David Mills, chic gay comic with a nose for pussy, gets chatty about PrEP etc

Next Wednesday, American comic David Mills starts The Mix – the first in a monthly series of chat shows at the Phoenix Artist Club in London.

“You’ve got a bit of previous with chat shows,” I said, “with Scott Capurro and then with Jonathan Hearn.”

“And,” David told me, “I had a chat show with another comic in San Francisco maybe 20 years ago – Late Night Live – with this hilarious woman called Bridget Schwartz.

“She has since given up comedy. A great loss.

“We had big local San Francisco politicians, some of the big newscasters and drag queens – the same sort of thing I’m trying to create here. Not just people from the comedy world, but people from politics and culture and newsmakers.”

“So The Mix will not be all comics?” I asked.

“No. That’s why it’s called The Mix, John. Next Wednesday, we will have comic Jo Sutherland and the writers of Jonathan Pie – Andrew Doyle and Tom Walker who plays Jonathan Pie – and London’s Night Czar Miss Amy Lamé who will be talking about the night-time economy.

“For the second show on 19th April, we are currently negotiating to get a controversial politician and we already have comic Mark Silcox and Daniel Lismore, who is the current reigning Leigh Bowery of the world – like a crazy creature who has come out of some couture closet. A sort of Art Scenester. I don’t want it to be all comics. It’s The Mix.”

“Are you taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe this year?”

David Mills in his photograph of choice

“No. I won’t be playing Edinburgh this year. I’ve been going back to the US a lot – more regularly – so I haven’t been spending time writing a new show. I’ve been gigging in LA, gigging in New York, also I have family out there. Trying to make my way. But it’s a bit of a challenge to make your way in LA if you’re only there for two weeks every three months.”

“You could,” I suggest, “get a position in the Trump administration. He’s running out of people to nominate. Do you know any Russians?”

“There was Denis Krasnov,” said David.

“He seems,” I said, “to calls himself Jack Dennis now.”

“He’s the only Russian I know,” David told me. “He used to be on the circuit in London, then he went to New York. but I don’t think he can get me into government. Well, I don’t want to be in the Trump administration, but I’d work for Milania – perhaps as a stylist or a gay best friend.”

“You are in bigtime Hollywood movies now,” I said. “Florence Foster Jenkins. What part did you play?”

“The gay friend.”

“A lot of acting involved?” I asked.

“It was a real stretch for me, John, because… I don’t have friends. For research, I had to hang around with people who have friends and let me tell you – I don’t know if you know anything about friends, but – they’re a lot of work. There’s a lot of lying involved. Lots.”

“Where was Florence Foster Jenkins filmed?”

“All over. North London, West London…”

“It was supposed to be New York?”

“But filmed in the UK, which is why I got the job. They needed an American gay friend in London. So there’s basically me or Scott Capurro and Scott wasn’t around.”

“Stephen Frears directed it,” I said. “Very prestigious. So you might appear in other films.”

“Well, I’m in the short Robert Johnson and The Devil Man directed by Matthew Highton and written by Joz Norris. Guess who plays The Devil Man.”

“Joz Norris?”

“No. They needed someone with a suit. Who looks good in a suit?… I always get those parts. When Tim Renkow did the pilot for A Brief History of Tim, they thought: We need some guy in a suit… Who?… David Mills! – so I played the part of ‘Guy in a Suit’.”

David Mills & Tim Renkow in BBC3’s A Brief History of Tim

“Yes,” I mused. “Who wears a suit? So it’s either you or Lewis Schaffer. Strange it’s always you that gets the sophisticated parts and not him.”

“That’s because he doesn’t wear a sophisticated suit,” said David. “I love Lewis Schaffer – I’m not tearing him down, right?…”

“But?” I asked.

“…he would tell you as well,” said David. “It’s sort of a shabby suit.”

“Though he would be less succinct telling me,” I suggested.

“…and shiny,” David continued. “The suit. He’s had that suit for about 15 years. I try to keep mine up-to-date.”

“What else is happening in your life?” I asked.

“I’ve got a solo show – David Mills: Mr Modern – at the very chic Brasserie ZL near Piccadilly Circus on 23rd March.”

“Why is it called Mr Modern?

“Because it’s about modern life… and about me.”

“You do have your finger in a lot of pies,” I said. “If you see what I mean.”

“I find myself increasingly on TV talking about cats,” replied David.

“Why?” I asked.

“I did a thing called LOL Cats on Channel 5. They show videos of cats, then turn to a comedian who tells jokes, then they go back to the video and then back to the comedian. It’s a ‘talking head’ thing.”

“Are you an expert on cats?” I asked.

David admitted: “I know very little about pussy…”

“No,” said David. “I know very little about pussy. But I seem to have a nose for it. And LOL Cats went well, so they had me come back to do LOL Kittens.

“The guy at the cafe I go to every morning asked me: What were you doing on TV talking about kittens? And someone at the gym said: Why were you on TV talking about cats?”

“Cats then kittens,” I said. “They will have to diversify into other species.”

“There are still big cats,” David suggested.

“Have you got cats?” I asked.

“No.”

“Too difficult in London?” I asked.

David shrugged. “I’ve lived in London longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my entire life. 17 years I’ve been here. Sometimes, I have lived in London longer than most of my audience have been alive. Often they are students or other people aged under 22.

“There’s a risk with younger audiences that they won’t get my references, they may only have been in London six months and they may tend to be scared of anything remotely edgy.”

“Student audiences at the moment,” I said, “are very right-on PC.”

“It’s something,” agreed David, “that’s endemic across a lot of clubs where young people are the primary audience. They are very nervous about jokes that touch on any sort of identity issues – unless you are taking the ‘accepted’ position. I always try and tweak my audiences a little bit. Having come from a world of identity politics and having been through certain battles and marched on certain marches, I feel I have some justification to joke about that shit. But these people don’t have a sense of humour about sexuality or gender or race or…”

“Surely,” I suggested, “YOU can do gay jokes in the same way an Indian comic can do Indian jokes.”

“I do think it’s more charged when it comes to sexuality right now,” says David.

“You can,” said David, “if the target of your punchline is heterosexuality. But not if the target is homosexuality. Even if you ARE gay.”

“So,” I asked, “if I were a Scots or a Jewish comic, could I not safely joke about the Scots or the Jews being financially mean?”

“I think you can,” said David, “but I do think it’s more charged when it comes to sexuality right now. Particularly around gender. Gay comics invariably wave the rainbow flag.”

“You’re saying they can’t make jokes about,” I floundered, “I dunno, retro jokes about…”

David said: “It’s not retro to be critical, to have a critical take. It IS retro to be calcified in your position and unable to hear any criticism.”

“So you couldn’t,” I asked, “do a cliché joke about camp gays?”

“I wouldn’t want to. What I would want to joke about is the oversensitivity of the gay world and there is not a lot of interest in that at the moment.”

“What sort of jokes would you want to tell and can’t?”

“I do jokes about a drug a lot of gay men take – PrEP. They take it in order to then have un-safe sex – they don’t have to use condoms. It’s sort of a prophylactic for HIV. So I say: Of course I’m on PrEP. I am a gay white man. I demand a portable treatment for my inability to control myself. And You’re not getting your money’s worth on a gay cruise unless you come back with at least one long-term manageable condition. I try to collect them all.

“With those sort of things, people are thinking: Hold on! Are you making fun of people with HIV? It’s as if there is no ability for people to laugh at themselves.”

One man’s day at the Edinburgh Fringe: name-dropping, walking and hugging

Jo Romero – Scenes of a Sensual Nature with comic actors

A sign of the times yesterday morning.

I was sitting in Cowgate waiting to go into Jo Romero’s Scenes of a Sensual Nature – four playlets with Jo in various states of undress, Mick Ferry stripped to the waist, Gary Colman doing a sex tape, James Dowdeswell looking nervous and David Mills in a vest. Something for everyone.

So…

There I was, sitting in Cowgate typing a text message, when I heard a voice say: “Are you interested in comedy shows?”

It was a comedian whom I had seen in clubs a few times. We had never met. He handed me a flyer and pitched his show. When he left, I checked and, sure enough, we were Facebook Friends.

But we had never met.

Later, waiting to go into the Noise Next Door’s Really, Really Good Afternoon Show, I bumped into comedian Diane Spencer. She told me she had had ten Norwegians in her Power Tool audience the previous day. I told her comic Lindsay Sharman had had five Norwegians in her show the previous day. It sounded like they were different groups of Norwegians. I went and joined the Noise Next Door queue. The two people behind me started talking in Norwegian. Totally true. (I used to work for a Scandinavian TV company.) Inexplicable but true.

The Noise Next Door seem to come with a built-in TV aerial

The Noise Next Door are a faultless improv troupe. Why they do no have a TV series is more a reflection on TV producers and commissioners rather than on them.

After the Noise Next Door show, I went to see the Laughing Horse Free Comedy Selection show.

On the way, I passed Bob Slayer’s double decker BlundaBus venue. Bob told me: “I have a blocked urinal. Somebody was sick in it. This is the exciting end of running a bus venue.”

At this point, performer John Robertson joined us.

“Parking this bus,” continued Bob, “was easy but these toilets have cost me £1,000. I can’t afford to have them filling up. They are no-poo toilets. I hope people don’t find them. There are no signs to them. Have you seen the sign inside?

WE DON’T GIVE A SHIT AND WE
WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF YOU DO NOT TOO

Bob Slayer and John Robertson at the BlundaBus yesterday

“Bob’s toilets,” said John Robertson, “are the only venues on the Fringe you don’t want to have full.”

As John Robertson and I walked along the Cowgate, we saw comedian Patrick Monahan coming towards us.

“Oh dear,” I said to John, “he is going to, isn’t he?”

Sure enough, Patrick spread his arms wide, said nothing, hugged us both simultaneously and then continued along the Cowgate.

John and I then bumped into eccentric performer Mr Twonkey. John went into the Underbelly venue. I continued walking along with Mr Twonkey, who told me he had been unable to think up a decent idea to win an increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award. I tried to console him but it proved impossible.

When I got to the Laughing Horse Free Comedy Selection show it was, unlike Bob Slayer’ blocked toilet, filled to the brim and overflowing. I stayed to see Juliette Burton’s set. She hugged me. I left.

This gave me time to go and record a Grouchy Club Podcast with Kate Copstick.

Tim Renkow: man with a dangerous title

Then I went to see Tim Renkow’s show Kim Jong-Un, Muhammad, Jesus and Other Power Hungry Maniacs. Highly intelligent. Very funny. As expected.

Tim hugged me as I left and I went to have a chat with Kate Cook, who had asked to meet up so she could plug her show Invisible Woman.

“Food is essential here in Edinburgh,” she started.

I said: “It’s fairly essential everywhere.”

“Yes,” admitted Kate, “but somehow you really notice it is working as fuel here. I can’t eat just before a show and I ate too early this morning. So, by the time I was getting towards the end of my show today, I could feel the madness setting in. You have seen my show. It’s quite physical.”

“It is very good,” I said. “What sort of madness?”

“I miss my dog,” said Kate. “I think animals keep you sane. I do feel a little bit mad in Edinburgh, but maybe you need to. It’s completely mad here. In a good way.”

“How?” I asked.

“I suppose we’re all very vulnerable,” Kate explained.

“People,” I said, “talk about all the performers’ egos but I suppose all the vulnerabilities are feeding on each other too.”

Kate Cook – she misses her dog, but has a supportive Wolf

“We are all vulnerable,” said Kate, “and maybe we all need one another. I think everyone’s actually quite supportive of one another. I brought a technician up with me called Max Valentin Wolf. That’s a good name, isn’t it? He doesn’t look like he’s called Max Valentin Wolf.”

“Bob Slayer’s toilet is blocked-up,” I told Kate.

“On the BlundaBus?”

“Yes. Apparently it takes liquids but not solids. That is a bit of a drawback in a toilet. Where is your show?”

“The Mash House. It’s very nice. It smells of wood.”

“Like being buried alive?”

“No.”

“Any humorous show-publicising anecdotes?” I asked.

A wooden leg, one arm, a pipe and chickens

“I play lots of characters in the show,” said Kate. “Invisible Woman. You’ve seen it.”

“I have,” I said. “It’s very good,”

“It’s very fast-paced,” said Kate, “and yesterday I got some scenes mixed up, which has always been my nightmare. I was being the man with a wooden leg and I should’ve been the posh lady with one arm. So I had to apologise to the audience and make a joke about it and then become the lady with one arm. And, during the same show, a box full of rubber ducks fell off a chair backstage and you can imagine what sort of noise that made.”

“Quacks?” I asked.

“Chickens,” said Kate. “They were chickens.”

“What?” I asked.

“Well, I’m a chicken,” said Kate.

Then there was a distraction and we lost that line of conversation.

Kate joined me to see Die Roten Punkte: Haus Party.

Kate Copstick with low-key lip-syncing at the Haus Party

Frankly, you can’t go very wrong if you perform as a brother-and-sister German neo punk band duo with guests Paul Foot being surreal, a big black transvestite called Le Gateau Chocolat who can sing anything from Wagner to Whitney Houston, critic Kate Copstick lip-syncing a song and Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award winner Adrienne Truscott taking her clothes off. It was the second time in a week that I had gone to a show where Adrienne Truscott took her clothes off. I am not complaining. Just saying.

After all this finished, Kate Cook hugged me goodbye and I left for The Illicit Thrill at the Voodoo Rooms – a show which had been recommended to me.

Frank Sanazi and The Iraq Pack + two happy Iraq Pack fans

When I arrived, Frank Sanazi’s Iraq Pack were having photos taken with their fans.

I also bumped into Paul Eccentric, who is here in Edinburgh as a punter until, on Wednesday, his book The Edinburgh Fringe in a Nutshell is launched in Leith. (I blogged about the London launch last month) He had a large bandage on his hand.

Paul Eccentric. An arboreal tale of movement

“What happened?” I asked.

“I fell over a tree,” he told me.

“You fell over a tree?” I asked.

“It moved,” he explained.

“That’s the trouble with trees,” I said.

Waiting for The Illicit Thrill to start, I checked my e-mails.

Mark, a man of mystery who runs the British Comedy Guide website, had sent me a piece about Abigoliah Schamaun, who has been plastering fake review quotes and stars on her show posters. He suggested she might be a worthy Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award nominee.

Abigoliah Schamaun poster. A cunning stunt?

The quotes include: “A true talent!” (Just One Person’s Opinion) and “Funny. Hilarious. I laughed Loads!” (Rather Redundant Mag)

I must have not paid attention when The Illicit Thrill was recommended to me. It turned out to be a fairly straight hour-long strip show. Not really a Fringe show, more a well-produced strip show. In its own terms, it was extremely well-done, although excellent local rock band Black Cat Bone looked mildly embarrassed. We were given fake dollar bills on entry to stick in assorted garters and gaps.

Whereas Adrienne Truscott had been completely naked earlier in the evening, the professional strippers in The Illicit Thrill kept their lower regions thong-covered. Unless I missed something. I do not think I did. I am not sure what this difference in nudity between art and populist perv entertainment demonstrates sociologically (The Illicit Thrill’s slogan on the dollar bills is: Teaching Edinburgh To Perv Responsibly). But I am sure it must illuminate something.

Crisp Illicit Thrill dollar bills awaiting insertion late last night

The Illicit Thrill included Mother Masochista – a stripping nun – and, separately, JC – a Jesus Christ male stripper of whom I have been an admirer ever since seeing him in 2013 at a Frank Sanazi extravaganza at the Fringe.

Last night, he did not go as far as he did in that extravaganza, but apparently he returns to the Fringe in his own show next week: Christ on a Bike.

After that, I walked back to my flat at about 02.30 in the morning with the slightest of toothaches, amid a fairly common Edinburgh late-night event which is unbilled and rarely mentioned – flocks of giant white seagulls swooping low and fast along the roads and around the junctions, as if looking for small dogs, children or crushed egos to snatch off the darkened streets.

Sometimes I think I might as well have taken drugs.

 

Comedy critic Copstick’s buttocks and Twonky’s Stinking Bishop sans cheese

The two Mama Biashara Fringe preview shows

In Monday’s blog, I mentioned that Kate Copstick, my Grouchy Club Podcast co-host had woken up with a face that was “massively puffy. Eyes like currants in a dumpling. But a red dumpling.” (Her words.)

Tonight, I went to see one of the Edinburgh Fringe previews which Copstick is hosting at her Mama Biashara charity shop in London – the charity gets 100% of all donations. Well, there were two previews tonight – from Daphna Baram and Sajeela Kershi.

“You look paler,” I told Copstick when I arrived.

“But still not good enough to be photographed,” she said. “You know it’s not good if you walk in and the doctor says: Oh! My goodness!… She started poking at my face, saying: Oh! It’s hot! It’s hot!… Well, I mean, Hello!?? That’s why I’m here seeing a doctor!”

“What was wrong?” I asked.

“Apparently my lupus has kicked itself up a notch,” she told me. “It’s like a computer game and I’m now at Level 5. So I got a arseful of extra steroids. They’re amazing: it’s something called depomedrone. I got a buttock full of it and, believe me, my buttocks are fairly capacious.”

“You only got it in one buttock?” I asked.

“Well,” explained Copstick. “It is on the NHS. If I had gone private, I might have got two buttocksful.”

“So,” I said, “you now have a giant left buttock and a normal right buttock? Don’t you tend to fall off chairs when you sit down?”

Rare sight – shy Copstick – at Mama Biashara

“No,” Copstick told me, “I just sit with a slight tilt. My right buttock is full of a metal Kenyan replacement hip joint… I think I’m going to make it a thing with Mama Biashara comedy previews that, unless you are sufficiently ill, you can’t perform… People who have some kind of permanent condition… Romina Puma is here on 4th July and has muscular dystrophy, so that’s fine. Tim Renkow is here on Wednesday and he has cerebral palsy, so that means he qualifies. And we have already had Mel Moon.

“I am setting the bar. I have lupus. Anyone less ill than me does not get to come and do a show. I think that’s fair. Do you have any stinking bishop?”

“What?” I asked.

“Twonkey,” explained Copstick, “having created his marvellous new show, Twonkey’s Stinking Bishop, cannot find any stinking bishop.”

“What is a stinking bishop?” I asked.

“A fabulous cheese with a sort-of washed pinky rind and it pongs to high heaven and it’s absolutely delicious.”

“I don’t like cheese,” I pointed out, “so his chances of winning an increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award are fading fast.”

“If you mention it in your increasingly prestigious blog,” said Copstick, “just ask if anyone knows where Twonkey can get some stinking bishop in and around the Edinburgh area. It would make him very happy. Otherwise I may have to secrete some around my person on the MegaBus up to Edinburgh – which would be very unpleasant for everyone.”

“You could put it in your buttock,” I suggested.

“There is no space… steroids,” said Copstick.

“Your right buttock?” I suggested.

“Kenyan hip joint,” said Copstick flatly.

Twonkey’s Stinking Bishop (No, I have no idea why either)

After Daphna Baram and Sajeela Kershi’s previews, Copstick told me: “Twonkey says a sponsorship deal can be only hours away now your increasingly prestigious blog is involved.”

I puffed with pride.

“If you won’t let me take a photo of your face for the blog,” I asked, “can I take a photo of your left buttock?”

Copstick went off somewhere.

Relaxing Canadian cannabis bath bombs

She never came back.

I left.

When I got home, there was an e-mail waiting for me from Anna Smith, this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent.

“I just heard,” it said, “that the dispensaries in Vancouver sell marijuana bath bombs and THC ‘gummy bear’ candies.”

I have never taken recreational drugs but, sometimes, it just seems like I have.

Reality. Don’t talk to me about reality.

Sexism in comedy + a cripple, a lesbian, two ethnic minorities and a spaceman

Copstick & Faulkner podcast at Comedy Cafe

Yesterday, I blogged an extract from the latest weekly Grouchy Club Podcast, in which Comedy Cafe Theatre owner Noel Faulkner talked about smuggling 4 tons of marijuana into the US.

In another part of the podcast, this subject came up:

“… and it’s the same with female comics,” said critic Kate Copstick, “They go up on stage and you can see the whole room going: Oh, fuck! It’s going to be tampons and ‘my boyfriend’. And then the comic has got to pull the room back and that is just the way things are. There’s an awful lot of them sit around moaning because there is a type of Oh no! feeling in the room at some clubs at some times. If you’re good, you pull it back and people go: Fantastic!”

“But you,” I told Copstick, “notoriously don’t like female comics… it is said.”

“I don’t like bad comics,” argued Copstick.

“I agree with you,” said Noel Faulkner.

“I don’t like obvious comics,” Copstick continued. “Tim Renkow, for example, could do eight hours straight on the cerebral palsy thing, but he doesn’t. He just talks about life, happening to have cerebral palsy.”

“If Zoe Lyons goes on stage,” agreed Noel, “bang!– 2 seconds – I’ve seen her destroy wankers, whereas some comics would say I’m not going on to these bastards. Zoe Lyons? Bang!

“You’re not looking at someone for their sexuality; you’re listening; we’re there to hear the gags. If it’s from a woman’s perspective or a minority’s perspective, that gives it a hook of some sort. It can be funny to hear their perspective. Good comics are good; bad comics are bad.

“The problem is that there’s a scarcity of good female comics, so a lot of weaker female comics get right through to television because they (TV producers) are afraid of being called sexist and, as a result, we see some very weak females on television and that does a lot of damage.”

“This,” I said, “is the Andrew Lawrence argument.”

“There is nothing more sexist,” continued Noel, “than booking someone because of their sex. If I’m booking you because you’re a female and you’re not up to it, then that’s being sexist. But tell that to a lot of people who hate me.”

Copstick, relaxing (?) before recording Grouchy Club podcast

“That is absolutely, absolutely right,” said Copstick. “Also, some women who are minorly funny in any way – and THIS is the Andrew Lawrence point – are being booked to go on panel shows now because panel shows are running shit-scared of not having at least one cripple, one lesbian, two ethnic minorities and a spaceman.”

“I am still,” said Noel, “waiting to get booked for the lesbian spot.”

“Well,” said Copstick, “you can play the Tourette’s card (Noel has Tourette’s syndrome) – Oh, mind you, they’d be terrified of that as well, in case you say Fuck in the wrong place.”

“That,” said Noel, “would only be when they tell me what they’re paying me.”

“But,” continued Copstick, “they say: This person of the female persuasion has once written something vaguely funny in a column somewhere. Let’s call her a female comic and we’ll get her on Have I Got The Buzzcocks For Eight Out of Ten Cats.”

“Yeah,” said Noel, “there’s a lot of good female comics… I’ve seen a lot of bitterness from comics on all sides, but I’ve had more run-ins with females than males. Because the males think: Well, I’ve got to let it go because, if I tell the guy where it’s at, then he’s never going to book me. Who is going to book someone who argues?

“And I’ve had people twist my words. I said to one girl: You should be more feminine. You’re an attractive woman. Be more feminine on stage. Of course, it was thrown back in my face later in an e-mail, when I wasn’t giving her a 20-minute booking, that I had told her she had to be ‘sexier’. Think I’m that fucking stupid? In the last three years, I’ve had three really rude females and I’ve only had one nutter guy who never even got to the club because his e-mail was so rude.”

“What is the difference,” I asked, “between being sexually attractive and being feminine?”

“Oh John!” gasped Copstick. “Wash your mouth out!… You’re just saying that to be provocative.”

“That’s a matter of taste,” answered Noel.

“What is?” I asked.

“Well,” said Noel, “you asked the question What’s the difference between sexually attractive and feminine?”

“You,” I said, “were saying Be more feminine. She was complaining about being told to be more sexually attractive.”

“Some girls,” explained Noel, “that are very attractive, dress down and say: Well, I don’t want men looking at me for my body; I want them to hear my voice.”

“Well do radio,” suggested Copstick.

The successfully diversified yet slightly grouchy Noel Faulkner

“But,” continued Noel, “I said the same thing to a guy. I said: You look like the guy who just delivered the ice! Could you, like, wear a clean shirt? It’s show-business, folks! The business of showing. When you’re on stage, it’s 90% show, 10% business. When you’re off-stage, it’s 90% business, 10% show. Get that into your thick skulls and, if you wonder why I haven’t asked you back when you come here in a dirty, smelly tee-shirt and greasy hair… Everybody in the audience has dressed themselves up for the night, they’re all looking beautiful and you put on this greasy guy. Are you charging me £15 to see this guy?”

“Yes,” agreed Copstick, “because it also looks like they don’t give a shit. It’s the register of your attitude to the people you’re going to see. If you’re going to see prospective in-laws, you’d presumably smarten yourself up a bit. If you’re going to a business meeting, you’d wear…”

“If you’re from Liverpool,” Noel prompted., “and you’re going to court…”

“Exactly,” said Copstick. “What do you call a man in a shirt and tie?… The Accused… But the other thing that irritates me and you get it a lot – I don’t know why I’m on Facebook, because it just irritates me – is this thing of… Oh, somebody said (a venue said) they had two female comics on the bill and didn’t want a third. Well, if you’re doing a really mixed bill, if you already had two very heavily political comics, you probably wouldn’t book a third. If you had two guys who only do puns…”

“Yeah,” agreed Noel. “That’s why (as a booker) you always have to see the material. You mix it up. It’s like making a bloody salad. You say: How many colours have I got in this salad and…”

“I’m not sure,” Copstick interrupted, “that you’re allowed to say ‘colour’ now..”

You can hear the full 36 minute podcast HERE.

And you can see the video  of a 3-minute conversation Copstick had with Noel AFTER the podcast recording ended, on YouTube HERE.

Edinburgh Fringe: Bob Slayer on being ripped-off and pulling-off another comic

Bob Slayer – a life in performance art both on and off stage?

Kate Copstick was not at the increasingly prestigious Grouchy Club yesterday afternoon because she was off seeing a show in one of her other hats – as one of the four judges on the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards.

In her place was comedian, promoter and Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award winner Bob Slayer, a man of a thousand hats. The previous day, Bob had sent a text message to me, Kate Copstick and others saying: “I’ve had a creative breakthrough – I’m not a comedian. I’m a performance artist.”

Among the audience at The Grouchy Club yesterday was Stuart Richards, who is staging LaughDance at the Fringe.

Bob Slayer (left) & Stuart Richards yesterday

“It’s stand-up set to dance,” he explained. “It’s basically a stand-up comedy show. Each comic comes out and does their ten or fifteen minutes and we have four professional dancers behind who interpret the comedian’s set. For example, we have comedian Tim Renkow, who has cerebral palsy, and he tells a story about getting into a fight with a neo-Nazi while, in the background, we have two dancers doing Brazilian martial arts dancing.”

“Mocking him, really,” said Bob.

“That’s exactly the schtick that Tim takes,” said Stuart. “He starts screaming at them.”

“What do you do between Fringes?” a shrewd member of the audience asked.

“My day job,” said Stuart, “is a development producer with a TV company.”

“All development producers do,” said Bob, “is try to not get anything commissioned, because then they would be putting their head above the parapet… I have an idea… Fat Jockeys…

“I used to be a jockey. Me and another ex-jockey who is the right height, but round… We have a bet who was the best jockey and the only way to settle it is to lose weight, get fit and have one last race.”

“There’s definitely something in that,” said Stuart.

“With each element,” said Bob, “you can have little side bets like Who has lost the most sweat?”

“Basically,” said Stuart, “at the end of the week, you only get to ride if you have lost enough weight – otherwise the horse will buckle.”

“We could go for liposuction,” suggested Bob, “and see who will make the biggest body fat candle… This idea – Fat Jockeys – has been ‘in development’ twice.

“TV people love the idea of Fat Jockeys then, six months down the development line, they say: Oh, we need to attach a celebrity to it. This happened and I said: Great! Lee Mack used to be a jockey. He looked after Red Rum. Johnny Vegas loves horse racing… And they said: Yeees… We were thinking Jeremy Kyle. Apparently he owns horses and likes horse racing. Clare Balding was interested in it.”

The real Devvo at Bob & Miss Behave’s Bookshop yesterday

“Can you tell the Devvo story?” I asked. “Or is that actionable?”

“Now,” said Bob, “we are getting onto my REAL beef with TV development producers. Devvo had a development deal about five years ago, first with Channel 4, then with the BBC.

“He had millions and millions of views online pre-YouTube and, when YouTube came along, he was one of the first YouTube stars.

There is an E4 video of Devvo on YouTube:

“The development people all said: We love Devvo. He’s not just someone dressed-up as a chav doing two-dimensional jokes. He inhabits his world; it’s not just crappy one-liners ridiculing chav culture.

“We did all sorts of bits of TV and then the BBC said: Can we put a laughter track on it? And we said: Well, no. The whole thing is it inhabits a real world. Then, a bit later, they asked: What’s his real name? They basically wanted to say THIS IS A CHARACTER … No!… The whole thing is it’s real.

“Then we got an e-mail – not even a phone call – saying he wasn’t going to be in this show and, when it was screened, who was in it? Lee Nelson, who was just somebody dressed up as a chav doing horrible jokes about chavs and he then went on and had Devvo’s career. I didn’t blame him so much, it’s just bloody TV producers! They wanted to commission Devvo but then they got cold feet.”

After the Grouchy Club show, Bob and I bumped into comedian Jeff Leach.

At the end of yesterday’s blog, I mentioned being told that the phrase John Fleming’s spunk in her eye featured in Jeff’s late-night rap battle against Sofie Hagen. Feigning shock, I wrote: All I know is that I feel soiled. Desperately soiled.

Jeff, apparently, was worried I had seriously been offended and had sent me an amiably soothing e-mail.

Jeff Leach (left) and Bob Slayer yesterday

“Ah, Jeff Leach!” said Bob when we bumped into him. “I once wanked him off in a venue very near here, because he was dying on stage and the promoter said: Bob, can you pull him off stage. And all I heard were the words Pull him off. But whenever I tell this story, Jeff says: I wasn’t dying. I wasn’t dying.”

“What happened,” said Jeff pleasantly, “was I was on stage…”

“We used to have a friendship,” said Bob pleasantly.

“But then,” said Jeff pleasantly, “I heard some terrible things about you and I decided I didn’t want to be friends with a man who makes women feel that uncomfortable… So… what actually happened was I was on stage and Bob was very drunk and loud and obnoxious at the back and I said: Oh, Bob wants to be part of the show. So I said: Come up here and Bob thinks he’s a very shocking comedian; he’s always going to take it a step too far. So I said: Get yer cock out and he did, so I got my cock out and I grabbed his and he grabbed mine. That’s what happened. And I did not win the Malcolm Hardee Award despite doing that.”

“I love,” said Bob pleasantly, “how you’ve changed that version to put you in the centre.”

“Of course,” said Jeff pleasantly, “because I was the one booked to perform that night.”

“I was on after you,” said Bob pleasantly “I had to clean up the mess. What was interesting was the guy in that show whose face we wanked into – it was his first day at the Fringe and, this year, he’s doing the world record for the most shows at the Fringe. He’s seen 128 shows so far and I think he’s just looking for something near that first experience.”

“He’s never going to get it,” said Jeff.

“Has he been to see your show yet?” asked Bob.

“I’ve no idea,” said Jeff.

“I think you’ll find he hasn’t,” said Bob pleasantly. “Because you were dying on stage that night and he didn’t like you much and he thought I was very funny.”

“I don’t have to respond to anything that comes from Bob Slayer,” said Jeff pleasantly. “You ARE Bob Slayer; you are, in a sense, a walking piece of art.”

Perhaps all comedians are performance artists off-stage.

Expect a TV development deal soon for Bob Slayer and Jeff Leach in a reality show.