.

That is blatant ageism at its worst.

Why? Because the powers that control us are looking at everyone through the wrong lens. 

They are evaluating each of us on the basis of their own preconceptions about age instead of accessing the quality of our immune systems.  

It turns out that the older you are the more resilient you are to illness.  

The current coronavirus pandemic has actually affected men aged 40-60 disproportionately along with people who have compromised immune systems.

But that isn’t me.

And I am stuck in the house.

Let’s face it. I am old…very old.  

When Google tells me it will take me ten minutes to walk someplace it always takes me twenty.  If I would dare to drive a car, I would never go over 20mph. In a car, I would keep the turn signal – the indicator signal – on just in case I have to make a right turn. I can’t say Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers any more. I look like an un-pressed rag and I have more hair on my chin than my foo foo.

But I am healthy, filled with energy and I have an exciting life… or I did until I was told that – just because I am old – I need to get someone else to do my shopping and I damn well better not get on a bus.

For some people over 70, this is not a hardship. They live in homes with other people. But I am alone… no partner, no children, no pet to care for… just me. The government now allows me one solitary walk a day and no-one to hug. And that is endangering my psychological well-being.

Now, I respect rules. I do not want to infect anyone and I do not want to be infected. I stand 2 meters away from people when I walk and I cover my mouth when I cough. But, when I see some 69 year-old guy in a Zimmer frame sailing off to Sainsbury’s, I can’t help but think: Why can’t I go there too?… and not at 7am when not even the birds are awake.

Psychology today says that without the boost of oxytocin that comes with physical touch, elderly individuals may end up feeling more stressed and their physical health may suffer. In fact, people who are affection-deprived are less happy, more lonely, more likely to experience depression and stress and, in general, in worse health. They have less social support and lower relationship satisfaction.

I’ll bet you legislators never thought of that when you told us to stay home, did you?

So for the sake of my well-being and my desperate need for a cuddle, I suggest everyone over 70 should be awarded a puppy and a loving visitor.  

In my case I would prefer a toy boy – You know: someone in his 70s that can still think at best.  

At the very least, I want him to have a couple of teeth left.

Think about that, all you legislators, while you are giving away money to small businesses and independent workers.  

Money helps but, when you cannot leave the house to spend it, a hug can be worth ten visits to a psychiatrist.

You just might save even more lives that way than you are now by locking us in our living rooms.

I have written a song about it:

… CONTINUED HERE …

A chat about a Christmas video turns to talk of comedians in court in the 1960s

Matt Roper spends a Happy Goddam Christmas in Soho

Comedian Matt Roper is flying to India on New Year’s Eve for two months. At least, that was what he intended to do.

“I think my new principle should be Don’t book flights when you’ve had two bottles of wine and a load of Guinness and a few tequilas,” he told me over pizza in London’s Soho.

“I’d had a heavy night out and woke up in the morning. My life most mornings, if I’m being honest is… Well, if you’ve ever seen a window with condensation on it and it slowly clears away… That’s my brain in the morning… I remembered doing something about a flight, so I went and checked my emails and the Confirmation was there… Flying out on 31st December, which is perfect for me because I don’t like New Year… and coming back on June 3rd…. What?… June 3rd?!!… but the most surprising thing was I’d managed to choose my seat and decide what sort of meal I was having.

“I’ve been many, many times to India. I love it out there, but I haven’t been for about six years. I’ll go to Goa and then hopefully write my Edinburgh Fringe show in some hill station. But my point is Never book a flight when you’re hammered.”

“Maybe that should be your Fringe show title,” I suggested: “Never Book a Flight When You’re Pissed. But you shouldn’t go to India. You’re in the iTunes Comedy charts at the moment with Happy Goddam Christmas, this Christmas song of yours.”

“Well, it’s an anti-Christmas Christmassy song, really,” Matt corrected me, “like Fairytale of New York.”

“When that was released,” I said, “it was inconceivable it could become a standard festive song like White Christmas.”

“It’s a British thing,” suggested Matt. “We’re maybe not drawn to the natural sugary, positive ditties.”

“Is it the first song you’ve written?” I asked.

“No,” said Matt. “All the Wifredo stuff you hear at Edinburgh is all orginal songs, though I did one of those in collaberation with Pippa Evans.

“With Happy Goddam Christmas, I had the music for a long time – the basic structure of the song – it was about an ex I was feeling particularly, you know, bitter and jaded about. But the song isn’t iactually about me feeling bitter about an ex. I took it to Pippa Evans and she added a middle eight onto it and we worked together on the lyrics.”

Pippa Evans performs as her on-stage character Loretta Maine. Someone once described her as ‘Dolly Parton as seen through the lens of Mike Leigh’.

“Arthur Smith has a little cameo in the video,” Matt told me, “and we have Sanderson Jones and Imran Yusef – in the video, they’re in the band – Arthur’s in the toilet brandishing his Hammond organ.”

“So you wanted to make lots of money with a Christmas song?” I asked.

“Not really,” said Matt. “It was just about having a bit of fun. It’s easy to release whatever you want on iTunes. It’s quite incredible how the music industry’s changed. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Edinburgh Fringe were along similar lines? If you could cut out all the middle people.”

“Well,” I said, “the Free Fringe and the Free Festival sort-of do that. Are you thinking of doing one of the two free festivals next year?”

“Possibly. I had a lot of fun with Just The Tonic this year. I would like to see the Fringe level out into an event where your established comics and TV names are on the ticketed Fringe and the less-established acts can realistically afford to do it and make at least a little bit of money by the end of it.”

Matt’s father, George Roper, was one of The Comedians on the seminal Granada TV comedy stand-up show of the 1970s.

It was a different era.

“There was a club called The New Luxor Club in Hulme, Manchester,” Matt told me.

I raised my eyebrow at the mention of a club in Hulme. I went to Hulme a few times when I worked at Granada TV in the 1980s. If you went to the Aaben Cinema there, when you came out, you might find three youths sitting on your car bonnet saying: “So how much are you gonna pay to get your car back?”

“In the 1960s,” Matt told me, “they would have ‘gentlemen’s evenings’ at some of the Manchester social clubs, working men’s clubs, cabaret clubs. It would not be uncommon to have six stand-up comics and six female strippers/exotic dancers on one bill. At this point in the 1960s, it was legal to be naked on-stage, but it was illegal to move.

“The police decided to bust The New Luxor Club and my father was one of the six comics performing there that night. The police raided the club and charged the comedians with aiding and abetting the club owner – a guy called Vincent Chilton – for running a disorderly house.

“The six strippers and the six comics were in the dock at Manchester Crown Court and the police had to stand up in the court and tell the jokes. I swear – no word of a lie.

“I don’t know the exact date, but the police had to get up and say something like On the 28th of June 1965, George Roper stood up on stage and said the following joke: ‘A policewoman and a policeman were walking ‘ome from t’station one night. Ooh, she said, I’ve left me knickers back at t’station. Ooh, don’t worry, said t’policeman. Hitch up yer skirt, let the dog ‘ave a sniff. Half an hour later, t’dog comes back with t’sergeant’s balls in its mouth’…

“Can you imagine? In the Crown Court? The public gallery had to be cleared because everyone was laughing so much.

“There was a guy called Jackie Carlton, who was the apotheosis of Manchester club comics at the time and all the younger comics like Frank Carson and Bernard Manning looked up to him. He was very camp, very flamboyant. When it was his turn in the dock, the judge asked: Was that one of your jokes? and he said, Yes, but I tell it much better than that. He was found guilty.

“My dad was the last comic up and, when it was his turn to stand in the dock, the judge asked Is that one of your stories? and he said Oh! Not heard that one before and, for some reason, he got off with it by playing the underdog, as he always did. The other five comics got fined, but my dad got off with it.

“I asked my uncle about it not long ago and he said people were queueing round the block to buy the Manchester Evening News to read the jokes that were told in court.”

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Below, Jackie Carlton talks in the 1970s about camp comedy and obscenity…

Twelve years ago today, in London, I met a fetish songwriter

Twelve years ago today, I went to the National Film Theatre to see a movie with a friend. Before going in to the auditorium, we looked at the NFT notice board where one ad started FETISH SONGWRITER….

I asked my friend: “What on earth’s a fetish songwriter?”

A man in his late-twenties or early thirties with a leathery face and sticky-up blond punk hair standing beside us said:

“I put that one up.”

He turned out to be someone who, with a friend, wrote and performed fetish songs in drag with props such as a bed of nails and fire.

He told us it took a few weeks to recover from each performance as they really did get burnt:

“I’ve got lots of scars under these clothes,” he told us, “and the bed of nails hurts too.”

He was very happy that he had managed to write a fetishistic version of the Lord’s Prayer and felt that, being realistic, he and his friend (who call themselves Erotica Daist – not Dadaist) should be able to make some impact on the media within six weeks.

That was twelve years ago.

Times don’t change.

Comedy complications and a classic new Christmas song…?

We awarded two Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe last week.

Immediately before the Awards Show, fellow judge Kate Copstick and I decided to give an additional award to Bob Slayer as well as to Kunt and the Gang.

This was possible because, while packing for Edinburgh at the beginning of August, I realised that, mysteriously, I had had an extra Cunning Stunt Award made – I have no idea why.

I had awards made by mad inventor John Ward for every year up to and including 2017. Only the exact number required.

I have no idea why there was an extra award made.

But, as a result, we were able to give the extra award to Bob Slayer because I knew there was an extra trophy.

Except that, when I returned home two days ago, I found I did NOT have a spare Cunning Stunt Award. The spare trophy I have is actually an ‘Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid’ Award.

These trophies are one-offs, which is why they were all made together in advance. They can’t be duplicated because the materials would not be the same.

So John Ward is off to his back shed with his thinking cap and his template of what he made to see if he can make a new one to give to Bob Slayer.

As I blogged a couple of days ago, this was not the only gremlin which emerged on my return home.

My MacBook Pro laptop has now been taken in for repair – Apple are doing it for free because it is a known fault on the graphic card supplied by a third-party manufacturer for Apple, Dell and Acer computers. But my Hoover still does not work. The faulty washing machine pipe which partially flooded the kitchen during my four weeks in Edinburgh, despite the fact the water supply was turned off, has been repaired. But now my toilet has sprung a leak.

Life.

But – hey! – it’s now 1st September, so it is Christmas, right?

Well it seems to be.

Driving home three nights ago, I saw two houses with twinkling exterior Christmas light decorations.

Shortly afterwards, as someone had given me a CD of Roy Wood’s singles for my birthday at the end of July, I was listening to Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday on the car stereo and yesterday, even more bizarrely, I heard someone singing Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody in the street.

This made me think, inevitably, that the Malcolm Hardee Award winning Kunt and the Gang, in a bid to prove we actually should have given him an ‘Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid’ Award, should write and sharpish record a Christmas ditty for festive download. It could be a classic.

Equally strange things have happened.

It used to be that Bing Crosby’s White Christmas was the ultimate Christmas song. Who on earth could have ever imagined that the Pogues’ amazingly un-festive Fairytale of New York would one day replace it?

Kunt for Christmas, anyone?

In the wonderful new world of downloads, anything is possible.

Comedians are the arseholes of entertainment – from one who knows

I recently wrote a blog about fame which mentioned the music business and the comedy industry. It provoked an interesting response from Mr Methane, the world’s only professionally-performing farter.

There is, of course, that famous old saying (usually credited to Janet Street-Porter) that “Comedy is the new Rock ‘n’ Roll”.

Mr Methane’s view is:

“Comedy was not, is not and never will be on a par with rock ‘n’ roll stardom. You do not wake up in the morning humming a joke you heard fifteen years ago because a joke does not take you back in your mind those fifteen years – unless you a comedy trainspotter.

“Music finds pathways into a nation’s soul and gets very deeply rooted there. It is valued as a great work of art by those who listen to it.

“Comedy, though a very serious business and labour of love for the artist, is generally seen as nothing more than a throw-away laugh by the consumer.

“Ringo Starr was not the only drummer in the Beatles – and, according to a joke by John Lennon, he wasn’t the best either – but let’s just say you have a choice between Ringo Starr and someone currently at the very top of the comedy tree coming round for dinner – maybe that Michael McIntyre bloke.

“It’s going go be Ringo Star every time for 90% of the British population. That is just how it is.

“We ain’t rock stars. We are the comedy arseholes of entertainment. In my case, literally.”

Is Mr Methane talking out of his arse (something he surprisingly rarely does) or clearing the air?

My thoughts are divided.

Comedians certainly rarely get respect as performing artists whereas singers do – although the increasing amount of money swilling around the upper, rarefied reaches of comedy success may be slowly changing that.

Nothing breeds admiration more than millions in the bank.