As my blog yesterday mentioned performer/artist The Iceman, I thought I would ask Gencraft AI to create an image of “a man made of ice attempting to melt himself with a flame-thrower”.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
This was the result.
It’s an interesting idea, but is this an example of Artificial Intelligence taking the piss…?
Is Artificial Intelligence taking the piss…?
Filed under AI, Eccentrics, Humor, Humour
Bernie Clifton rides Oswald the Ostrich
Yesterday’s blog was the first part of a chat with legendary English entertainer Bernie Clifton. It concludes here…
JOHN: You were saying that you were inspired by Les Dawson to do a visual act.
BERNIE: Yes.
JOHN: So then there’s Peter Pullen…
BERNIE: Yes. Peter’s an absolute genius. At the time I was getting on with my props act, he was making all the puppets for the ventriloquists: people like Keith Harris & Orville and Rod Hull & Emu. And he made a huge thing called The Honey Monster for Sugar Puffs’ TV ads.
Peter made me a cat that sat on my shoulder and an inflatable diving suit.
There was also a huge 12ft shark I bought in an auction and flew from Jersey to Shepperton film studios. I came back on the plane from Heathrow to Jersey that day and it came down the conveyor belt. No wrapping.
I was obsessed. I would do anything. I think maybe a lot of it was based on fear. There were a lot of good comics about. My act was anything that was visual. A million miles away from what most of the comics were doing at the time.
JOHN: You would dance with biscuit tins on your feet.
BERNIE: I found them at the side of a stage. They were holding raffle tickets.
It was visual. Harpo Marx used to have a big long overcoat. He had a motor horn in there and he could play a tune on his coat!
JOHN: You allegedly called your act “organised lunacy”. I used to work on the children’s TV show Tiswas and I’m very aware anarchy has to be organised if you want to guarantee it will work..
BERNIE: Exactly. My act had to be properly stage-managed. Once you got an idea that COULD work, you then had to construct and construct and construct. You needed a chain of organisation, really. You needed supplies. It was like an ironmonger’s shop on the road.
That’s where Peter Pullen was fantastic. I could go to him with a strange idea and he would actually make it happen.
JOHN: When alternative comedy came along in the 1980s, the comedy acts who played the Northern clubs were seen as ‘yesterday acts’. But you survived.
BERNIE: I was alongside a generation of very funny guys – some great comics – but I think everything had become stylised and the very fact you were wearing a smart dinner jacket, a frilly shirt and a nice bow tie stamped you and it stamped your generation.
Suddenly, in the 1980s, the new guys came along wearing jeans and teeshirts and it made the previous generation look even more dated. I was fortunate, I suppose, that I was outside the ‘normal’ because I was doing ‘organised lunacy’ and I was visual and so escaped the noose. Everyone else was still doing mother-in-law gags.
JOHN: And you were not doing social observation or political gags.
BERNIE: (LAUGHS) It was kind of circus, in a way.
JOHN: You hit the mainstream comedy audience but not with a mainstream ‘stand-up’ act. You played Royal Command Performances in 1979 AND in 2016…
BERNIE: I was doing regular cabaret on the QE2 liner and those audiences were from all over the world. I used to go on there with my props with my gigantic, 20ft high inflatable diving suit. I used to say to the Cruise Director: “When I’ve done the ostrich, done the cat on my shoulder, I’ve got to produce this 20ft tall diving suit…”
He would inevitably say: “Well, you can’t. There ’s no room backstage. Just the kitchen.”
“Yeah,” I’d say, “but up there, three decks up, I can see a rail.”
So I would be doing my act on stage and, three decks up, people would be inflating my diving suit. At some point, I would say: “You’ve won some furniture, madam… You’ve won a brand new divan suite…” and this diving suit would be launched from three decks up, down the atrium, BANG onto the dance floor.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I’d say. “it’s not a divan suite, it’s a diving suit.”
When I look back, What was going on between my ears?
But the Americans seemed to like it, because it crossed the language barriers.
The best thing was getting the (deflated) diving suit through Customs.
“What’s this, sir?… It’s a what?… Why?… Why are you taking this to America, sir?… Why are you… Why are…?… Why?”
JOHN: The cruise ship audiences must have been totally different to perform to than the Northern club audiences you learned your craft with.
BERNIE: I think we had to be so adaptable. We learned in the Northern clubs. I would go anywhere and do anything, just because it was on offer. I took whatever came up. I would jump from one venue and situation into another. Somebody once said Get it now because it might not be there tomorrow. How right they were.
Two shows a night in the clubs. The first show might be fantastic. But, two hours later, up the road, what you’d done earlier in the evening didn’t mean a thing; it was like starting from scratch again. You became so ready for that – You became match fit.
JOHN: You also seem to have done sports events all over the world… with a trombone.
BERNIE: I wasn’t playing the trombone; I was just carrying it. I was doing a midweek afternoon show on Radio Sheffield. I love radio.
The bandleader of the England football team band heard me. I always had a trombone in the studio because it was just a funny thing to have. He said: “The England band are based in Sheffield. The England Supporters’ Band. We’d like you to join the band.”
Bernie – England’s supportive non-trombone-player
I asked: “Why? I can’t actually play the trombone.”
He said: “Oh, you’ll be fine,” assuming that I could…
Anyway, we went up to Newcastle to support England at a time when Wembley Stadium was being reconstructed. He said:
“Stand next to me and we’ll play The Great Escape.”
So we played The Great Escape – or they did – I tried. He looked at me at the end of it and says: “You really can’t bloody play it, can you?”
I said: “I’ve been telling you that for a month!”
“We didn’t believe you,” he said.
Anyway, I had some crude lessons and I can now tell you that the slide positions on The Great Escape are 4-3-1-1 … 1-1-3-1-4 … 3-3 … 1-2-1-2-4-1-4
Curiously, this took me around the world, not only as part of the England Supporters’ Band to follow England in Germany, Brazil, the Caribbean… Moscow we even did… But then, in the Beijing Olympics, we became the Ladies’ Hockey Supporters’ Band…
I actually went round the world carrying a trombone that I couldn’t play.
A trombone is a very convenient thing to carry, because you can carry it over your arm like an umbrella. Everyone should have one. Go find a trombone and see how it will change your life.
I’ve been round the world from a kid playing on a bomb site in St Helens to playing Las Vegas.
JOHN: Why did it take you 14 years to write your autobiography Crackerjack to Vegas?
Bernie Clifton – live in Las Vegas
BERNIE: It started out as a book about japes. I used to work on building sites and one of the opportunities of working on a building site and then coming into show business was that the sense of humour is…
Look, as a teenager, just post-War, mid-1950s, the workforce consisted of a lot of ex-servicemen who had survived and felt that you had better enjoy your environment… and inherent in this was the sense of humour.
JOHN: He’s a different generation, but Johnny Vegas is also from St Helens.
BERNIE: Yes, he’s written a lovely foreword for my book.
JOHN: The Guardian said you were the spiritual father of Vic Reeves, Harry Hill and Johnny Vegas.
BERNIE: I love present day comedy. I remember being in the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006 and I just happened to have a big reel of that parcel tape. So I hooked this parcel tape around my belt and gave this girl the end of it.
I told her: “You stand still and I’ll walk around.” So I walked around in varying degrees of figures of eight taping maybe over 100 people together in little circles. People were so bemused they just stood there. I was just doing it for the craic. Eventually, I was running out of tape and this American guy came up to me and said: “Hey! Is this a performance?”
“No. It’s alright, mate,” I said, “I’m just mucking about.”
Bernie Clifton with his autobiography Crackerjack to Vegas…
In my last blog, a man with no settled name talked about his life in music, comedy and surrealism. One of his names was/is Wavis O’Shave and he became/remains a cult figure from his appearances on Channel 4 TV’s The Tube.
This is the concluding part of that chat…
WAVIS: When I used to do my stuff on The Tube – the surreal stuff – my intention was that people might not really laugh at the time but, three hours later, when they were on the toilet having a crap, they’d burst out laughing.
JOHN: Did you fit in at school?
WAVIS: The school I went to was like a male St Trinian’s. (LAUGHS) Honestly. The teachers didn’t throw pieces of chalk; they were throwing desks at you! They were all barmy with mental health problems.
I stood out because I had some promise. Normally, if that’s the case, you get bullied. I didn’t.
JOHN: The cliché is that, to avoid getting bullied at school, creative people get comedic.
WAVIS: No, I didn’t act the fool or anything; I was just me. But people loved the alleged charisma which I still have a bit left of. So I never got bullied. Bullies – rough lads – just kind-of took to me.
Fame: via an album about TV newsreader Anna Ford’s Bum.
I don’t feel I’ve ever had to act the fool to get by. But I have had to express whatever it is – the energy that comes out… It seems to come out as surrealism. When I was young I thought: Maybe something’s wrong with me.
When I was in my mid-teens, I was standing out like a sore thumb in Newcastle/South Shields. I didn’t want to work down the pit or in the shipyards or wear a flat cap or drink beer or all that. I thought: Is there something wrong with me? So I started reading psychology books.
JOHN: What was your ambition when you were at school?
WAVIS: Well, lots of them in my school wanted to be footballers or rock stars. I was never brilliant at football but I actually had a trial for Newcastle United on August 23rd 1973.
When I left school, the teachers had all these high hopes for me. “You’ll go to college… You’ll go to university… You’ll achieve…”
But, when I left school, I thought: That’s it! I’ve done my bit! I walked straight out of the system.
JOHN: You mentioned earlier in our chat that you’d been involved at the Buddhist monastery in Scotland. So your Buddhist inclinations…
WAVIS: I’ve never claimed to be a Buddhist. I’m non-religious. It just so happened that their system of Vajrayana felt natural to me, like I already had it innate.
Because of that Tibetan connection though, in 2012, there was a Tibetan lama who had found his way to Lincoln, where I was living. He didn’t have anywhere to stay. So I invited him to live with us. He had to keep going back to India for whatever reasons but, whenever he was in England, he lived with us.
This did not go down well with the missus.
The Tibetan lamas are very patriarchal, misogynistic and sexist. We had him living in a caravan. The missus did put up with him but in the end, after five years, I had to sack him. Things weren’t working out.
Every time I came home, it would be like: “You meditate… Meditate… Meditate…” The missus was not liking this and – fair do – there wasn’t the balance there.
The wife drives. I don’t. One day, she was driving the lama and me in our Jaguar. He’s in the front. I’m in the back. Suddenly, the wife lets go of the steering wheel and gets the lama in a headlock. They were struggling. He had never been in a headlock before. He’s not supposed to be touched by females.
JOHN: What was the outcome? I can’t help but feel a car crash may be involved.
WAVIS: Oh no, she wasn’t being irresponsible. She could be a stunt driver in a James Bond movie. Her talents are extreme.
JOHN: It was a brief headlock, then she put her hands back on the wheel?
WAVIS: Yeah.
JOHN: Somewhat surreal.
WAVIS: And it actually did happen.
JOHN: Why did she put him in a headlock?
WAVIS: I don’t know.
JOHN: You never asked?
WAVIS: I remember once, many many years ago, five of us were crammed in a car to go down to a Debbie Harry exhibition in London for the day. It was a long day. When we came back, one-by-one, everyone was going to sleep and then the driver nodded off.
We’re on the motorway.
I was sitting in the back and thought: I suppose I’d better wake him up.
JOHN: No car crash?
WAVIS: No.
JOHN: Vic & Bob took the surreal Geordie crown on UK TV. But you were about eight or so years before them.
Newspaper coverage of Wavis’ various exploits were extensive but his fame was cult not household
WAVIS: If you want to be a household name, you have to have people remember your name and identify your face. That is fame. I sabotaged both by changing my names when they were successful and masking myself in different disguises. I didn’t want to be a ‘household name’.
I actually gatecrashed the music business and television, but I didn’t want to remain in there.
I enjoyed being on the radio. I enjoyed being on the television.
But then I’d scarper.
JOHN: Why didn’t you want to be a household name?
WAVIS: Because then people want to be your manager, bleed you dry, tell you what you can do, tell you what you can’t do and stuff like that. I just wanted to be a cult cult cult. But it was always difficult to suppress commercial interests. Each time, it would snowball; it would get bigger and bigger; and I would think: I’ve got to retreat, because I don’t want to be a household name.
In 1983, Channel 4 offered me a six-part 30-minute series for my character ‘The Hard’, on the strength of my appearances on The Tube.
But I didn’t want to know, because I could have become a ‘household name’. I much prefer radio, where they don’t see you. I didn’t want to be part of ‘Celebrity’. I never set out to be a celebrity. I just shared what I could do and had a laugh with it.
People would say, “You’ve MADE IT in the record business… You’ve MADE IT in television.” They themselves would kill to be in those situations, but I didn’t want to be in either. I wanted to continue doing my sketches and songs and share them… appear for a time… then disappear.
JOHN: Under yet another of your many names – Dan Green – you were an author and researcher on the Wollaton Gnomes – In 1979, a group of children claimed to have seen about 30 small cars each with a gnome driver and passenger wearing yellow tights, blue tops and bobble hats. You researched what happened.
WAVIS: People want to put you in a shoebox. In the case of Wavis, it’s as an off-the-wall performer. But, if you say: “Oh, but I’m also a very serious writer and researcher and have had books published,” they’re kind disappointed. They always prefer the comedy. People would much prefer that I’m just this Wavis character they have seen more of.
But in my own private life – some of it possibly coming from the Tibetan mysticism – as Dan Green – I’ve written about world mysteries and tried my hand at being a bit of a British Poirot.
I – well, Dan Green – did a very controversial American DVD in 2011. I did a tour of American radio stations – I didn’t go there physically. I’ve appeared on Sky TV as Dan Green. There’s millions of Dan Greens, which is helpful for me as I just hide in among them.
Dan Green had a massive website, but I took it down last April. I was Dan Green from about 2005. I faded Dan Green out and retired him last April. He was too time-consuming.
Now I’m retiring Wavis. This chat is his last appearance.
JOHN: So what’s next?
WAVIS: What’s left of me?… I don’t know.
(AT THE MOMENT, THERE ARE CLASSIC CLIPS OF WAVIS ON YOUTUBE ON ‘THE TUBE’ )
Filed under Comedy, Eccentrics, Humor, Humour, Music, Television
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.
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… )
Filed under Art, Books, Comedy, Eccentrics, Performance
Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward has got in touch with me about the cult TV series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan…
John Ward wrote:
Patrick McGoohan made The Prisoner down the road from you at MGM Borehamwood in 1966-1967.
Patrick McGoohan, the Prisoner badge, the MGM envelope
I wrote to him when it was screened to say I thought the series was a cracker and a few weeks later a signed photo plus a Number 6 penny farthing badge came in the post…
Could this be THE badge that was used in the show? – Or just one of them?
I suspect that a few were made in case of cock-ups during filming – or to send out to fans. But, on the back of the badge I was sent – in the pin attachment – are visible grains of sand.
Some of the location stuff was filmed along the beach area at Portmeirion in Wales.
Years ago I did try to find out how many badges were made, but no joy.
In the 1980s, I ‘loaned’ my badge to the Six of One fan club for a Channel 4 programme Six Into One – The Prisoner File. I saw an article in the TV Times asking for anybody with any memories relating the original showing – 1967-1968.
So I wrote in.
Next thing I knew I had a ‘highly educated’ man calling me on the phone to say how wonderful it was that I had this ‘memento’ from the show.
The more he asked, the more he seemed to be drooling over it.
Could I send it, together with the envelope with the MGM logo, by recorded delivery, to him?
I duly did his bidding and got back a pile of their Six of One promo stuff about membership etc… and then… nothing, really.
I was never told when the programme was going out. By chance, I spotted it in the telly listings.
And then it took so much hassle getting it back from them!
I got the impression they thought I was going to give it them.
They eventually succumbed to sending the badge back to me in a registered envelope after loads of phone calls from me to them.
However…
MGM envelope franked
…the MGM envelope they had requested “to prove its authenticity” that I had sent together with the badge was not there – So back to the phone I went and told him in no uncertain terms I was not best pleased.
The MGM envelope appeared about a week later in a Royal Mail Registered envelope, with no apology or anything else, hence I have no time for the Six of One clique in any shape or form.
And, despite all this aggro the badge was not actually used in any context in the programme.
What is interesting is I cannot find any reference to the badge I have.
Okay, there are loads of shit copies on eBay, yes – But no mention of anybody saying they have the original badge at all.
Years ago our local newspaper – the Northants Evening Telegraph – ran an article on it but no joy. One idiot said he had bought ‘the badge’ while on holiday and he paid 50p for it in… well… in Margate..
He came round to see me, but it was a simple button type badge with a pin about the size of a 50 pence piece.
I may well take my badge along to an Antiques Roadshow at some point as I think, with the original MGM logo envelope, it has provenance, as they say.
(There is an interesting reply to this blog HERE)
The entire 50-minute opening episode of The Prisoner is currently available to view on YouTube… speeded-up so it lasts just 2 mins 33 secs…
…and there is 8mm film footage of the first episode being shot at Portmeirion…
Filed under Cult, Eccentrics, Entertainment, Television
“If you like fat blokes sweating, futuristic, nihilistic storylines, confusion… and a LOT…”
I blogged about the commendably eccentric Consignia comedy group at the beginning of last week.
They are currently at the Edinburgh Fringe
Their penultimate show is tonight; their run finishes tomorrow.
Yesterday morning,The Scotsman gave their show The Flatterers a 4-star review.
Critic Kate Copstick’s piece included: “I won’t understand Consignia. I never understand Consignia. I suspect that they, themselves, don’t understand Consignia. But some things are just not meant to be understood…
Phil, an otherwise amiable and admirable chap
“Consignia fans will be surprised at the use of an unexpected joke at one point, but, as usual, if you like fat blokes sweating, futuristic, nihilistic storylines, confusion, repetition and a LOT of poo, then this is undoubtedly the show for you.”
I thought it would be interesting for Consignia’s main begetter Phil Jarvis to write a review of his time at the Fringe this year.
The result is below.
The neglected brutalism of Glasgow’s Savoy Shopping Mall…
I should warn you in advance that Phil – an otherwise amiable and admirable chap – has an unfathomable adoration of brutalist architecture…
Edinburgh in the sunshine makes the city exceedingly beautiful, if that was even possible. However, I started off in Glasgow, enjoying the neglected brutalism of the Savoy Shopping Mall, which I give 10/10
At-swim comics Caitriona Dowden and Nate Kitch
Eventually, I make my way to Edinburgh, where I watch three afternoons in a row of Nate Kitch and Caitriona Dowden’s double bill, At-Swim-Two-Birds but it’s Two Comics called Nate Kitch and Caitriona Dowden at BrewDog (The Garage)… enjoying the masterful storytelling and deadpan delivery of Caitriona’s set and Nate’s commitment to pushing his ideas to unexpected outcomes. 10/10
Some of what surreal Alwin Solanky left behind in Uganda…
Alwin Solanky’s monologue at the Omni Centre – about his personal experiences as a refugee from Idi Amin’s Uganda – What You Leave Behind makes me cry each time I’ve seen it.
This is a show that deserves to be snapped up by arts theatres across the land, detailing the social relations of living in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s as a refugee, told through well-crafted vignettes and the approachable surrealism I have come to expect from Alwin. 10/10
Sisyphean Mark Dean Quinn really did have a stroke
Mark Dean Quinn’s show Mark Dean Quinn: Has a Stroke but at Least He Got a Show Out of It at the Revolution Bar is different each evening. The first set I see ends with a visibly distressed Mark. I overhear some audience members asking afterwards if that was real. Oh yes, all too real.
The next time I see the show, Mark puts himself and the audience through even more of an endurance test with a flip chart. I count only one walk out: a real feat considering Mark is possibly the most experimental comedian in the UK devoted to a Sisyphean struggle. 10/10
Bleeding Baby Train psychedelia with Rob Duncan
The Omni Centre venue has wonderfully put together performance spaces with stages, with an unfortunate consequence of sound bleeding from one show into another. This makes for an interesting experience.
Within this sound collage, I watch Rob Duncan’s Baby Trains which delivers the goods on a segue, a functioning train set prop in his hands, taking the audience on a journey of being a CEO and a teacher. Perfect psychedelia for my sunburnt scalp. 10/10
Ceci n’est pas un cheval… C’est un spectacle.
Also at the Omni Centre, I zoned out a bit to Soliloquy of a Horse, but my headspace was probably on the right planet for this tale of misadventure and redemption, performed in a stripped-back, low-fi aesthetic with no props, apart from a chair in the middle.
Perfect ground to just let your imagination run wild conjuring up the visions the storytelling leads you on. 10/10
I show my pal from Consignia, Nathan “Wilco” Willcock, the Basil Spence designed Canongate building (10/10), with the concrete fire exit taking our senses to a state of transcendence.
4-star Jarvis (L) plays it cool with Willcock…
On this high, we find out Kate Copstick has given our show a 4-star review in The Scotsman. Wilco is desperate to find a copy of The Scotsman. I just play it cool but, secretly, I’m happy.
As it turns out, the gig we do that evening is the worst it’s been the whole run. The costumes Nathan and I wear are now drenched in the fat man sweat we have unleashed over the run so far and humming hard. Nathan performs with minimal energy and I flounder not knowing how to riff off it. 0/10
I bury my sorrows by paying an overpriced £7.50 for chips, cheese and curry sauce, lathered in brown sauce (10/10) on the walk back to the digs.
St Andrew’s House: creates ecstasy for two (Photo by Daboss)
The next day, to rejuvenate ourselves, a trip up to Carlton Hill has Nathan and me ecstatic at the sight of the Art Deco St Andrew’s House (10/10).
We climb up the steps to Carlton Hill and Nathan is disgusted at the sight, in the distance, of a shopping mall that now looks like a Mr Whippy style turd (1/10).
Still, Edinburgh is pretty beautiful in the sun.
Consignia’s latest and possibly last ever show The Flatterers
Consignia’s latest and possibly last ever show The Flatterers ends tomorrow.
Sometime during that theatrical experience at the Banshee Labyrinth, they will also be giving out their Gareth Morinan Alternative New Act Of The Year Award.
I realise none of this venue information is of any practical use to my long-suffering reader in far-off Guatemala nor for anyone reading this three years hence, but I feel obliged to share it for completism’s sake.
Filed under Comedy, Eccentrics, Humor, Humour
Robert Wringham is not his real name…
Yesterday’s blog finished with:
ROBERT: 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.
Now read on…
JOHN: I am not in any way a performer. No talent; no interest in doing it. There is a different mindset between performers and writers, isn’t there? I’m not remotely a performer. I can’t ad-lib fluently in spoken speech, whereas I can write I think fluently quite quickly.
ROBERT: I don’t want to be truly me performing on stage; I want to be a character. I think I can just about hold my own in terms of fast thoughts, but what I can’t do is play the character at the same time. However, in Stern Plastic Owl and my other books, I think I CAN do that.
JOHN: So, when you were a stand-up, it was character comedy…
ROBERT: Not like Alan Partridge. It’s like what I said about ‘Robert Wringham’ and the doppelgänger. I want this clear line between the real me and what I’m showing, otherwise it’s not actually a creative act. I don’t want to go out there and just talk. I want to have a character and that was why I was not very good as a performer. I couldn’t really do that.
The way I’ve found round that problem is to do these books.
JOHN: By and large, I don’t like character comedy because, in television, I got typed as a finder of bizarre and/or eccentric ‘real people’. So I know there are loads of eccentric or even just slightly unusual people out there – well, most people are slightly unusual – and they are really interesting. So why should I watch someone pretending to be eccentric or unusual when they are not? – They are just analysing someone who isn’t themselves and fabricating a character to hide behind.
Charlie Chuck is not a subtle character study of a real type…
The closer a character act is to being real, the less I’m interested. The more ‘cartoony’ they are, the more I’m interested. Charlie Chuck springs to mind. Charlie Chuck (real name Dave Kear) is not a subtle character study of a real type of person.
ROBERT: One of my favourite comics is Harry Hill (real name Matthew Hall) and a lot of people don’t really think of him as a character comic although he is. You could not be like that in real life. I assume Matthew Hall at home is going to be nothing like Harry Hill.
JOHN: Yes, he’s a cartoon character – in a good way. I think really good straight stand-up comedians on stage are themselves, but slightly heightened versions of themselves. And then there are the OTT cartoony-type ones. But stand-up ‘character comedy’ tends to be just wannabe actors showing off their abilities, not performers who inherently have that odd ‘comedian’ gene.
I also don’t particularly like slow-speaking comedians. If I pay to see Jerry Sadowitz, I’m getting value for money in the words-per-minute, but slow comedians, by-and-large, I think: Just get on with it! I never liked Jack Benny. Too slow. Although, oddly, I liked George Burns.
ROBERT: To me, ‘slow’ is the ultimate cool because it’s the opposite of… When you’re nervous on stage, you go fast. A slow-speaking comedian instills a certain confidence in the room. You think: Oh! This guy knows what he’s doing! He’s going to slowly reveal the routine. It’s also very funny: almost as if they don’t care what the audience thinks.
JOHN: I guess maybe George Burns felt more Jewish to me, which I like. Jack Benny was maybe less ‘American Jewish’ humour.
ROBERT: My partner is Jewish and Jewish is a big part of our shared life. In my secret mind, ‘Robert Wringham’ is Jewish, though I don’t tend to talk about it on the page. My favourite humorists are all Jewish.
JOHN: S.J. Perelman?
ROBERT: Yeah. Woody Allen, Fran Lebowitz, Jon Ronson.
JOHN: So what’s next for you after Stern Plastic Owl?
ROBERT: I’m working on my novel. It’s almost done.
JOHN: Tell me it really IS about sitting in a bathtub and it’s called Rub-a-Dub-Dub…
ROBERT: Yes! It is!
JOHN: A lucky guess on my part. What’s the plot?
ROBERT: I think ‘plot’ is old hat. So, instead of going wide with a plot, go deep. It’s about the conscious state you have when you’re in the bath. You’re nostalgic. You’re thinking back. There’s this time machine effect. You’re thinking back to you childhood. So that’s what my guy in the book does. He’s remembering things, thinking of his worries, thinking on his body. There’s a lot of stuff about the body in it.
There is something called phenomenological writing, which is just the real nitty-gritty of what surrounds you. You’d be surprised how you can make that interesting.
JOHN: As I speak to you, I am looking at a squeezy pink double decker bus standing in front of a painting of a nun sitting in front of a station/cathedral. What is phenomenological writing?
“I am looking at a squeezy pink double decker bus standing in front of a painting of a nun…”
ROBERT: It’s really old. It’s a French thing. For example, Georges Perec did one where it was all in one building, but it was into the nitty-gritties. So he’d be talking about the design on the carpet for ages and going into the shagpile of this single room or the individual books in the bookcase and what they were. And it would all be in the service of something: like This is the character of the person who lives there. But it would be really deep into the nitty-gritty.
You would think: That can’t possibly be fun to read. But, actually, it’s really entertaining and interesting. What I’m doing and what Georges Perec did is playing it for laughs.
JOHN: I remember reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch and wondering why she went into such detailed descriptions of people’s houses… until I realised the descriptions were actually also descriptions of each householder’s personality. The houses personified their occupants.
This blog bit is just pure self-indulgence…
You were talking about dreams earlier on. I’m interested because I have an unidentified medical problem. I used to sleep soundly and deeply and never remembered my dreams. But now I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since June 2020 – I wake up literally every hour and, of course, sometimes I wake up in the middle of a dream. I always wanted to remember my dreams because I assumed they would be surreal but they’re not. The dreams I have are very realistic not surrealistic. They have narrative storylines running through them. I am disappointed. You sound like you have better dreams.
ROBERT: Mine aren’t stories at all. If I do something very repetitive during the day – like doing the washing-up – that’ll end up in my dream. Repetitive things go in. Embarrassingly dull.
JOHN: I don’t seem to have nightmares. Do you?
ROBERT: No. And, if I do write things down in my notebook, it’s always things like Stern Plastic Owl. I DID once write down Stoat: Hospital with a colon between the two words. I can’t even begin to imagine what that means.
JOHN: I can only dream of having dreams which are that weird.
Filed under Books, Comedy, Eccentrics, Performance
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
(Photo by Samuele Errico Piccarini via UnSplash)
Yesterday I was driving my red-coloured car along the road when a silver-coloured car came up beside me and accidentally bumped very lightly against it. It was more of a skim than a bump.
We both stopped and got out. I walked round to see if there was any physical damage but it was only superficial: some of the paintwork on my car had light grey scuff marks.
The other driver was very amiable and said: “Turpentine and meths will get rid of that. If you rub it on, it’ll be as good as new.”
He was a very pleasant man. I visited him in his office later and he was getting ready for some big event or other.
Later still, I was in the back of my van. There was a large carpeted shop in the back of my van. A couple of people from the United Nations – a young man and woman, as neatly dressed as Mormons, came in. I had met them at the amiable man’s office earlier.
We were standing chatting when a man with a broom came into the shop. He seemed to think that I was working for the amiable man’s organisation and he would be paid for sweeping the floor or rather, as it was, the carpet.
After he vigorously brushed the carpet there was, surprisingly, quite a lot of dust and minor bits of dirt which the man with the broom swept into a little pile.
Then he left.
And I woke up.
Life is but a dream.
Just thought I would mention it.
I no longer own a car. I haven’t for years.
Filed under Dreams
(Image by TheDigitalArtist via Pixabay)
On the morning of Christmas Day, I tested positive twice for Covid on a lateral flow test, although I had no symptoms. That same day, I was able to walk in to a PCR test area and get that more definite test. Two days later, that test, too, came back positive.
I had taken two lateral flow tests (morning and evening) on Christmas Eve which had been negative.
Current UK government guidelines for England said I should isolate for up to ten days from my first positive test. ie until Tuesday 4th January. But, if I took a lateral flow test which was negative on Day 6 and, 24 hours later, on Day 7, the rules said I could stop self-isolating.
On the evening of Christmas Day – the day I first tested positive – I had some internal flu-like shivers overnight; and the next night some lesser internal shivers. And, for the first four or five days of self-isolation, I had a new and persistent hard-edged hacking cough.
But, by Day 6, I was back to having no real symptoms.
However, on Days 6 and 7, I still tested positive for Covid.
Positive, too, on Days 8 and 9.
On Day 9 – that’s today – I phoned the government’s 119 Covid advice line because my attention had been drawn to the government’s own online advice, updated on 30th December.
The online advice said (and says):
“You should not take any more LFD tests (ie lateral flow tests) after the 10th day of your isolation period and you may stop self-isolating after this day.”
But presumably only if you test negative?… No. It doesn’t say that.
It continues:
“This is because you are unlikely to be infectious after the 10th day of your self-isolation period and should not take any more LFD tests after this date.”
The italics are mine. And there is no time period mentioned.
What is said – and still clearly says – is that you should stop self-isolating after 10 days come what may and, in theory at least, you should never again under any circumstances at any point take any other lateral flow test.
Obviously that cannot be the intended advice – that you should never again take a lateral flow test.
But the advice is clearly that, whether you test negative or positive on Days 9 and 10, you should stop self-isolating and re-join society.
This sounds mad and, I thought, cannot be the actual advice so, like I said, I phoned the 119 Covid advice line set up by the government.
Their on-the-phone advice was that, as a person triple-jabbed with vaccine, if I test positive on Day 10, I should self-isolate for 10 days although I could un-isolate if I test negative on Days 6 and 7.
“But,” I said, “the government website says I should not take a lateral flow test after Day 10, so I won’t be able to know if I test positive or negative on Day 6 and 7 of the new self-isolation period without taking a lateral flow test which, the advice says, I should not do.”
“That’s right,” I was told. “You should not take a lateral flow test after Day 10.”
“But, if I have to self-isolate after testing positive on Day 10, tomorrow, how can I know on Day 6 or 7 of isolating if I am positive or negative?”
“If you are negative you can stop isolating, otherwise you have to keep isolating until Day 10, at which point you can stop taking the lateral flow tests.”
“But I would not know if I were positive or negative without taking a lateral flow test and the government says, after Day 10, I should not take a lateral flow test.”
“If you do test positive, you have to isolate for another 6 days or until you have done 10 days in isolation and then you can stop isolating and do not have to do the lateral flow tests.”
They say Frank Kafka died on 3rd June 1924. I am not sure.
I have always been attracted to surreality but there are limits.
I am going to return to daily life after Day 10 while keeping a healthy, well-masked distance from people and will wantonly keep taking daily lateral flow tests even though I have no symptoms. If I have two consecutive days where the tests have negative results, I will feel less wary… though not of bureaucracy.
Filed under Bureaucracy, Medical, Surreal
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 