A couple of days ago, I was asked to appear on GBNews’ today to give my opinion on the future of comedy.
And, sure enough, last night I appeared briefly on the Mark Dolan Tonight show. That will teach them never to invite me on a TV show again! I can be quite fluent verbally – in writing – but I am in no way vocally fluent. I’m not a fluent speaker. I gibber.
Anyway, I was one of three comedy ‘experts’ on Mark Dolan’s show, the others being US podcaster and author Drew Allen and the wonderful British showbiz legend that is Christopher Biggins.
I think GBNews may have mistaken me for someone else, as I was called a “highly-respected comedy journalist”.
Anyway… because this is MY blog, it’s all about Me, Me Me… so here are the excerpted bits with me. Spot the inconsistencies…
Mark Dolan Tonight with (L-R) Mark Dolan, me, Drew Allen and Christopher Biggins
MARK: You’ve written extensively for many years on the subject of comedy. Do you think it’s dying?
JOHN: I don’t think it’s dying. I think it’ll probably change. I mean, it goes through periods, doesn’t it. Hello Biggins! I used to work with him on Surprise! Surprise!…
I think television has changed now. In the days of Surprise! Surprise!, what producers did was they made programmes that they themselves liked which appealed to viewers.
Alan Boyd at London Weekend TV produced Surprise! Surprise! because he liked the sort of programmes that people wanted to watch. Nowadays, I think people are producing the sort of programmes they THINK the ‘lower classes’ want to watch.
So all these Oxbridge people are making programmes for people in Essex they don’t really know.
MARK: John, do you think Brexit has been a problem for British comedy? That sort of dividing live between Remainers and Brexiteers has been a really divisive aspect in comedy. Because I do know of comedians, John, who have been cancelled for being pro-Brexit.
JOHN: Well, I think it’s a problem in Society, isn’t it? I think by-and-large – a gross exaggeration but – by-and-large comedians tend to be Left Wing because they possibly rail against authority and that’s a good thing for comedy. So most comedians are Left Wing and, if you’re Left Wing, you take certain views. And, by-and-large – by-and-large – Brexit was a Left/Right divide.
MARK: What about shows like The Mash Report which seem to be one long attack on the Conservative Party and Brexit.
JOHN: I think again, that’s because television producers nowadays make programmes for themselves and their mates who have lunch in Soho wineries. They don’t make programmes for the punters.
In my glorious days when I was young in the late 17th Century, comedy television programmes were on in peaktime. They were on at 7.30/8 o’clock at night. Nowadays comedy tends to be either on minority channels like BBC Three or very late night or at 9 or at10.30.
In my day, comedies were populist. Nowadays, in a strange way, it’s elitist, because it’s made by people for their chums not for the people who are actually watching the programme.
MARK: We’ve seen, haven’t we, some comedies being given a trigger warning at the start of the show… We saw an episode of Fawlty Towers which was actually removed from its platform for a while, even though the episode contained a message of anti-racism which the Woke Warriors didn’t seem to get the memo on. That one.
And then you’ve got shows like Little Britain which have been Cancelled by the organisation that made them – the BBC. I mean, Little Britain – OK, it was hit and miss – but at times it was wildly offensive and wildly hilarious, John.
JOHN: Yes, I think you have to be offensive to be… I think the key thing is the word ‘PUNCHline’.
At the end of a joke there’s a punchline and you laugh at the punchline. The reason you laugh, you lose control of your body, is because you’re getting a release because there’s a surprise – something you don’t expect. It’s a release. I gibbered there, but a punchline triggers a release.
MARK: John, last word goes to you. You’ve been writing about comedy for a long, long time, who are the greatest British comedians of all time in your view?
JOHN: Oh, you and Leo Kerse, obviously. (THEY HAD TAKEN PART IN THE PRECEDING SHOW ON GBNews)
MARK: (LAUGHS) God bless you. Have you been drinking again, John?
JOHN: (LAUGHS) I don’t drink.
It depends what you mean by ‘greatest British comedians’. Michael McIntyre is a great comedian, but I wouldn’t go and see his show because it’s gonna be the same every night. It’s a very slick show, I prefer to see very uneven shows – rollercoasters – so… I wrote Malcolm Hardee – a great comedian – ’s autobiography. So I’d like to put in a plug for Malcolm Hardee as being an anarchic comedian who should be better known.
MARK: A wonderful comedian. I was doing a show at Up The Creek, his legendary comedy club in Greenwich, and towards the end of the set I said to the audience: “I’ll be back.”
And he shouted from the side of the stage: “No you won’t!”
There you go. Comedy’s always got a victim and on that occasion it was me…
(THE ENTIRE EDITION OF THIS MARK DOLAN TONIGHT SHOW IS CURRENTLY ON YOUTUBE)
Now fellow comedian Eric (Just Eric) adds his own tribute…
When I saw the headline BRITISH COMEDIAN DIES ONSTAGE, I thought: Oh, that will be Cogs…
Then, when I saw the full story, I was devastated to see that, tragically, my instinct was correct.
Like Malcolm Hardee before him, probably no-one ever expected to read the words “After a long battle with illness, he passed away peacefully in his sleep.”
Cogs just wasn’t that kind of guy.
He died as he lived, in the spotlight, commanding full attention, with no-one quite believing what they were witnessing.
We all have our own memories of Cogs and bizarrely I have enjoyed reading the stories that others have shared of this marvellous mischievous maverick.
I first met Ian Cognito at Malcolm Hardee’s Up the Creek comedy club when, as he passed my table en route to the stage, he scooped up my pint and drank it while headlining the night.
The Greenwich club was a renowned bear pit and it wasn’t long before he got his first heckle. Whenever this happens, it is the stock-in-trade of the comedian to deliver smart-put downs in response and the more cutting they are the better; and Cogs could cut anyone to the quick. But Cogs didn’t just embarrass his detractors: he went further, much further. He would intimidate them.
So, climbing across the seats in the direction of the hapless heckler and standing astride the back of the chairs either side of him, Cogs delivered his withering repost, while towering over the now cowering heckler. Not surprisingly, it was the only heckle that he received that night.
Given what I had just witnessed from his awesome onstage persona, I did consider saying nothing and just getting myself another beer. But, with what I now realise was a somewhat foolhardy and reckless regard for the ‘perceived’ risk to my personal safety, I summoned up all my courage and, after the show, I challenged him about drinking my pint.
I was then astonished to find him most apologetic. He had just made an honest mistake, confusing my Guinness for his own, which he then realised he had absent-mindedly left on the bar.
So he bought me a replacement and, with a mutual love of the black stuff and comedy in common, it was the start of a friendship I could never have expected. Over the next few years, I did numerous gigs with this comedic whirlwind, who would proudly announce to audiences that he had been banned from more comedy clubs than any other comic.
But that brash onstage (and sometimes offstage) persona belied the sensitive, caring, supportive soul which lay beneath.
I should imagine that anyone who ever had the privilege of being invited to his home will have the memory of that visit etched on their memory forever.
I certainly remember my first visit. Pulling up in a layby in the middle of nowhere, thinking: Why on earth would he want me to meet him here? Only to find Cogs suddenly emerging from a bush and extending an invitation to climb over a crash barrier and down a bank. Where, only a few yards from the busy highway, a boat is moored on a slow-flowing river in an unfeasibly serene spot.
In my experience the standard invitation would include a meal, which Cogs would cook in his galley while his guests sat on the bank enjoying the unexpected calm after the long drive from London.
Then, over lunch, we were treated to a side of this quiet, reflective, thoughtful man that his audiences would probably never get to see.
Then, it seems, no-one would be allowed to leave, without first choosing a book from his shed to take with them. I remember choosing The Book of Shit Towns.
Then it would be back into the car and on to the gig, where it was sometimes difficult to reconcile that the astonishing and aggressive performance the audience and fellow performers alike were treated to that evening was delivered by the same man who had humbly dished-up the pasta a shortly before, while sharing stories about his children.
When I first visited Paul (his real name was Paul Barbieri) and discovered that he lived on a boat, he said: “It’s the most interesting thing about me.”
Which is patently untrue.
No, it isn’t, Cogs, YOU are the most interesting thing about you!
Some things I know. Some things I will never know.
One thing I do know is that the world of comedy has just become a far less interesting place without you…
We have lost another shining light from our world.
What is it that is said about the flame that burns brightly…?
Malcolm Hardee – known for running notorious comedy clubs
Exactly 14 years ago tonight, comedian Malcolm Hardee drowned in Greenland Dock in the Rotherhithe peninsula, London.
He maintained his principles, even in death.
When his body was raised from the dock several days later, he was still clutching a bottle of beer.
Malcolm was famed for spotting and helping talented comedians at the start of their careers. He was also known for running and hosting the Tunnel Palladium club night – a Sunday evening show with good professional acts but also an ‘open spot’ section so dangerous for new acts to perform in that aspiring comics would sometimes travel hundreds of miles to see if they could survive an audience known and feared for its razor-sharp heckling.
After the club was raided and closed by the police for drugs offences (NOT on one of Malcolm’s nights – he only did Sundays) he opened Up The Creek comedy club in Greenwich where, initially, the hecklers continued their trade.
Here, I chat to one of the Tunnel’s most effective hecklers – Gordon ‘Bres’ Breslin.
Gordon Breslin – a taste for heckling
JOHN: You got a taste for heckling at the Tunnel club…
BRES: Well, before that, me and a friend used to go to Speaker’s Corner on a Sunday afternoon and absorb some of the heckling of speakers that was going on. I remember heckling the Reverend Donald Soperon occasion, when he was preaching there. That’s where we cut out teeth.
JOHN: Did Lord Soper take it well?
BRES: He did indeed. He was a very nice gentleman. After that, though, we discovered the Tunnel club.
JOHN: You were regulars.
BRES: Yes. And the heckling was quite good fun. To start with, it was limited to the open mic spots.
JOHN: But all heckling is surely cruel and nasty.
BRES: Sometimes it is cruel and nasty but sometimes an act just needs to go if they’re not very good.
JOHN: But these poor, sensitive people have spent months refining their act…
BRES: Well, being heckled is how they know it needs more refining. If an act is really bad, something should be done apart from walking out. I think audiences have become too tolerant of bad acts these days. Back in the Tunnel days, it could be quite rude – “Get off! You’re shit!” This was 1984 to 1989.
But word got out about the heckling there and it got progressively more ermmm… ‘aggressive’ I guess is the word.
JOHN: Well, I guess throwing beer glasses at the acts is aggressive.
BRES: Yes, but people like Simon Munnery were cutting their teeth there and he didn’t mind a bit of heckling. There used to be a very good heckler at The Tunnel called The Pirate…
JOHN: I think Malcolm told me The Pirate was a stockbroker who retired early to Spain with lots of money.
Mike Myers (left) and Neil Mullarkey perform at Malcolm Hardee’s Tunnel club in 1986 (Photograph by Bill Alford)
BRES: His great one was… A comic would make his best joke of the night and The Pirate’s voice would be heard saying “Oh larf… Oh larf… Oh larf,” which would just floor the comedian. Some of the heckling was very very funny.
JOHN: And the best heckles are…?
BRES: I think the art of the heckle is… A heckler wants to make a funny gag and make the audience laugh and perhaps even get the biggest laugh of the night and – not necessarily make the comic feel small, but – make the comic appreciate the heckler’s one one-liner as well.
JOHN: Surely it is just solely to make the comic feel small.
BRES: Well, in a way. But the comic has the right of reply, so he can make the heckler feel even smaller. A lot of people don’t want to sit in the front rows because they don’t want to be picked-on by the comic. Let’s get it into perspective. For me comedians, if they are any good, will always pick on the front row. So they have more than ample opportunity to get their retaliation in first.
JOHN: So heckling is the audience picking on the comedian, not the comedian picking on the audience.
BRES: Exactly. That’s the one. As long as it’s fair and just. At The Tunnel, some of the comedians would come on looking nervous and, before they’d even said a word, the first thing shouted out was: “Maaallcolm!!!” Then someone else would take up the cry: “Maaallcolm!!!” Then the whole audience would end up shouting “Maaallcolm!!!” and, before the comedian had even said a word, it was not unknown for the act to walk off without even doing a joke.
JOHN: And the audience would sometimes call out for a taxi…
BRES: Yes. “Cab for (the comedian’s name)!” Those were the regular heckles. But then it got a bit overtaken by… Well, a bit violent, I should say – Throwing things and it… it got… erm… too bad. There was an incident where Clarence & Joy Pickles (Adam Wide & Babs Sutton)… I think it was a beer crate or something like that was thrown at them – something quite chunky…
JOHN: Malcolm told me he wasn’t the compere that night. I think he was maybe at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Malcolm made a mistake in giving a copy of this letter to each member of the Tunnel club audience
BRES: I think she sustained a cut – Joy Pickles. So, the following week, there was a letter to the audience from Tunnel Arts – which was Malcolm – asking all members of the audience to “refrain from throwing anything at the stage… The Tunnel Club is noted for its witty heckling and appreciation of a good act. Let’s not spoil it by behaving as animals. It is coming to a point where a lot of good acts are thinking twice about performing here (quite rightly so) and this means that your enjoyment will be impaired.”
A copy of this letter was put on every seat in the Tunnel club and, of course, when Malcolm came on stage, he got bombarded by people throwing screwed-up letters and paper aeroplanes at him. So the letter became a surreal heckle.
JOHN: My memory is that, sometimes, they didn’t just throw beer glasses at the acts; they sometimes threw half-full glasses so there was beer all over the place too.
BRES: Well, it was probably quite watered-down beer.
JOHN: The heckling-off of acts was quite effective.
BRES: Yes. Sometimes self-defeating. Sometimes you might have seven or eight acts and the show would be over in half an hour because everyone had been heckled off – sometimes even the good ones.
Jools Holland (left) with Malcolm Hardee at the Tunnel club in 1985 (Photo by Bill Alford)
JOHN: Malcolm told me that, after the trouble with Clarence & Joy Pickles, he had to make it a members-only club and he then discovered lots of the audience were not local. They were coming through the Blackwall Tunnel from north of the Thames and a lot were very highly-paid, highly-educated City workers, which was why the heckling was of such a high standard. I think someone was once heckled off in Latin and looked a bit surprised.
BRES: Yeah.
JOHN: What was your job at that point?
BRES: (LAUGHS) I was a Lloyds underwriter, working in the City.
JOHN: So basically it was up-market scum causing the problems.
BRES: Exactly. (LAUGHS) But I am from humble beginnings. I guess the Tunnel club had a timely demise and we were then a bit bereft of anywhere to go. We tried out Jongleurs club in Clapham, but the comedy was never great there and we weren’t allowed to heckle. We were physically told-off by bouncers. Luckily, Malcolm then set-up Up The Creek in Greenwich, which didn’t have the same notoriety as the Tunnel.
JOHN: I think the brothers who co-owned it with Malcolm told him after a few weeks that he couldn’t allow heckling and throwing things. Though I do remember some open spot act who got up on stage and started reading poetry. He was a bald man and you could see the blood trickling down his forehead after something was thrown and hit him.
BRES: I was there when Eddie Shit was performing. He came on dressed as Freddie Mercury and was singing songs by Queen with all the lyrics changed to refer to shit. I was sitting down the front and we were getting things passed to us from the back – including glass ashtrays – to throw at him. Which, obviously, we never did.
There was one occasion when an act which really was shit had been using a real frozen chicken and they ended up throwing this frozen chicken at the audience. The audience kept it then, slowly but surely, it made its way down the front. It came to me and I remember getting up on stage and offering it to Malcolm and I think I started up the chant “Shag the chicken! Shag the chicken!” which the whole audience took up.
So Malcolm got his knob out and duly obliged.
That was quite amusing.
JOHN: Did you make friends with the other hecklers?
BRES: Yes. And some of the acts as well. It wasn’t all animosity. Simon Munnery, Martin Soan, Boothby Graffoe, Rich Hall. We would leave the good acts alone and they would leave us alone.
JOHN: Mostly, I thought the hecklers at Malcolm’s clubs were firm but fair.
BRES: I would like to think that.
JOHN: Part of the training process for new comedians. You don’t get much heckling nowadays.
BRES: The demise of heckling is down to the extra tolerance we have nowadays, even for bad acts. There are hidden boundaries these days. There’s too much respect for comics these days. Performers don’t know how to give a riposte and, as a heckler, you don’t want to show them up. It would just stump them.
JOHN: Isn’t that the point?
BRES: Not always. The next generation should learn what “Maaallcolm!!!” means.
The last time I performed at The Tunnel was going as well as the others (the first heckle I got was: “Fuck you, Bronski Beat banana cunt”) when, after about ten minutes, a large skinhead got up on stage and stood there very gently holding my hand. This was unusual enough to quieten the room and the rest of the set went comparatively well.
Afterwards, the guy disappeared and Malcolm tried to explain to me that he was the ghost of a guilty heckler who had been killed on the way home from the last gig. Malcolm then suggested that the decent thing to do would be to donate my fee to the bereaved family – I count myself lucky that he eventually agreed to let me keep enough money for a cab and I still went home thinking he had done me a favour. I hope whatever God he believed in has put his name on the guest list.
FRANK HARDEE, Malcolm’s son – 11th February
There are too many memories of dad to write them all down here. Many of the memories that have been left so far have been to do with ‘comedy’. But as many of you know dad’s whole life was one big comedy, whether it be nearly sinking at midnight coming back from a boat trip ‘adventure’ up the Thames and we had lost all power and we were floating with the tide and the mobile had no battery left, so we couldn’t phone the PLA. Or whether it be blagging our way into the Millennium Dome before it was complete and there were still security guards everywhere – but we were still the first members of the public inside the Dome!
The thing that dad and I shared in common was our love for quizzes – I was brought up on quizzes. No cartoons for me as a child, but Bullseye, 15 to 1, Countdown followed by Going for Gold. Even recently we’d still watch The Weakest Link and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? There are many more memories which I shall be sharing at the funeral. Hope to see you ALL there. Let’s give Greenwich council one last headache from Malcolm. Take care Frank xxx
I was both privileged and unfortunate enough to play the Tunnel Club and Up The Creek many times. Like every comic I’ve spoken to over the last few days, I can clearly remember every Tunnel gig I did. It was the hardest club to find. It was on the most unpopular going out-night of the week. There was no quality control on the open spots. How could it possibly succeed?
It did, because it was totally in Malcolm’s image. Raucous, sometimes brutal, often generous. I remember some years later doing an out-of-town gig with Malcolm – Norwich I think it was – and when I came off he said: “How come you’re not shit anymore?” A compliment I have always cherished.
MARK HURST aka MARK MIWURDZ, comedian – 14th February
Many good memories – Coming down from Sheffield in 1983 to do the Tunnel for the first time and staying at Malcolm and Pip’s afterwards.Tripod had shit everywhere. Doing gigs in Chorley with Malcolm who brought the baby Frank with him. I fed him on the car journey home. Frank, that is, not Malcolm. Lots of boozy nights after shows of course. Malcolm lent me Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome, a few years back. He said it was his favourite book. I never got to give it back to him. I’ll keep it now.
I first met Malcolm in a bar in Edinburgh in the 1980s; he had a profound influence on me. Malcolm was a legend and a true Gandalf of the dark alchemy of the publicity stunt. One of my last conversations with him was when David Blaine was doing his stunt in London, sitting in a glass box dangling from a crane. Malcolm rang me up to ask if I could help him organise the media and a crane because he’d got one of his mates in Deptford to knock up a glass box and he was going to put his up right next to Blaine and sit in it for the same amount of time… stark naked. When I told him he’d never get away with it, he decided to settle for standing underneath Blaine throwing chips at him. As anyone who ever saw him perform will know – he had balls.
He once told me that getting angry wouldn’t work for me. What the fuck kind of advice did he give to people he managed? In his own words, “He was shit but I’d fuck him”
Myself, Matt Hardy, Shane Bourne and any others who want to attend his funeral and show their respects will be holding our own southern hemisphere celebration of Malcolm Hardee’s life. St Kilda Pier – 11 hours ahead of the UK service. Rum and coke obligatory.
Malcolm, I was at your birthday a few weeks ago and I remember many times backstage at Glastonbury – bringing me on to nothing!… and playing trivia machines at Up The Creek. I remember you pretending to faint in the Gilded Balloon – to see how many people would come to your aid. I remember spending an afternoon rowing boats on a trip to a gig in Bungay. And all those times I don’t remember ever hugging you and telling you what a great bloke you are. And I regret that.
Malcolm, Glastonbury won’t be as fun without you being there to take the piss out of it. The Tunnel was the beginning for so many of us – and the end – a level playing field where only you were king. xx
I did my fourth guest spot at the Tunnel Palladium. Everyone was saying the audience was volatile, because Malcolm was at Glastonbury and they missed him. “Who is this Malcolm?” I thought.
I found out next time I did a guest spot. He wasn’t the cool bloke I imagined. He was an anti-guru, who didn’t know the meaning of stress.
Touring with him up North, everywhere we went, he knew someone who welcomed him without condition into their house.
He wanted everyone to have a good time all the time. He was a very bad boy, but ultimately he knew the difference between right and wrong.
I never achieved the success I wanted. Then Malcolm asked me to do The Greatest Show on Legs in Montreal. We went on last at the Theatre St Denis, and effortlessly stormed it. Twice. I’m still getting the TV royalty cheques for those gigs.
All those years doing finely honed one-liners and still rejected by Jongleurs and Don Ward of the Comedy Store. But Malcolm takes me to Montreal and I have fun prancing around naked in front of TV cameras and 2000 adoring people. Thanks, Malcolm. Whenever things seem too serious, I remember your attitude and it gets put into perspective. Comedy is about having a laugh… effortlessly. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
JIM MILLER aka JAMES MACABRE, comedian – 17th February
Jeff Green is right about those quiz machines… I had the measure of the one at Up The Creek at a time when 20 quid was beer for the night and more. Malcolm would always wait until I had spunked 3 or 4 quid before sidling up and saying: “Sorry, Jim: I got the jackpot half an hour ago”. He was proprietorial about that machine; I think he genuinely resented me or Jo Brand cleaning it out.
I played the Tunnel one night when some Millwall football fans genuinely WERE in (as opposed to the myth). King Dembina opened and I had to follow the torrent of hate he had incited. Only time I ever witnessed a comic being booed ON and that man was me.
At half-time, after blood on the walls and actual coppers in the house, Malcolm appealed to the audience to give the last act (Michael Redmond, who didn’t need it) a chance or we would all be going home before ten.
At the time, I was almost hoping the brilliant Michael would also fail just to see what Malcolm pulled out of the bag – and he would have come up with something, you know…..
you helped and encouraged me when i started. at the time i think i took it for granted. i’m not sure i ever thanked you. we lost touch over the years, partly because i tried to avoid getting involved in things which would involve you owing me money. i’m sad now that i hadn’t seen you for so long. you once introduced me at the tunnel as your little brother and people believed you. i think you only meant it as a joke, but, in retrospect, i’ll take it as a compliment if you don’t mind.
Passing water in The Thames, thinking of Malcolm
it wasn’t sinking in that he was gone
the River Thames is similar to Malcolm
the going doesn’t stop the going on.
The last time I saw Malcolm was at Arthur Smith’s 50th birthday do in Paris. It was getting late.
We got on stage to do something for Arthur, with Ronnie Golden a.k.a. Tony de Meur. A twelve bar blues was agreed. I wasn’t sufficiently co-ordinated to tune the mandolin. So, Ronnie played guitar and Malcolm played harmonica, at the one mike available to he and I. His solo was of a good length. Arthur shouted:
“Let John have a go.”
Malcolm surprised me by handing me the harmonica. I hadn’t played one for 25 years and was grateful for the challenge.
The Tunnel Club in early 1989. I was an open spot. I was 22 but I looked about 12. Malcolm looked worried for me:
“You’re not going to wear that shirt are you? They’ll take the piss out of you your first line.”
He introduced me.
“Stone him!” they shouted. ”Crucify him!”
Before I could do my first line, someone asked what I was drinking. I held up my glass and said, “Directors”. Then I made a joke about my shirt and did some material before I could get booed off.
At The Tunnel, if you survived the open spot they’d slap you on the back and cheer you loudly. It was that or humiliation. No middle ground.
Malcolm said, “I’ll book you,” which was fantastic for me, just starting out. “By the way,” he said, “it’s not Directors. The landlord’s done a deal with Whitbread, even though it’s a Courage pub”.
The following month, I did a full spot and soon after the pub was raided and it was over.
Up The Creek was great and I played it a lot but The Tunnel was special – the hardest gig. If you went well they’d virtually chair you off but, if not, a humming noise would start and gather volume as more joined in… ”Mmmm…” louder and louder.
Malcolm would hurry from the back bar.
“MmmmmMALCOLM!” was the signal for him to rescue the turn.
One night there was a juggler who tossed clubs into the audience inviting them to throw them back.
“Oh no,” said Malcolm,”I’ve only just got them to stop throwing stuff.” The first club nearly took the juggler’s head off but he caught the second and was granted a wild ovation.
Malcolm gave me loads of gigs, including one in Bungay which I drove him to as he consumed an enormous curry alongside me.
There were stories all the way there and all the way back.
He was the one-off’s one-off.
ALEX HARDEE, Malcolm’s brother – 7th February
I had just met a new girlfriend, who had never been introduced to any of my family before. She was from quite a well to do family, and I was quite nervous of her meeting Malcolm.
Unfortunately, it happened to be at Glastonbury where the meeting was to take place, so I dragged her backstage to the Cabaret Tent, and said, “Malcolm, this is Claudia,” at which he whipped his genitalia out and said, “Look at this Ultravoilet knob,” as he had painted it earlier with Ultravoilet paint.
A shocked look came across her face and he responded, “Don’t you worry. You should see my wife’s mouth.”
Of course, I am not still with her.
Will miss you loads. The world is a sadder and less colourful place without you.
October 2, 1992. I landed alone in the UK, straight from having lived my entire life under Mum & Dad’s working class roof in the sunny Aussie suburbs. A mate who’d been overseas showed me a copy of Time Out and, though I’d only done six open spots in Oz, I decided there was more opportunity in England. Saved money for a one-way ticket cos I was impatient.
Many calls down the then ‘cabaret’ listings got me nowhere, until Malcolm answered at Up The Creek. My old man had verbally forced me to agree on keeping a diary, despite me saying it was for poofs. The diary entry from Nov ’92, upon meeting Malcolm in the Lord Hood on a Sunday Creek Sabbath, reads: “This weird bloke called Malcolm gave me a gig, met me in the pub next door beforehand, got me to buy him a pint, then told me I’d be shit, but not to worry. Unfortunately he was right, but I’m not worried cos he gave me another gig anyway”.
Soon he arranged accommodation and a welcoming woman’s number. Hardee hospitality.
Years later, he took my visiting elderly parents out in his boat.
Goes up the Thames and on the right was some kind of rusted ship, pumping a powerful arc of bilgewater(?) out of its hull, through a kind of high porthole, which saw the water arc across the river over fifty foot.
I’m on the front of the boat as Malcolm veers toward the arc and I assume he’s gonna go under it, between the ship and where the arc curves downward toward the river itself. For a laugh.
Just as I turn back to say, “Lookout, we’re gonna get hit by the filthy fucking water” the filthy fucking water almost knocked my head off my shoulders and me off the boat.
I looked back to see it hit Malcolm as he steered, then my Mum and then Dad. I wanted to hit him and my Dad said afterwards that he did too, but we were both unable to comprehend or calculate what had actually happened.
Malcolm’s decision was beyond any previously known social conduct. He must have simply had the idea and acted upon it. Anarchy.
He was my friend, my agent, father figure, dodgy uncle, wayward best mate. He ran the two best comedy clubs of all time. He had a humanity and gentleness which he tried to hide. Above all he was the king of comedy. They don’t make them like that any more. In the end he swam away with his underwater bollocks. Thankyou.
STEVE GRIBBIN, comedian – 9th February
As the man who launched the infamous Tunnel Club, one the two best and fiercest comedy clubs in the whole fucking world, Malcolm deserves to be justly celebrated, but those of us who knew him well will recall his love of a prank and a practical joke, which often shaded into criminality!
One time we were in Aberystwyth University and had to change in the kitchen. Malcolm saw a huge 15 foot square block of cheddar cheese in the fridge. Without a moment’s hesitation, he said: “Oy Oy… let’s have it!”
It took five of us to carry it into the white Ford Transit van that Malcolm had ‘borrowed’ off Greenwich Council.
The next day a very irate official from Aberystwyth University rang up Malcolm screaming abuse down the phone.
“You thieving bastard, I know it was you!”
Malcolm denied all knowledge, ending the phone-call with the immortal words: “Sorry mate, got to go now, me cheese on toast’s ready!”
For every tear of sadness that’s shed for his untimely demise there will also be an accompanying one of laughter. Malcolm was like that.
Malcolm helped me more than anyone else in my comedy career and when no-one else was interested. It used to be three good open spots at The Creek then you got a paid half spot – none of this perpetual open spot and competition rubbish.
I had only done two when this happened – :
“The next bloke is a deaf bloke. I know he really is a deaf bloke cos I offered him a paid gig, but he didn’t hear me. So here he is for free… Steve Day”
Affectionate tales of Malcolm’s thieving abound, yet here’s one of an attempt of mine to steal from him.
When I first saw Malcolm compere at his club, the Tunnel, I was so impressed by everyone’s reaction that I decided to ‘borrow’ his style of showmanship for my own comedy club in north London.
My theft was doomed to failure because I wasn’t nearly as funny as Malcolm nor blessed with his gift for making strangers love him.
My fruitless larceny taught me a painful lesson: as in comedy as in life, be only yourself, say what you think, do what you feel and stick to your guns.
Malcolm Hardee was the living embodiment of that lesson and it’s a profound sadness to me that I never had the opportunity to thank him before he died.
KEVIN McCARTHY, ‘THE MAN WITH THE BEARD’, comedian – 10th February
For starting me off in this business – I thank you.
For giving me my name – I thank you.
For bouncing countless cheques on me – I forgive you.
For owing everyone on the circuit at least a tenner – I forgive you.
For swallowing a two bottle decanter of vintage port in one go and then redecorating my car with it – I forgive you.
For turning up at a meeting at the BBC as my manager with gravy down your tie and looking like a sack of shit – I forgive you.
For dying aged 55 – …
A man was sat on the steps with his head in his hands.
I said to Malcolm: “What’s up with him?”
He said: “it’s Jack Dee. He’s on next”.
Jo Brand, Lee Evans, Simon Day, John Thomson, Bill Bailey, Harry Hill, Johnny Vegas, Mark Lamarr, Boothby Graffoe, Bob Mills & the rest, you know who you are. Without Malcolm, The Creek and his pioneering, it may never have happened for some. He got the media to his club, he could have signed many a comedian, could have exploited them and made money out of them. Malcolm was not that kind of man.
He was deeper and kinder than you know.
For me, Malcolm saw me and pulled me out of a bolt hole in Nottingham. I auditioned for him re TV at that time. I didn’t have a clue.
He put me on a show called The Happening with Jools Holland. I died on my arse. I should imagine Malcolm felt bad about it. He took a chance on a twat like me. He said to me: “I’ve got Vic Reeves on at the Creek on 15th November; meet him”. The only Reeves I’d heard of was Jim Reeves. So, instead, I didn’t listen & played the Sandiacre F.C in Longeaton, Derby. Where?
During the Edinburgh Festival, at half one in the morning two men were locked out of a car; the only place open was a bread shop. They went in and borrowed some baking implements to break into the car. It was so funny. Me and Malcolm howled.
Anyway, fuck it!
Joke No 1. Malcolm told me he had a terrible day; he woke up at 9am and a prawn cocktail slapped him in the face. That was just for starters.
I first met Malcolm when I was doing open spots at The Tunnel. I’d been booed off before, but never booed on. I loved the place, and I loved Malcolm. I remember two blokes chatting in the toilets.
Says one: “It’s been a good night.”
Says the other: “Yeah. But if Malcolm gets his bollocks out it’s going to be a great night.”
And that was true.
I regarded Malcolm and his wife Jane as my adopted parents and one night they dropped in to my flat in Stoke Newington. Malcolm was drunk – hold the front page – and after a bit had to go to the toilet.
Malcolm used to steal – hold the front page – particularly from bathrooms. I knew this, Jane knew this and we could hear him crashing about in an exaggerated fashion for ages.
When he at last returned I said, “Alright Malcolm, what have you nicked?” and he goes “Uh… uh… sorry,” and gets out this tiny pot of my girlfriend’s aromatherapy oils.
But it was too quick.
I said “Yes; and what else?”
He goes, “Oh, sorry,” and gets out another. And so on, and so on until, half an hour later, the entire contents of the bathroom were spread out in the living room and he swore there was nothing else.
Later, we were helping him down the stairs when I noticed an overpowering smell.
Today would have been comedian Malcolm Hardee’s 69th birthday. Who knows how he might have commented on that number?
He was born on 5th January 1950. He drowned in a dock in Rotherhithe, by the River Thames, on 31st January 2005. He was drunk and fell in.
In their coverage of his death, the Daily Telegraph called him the “Godfather to a generation of comic talent”.
The Guardian’s extensive coverage called him the “patron sinner of alternative comedy, renowned for his outrageous stunts”
The Independent’s obituary said he was “the greatest influence on British comedy over the last 25 years”.
The Times’ obituary said: “Throughout his life he maintained a fearlessnessand an indifference to consequences”.
A few days after his death, I set up an online page where people could post memories of him.
These are a few of those memories, starting with my own…
JOHN FLEMING – 3rd February 2005
Malcolm successfully turned himself into a South London Jack The Lad but the real Malcolm was and remained entirely different – a highly intelligent, rather shy, gentle and – despite his borrowing habits and forgetfulness – an enormously generous man.
People ask why women were so astonishingly attracted to him. I think it was because they discovered that, underneath the “Fuck it! Don’t give a shit!” exterior, he was a gentle schoolboy who just had a love of pranks, wheezes and escapades.
He was much loved by everyone who knew him well.
I remember being in his living room one afternoon.
For no reason, he suddenly pulled a real goldfish from its bowl and put it in his mouth so its little orange tail was flip-flopping between his lips. He looked at me for approval through his spectacles with wide-open, innocent eyes.
At this point, coincidentally, his wife Jane came into the room, looked at his mouth and said casually, “Oh no,” then, more reprovingly, “Not AGAIN, Malcolm.”
He looked rather embarrassed, as if caught with his trousers down.
The irony, of course, is that, with his trousers down, he was never embarrassed.
I’ve met some great people on the comedy circuit but Malcolm was without a doubt one of the best… and the funniest.
When I heard the terrible news, after the initial shock, I hoped that this might just be another of his scams to wind people up. I wouldn’t put it past him – but sadly I now know it isn’t.
I’ll never forget the Sunday night at Up The Creek when two girls died a terrible death. As they left the stage with the hair standing up on the back of their necks, Malcolm said: “Well, they were shit but… I’d fuck the fat one!”
Thanks Malcolm for all the laughs and encouragement and South Africa and Glastonbury and The Wibbley Wobbley and the odd bit of trouble you got me into. I’m proud to have known you. I’ll miss you a hell of a lot.
My abiding and most recent memories involve an early morning swim (I know) after a bit of a night ahht.
He’d managed to find some security code for one of the big officey blocks round the dock with its own, and subsequently Malc’s, private pool overlooking the Thames. It was an hour earlier than I expected ‘cos he’d never put his clock back and this was December.
So it’s into one of his dodgy cars to visit an 80 year old lady called Moth for morning coffee, then off to try and blag some horse riding. Upon reaching these stables, after a spot of lunch, we were told someone had moved in nearby who claimed to know Malcolm.
Without ascertaining friend or foe, we went to a house in the middle of nowhere.
“Who am I?” asked Malcolm.
We were invited in for champagne and Christmas dinner. Then to the Lord Hood pub in Greenwich where we seemed to blag some free buffet, (I can just see him wiping his hands halfway up his suit, the way he did after cleaning his plate with his finger, and why not.)
Finally back to the Wibbley Wobbley to find more playmates.
Up until the evening, Malcolm had drunk just half a pint of bitter and blagged a fiver off me for petrol.
No fucking drama, just a lovely day out with a lovely man.
Irresponsible, conscience free, worry free, fun seeking, knew how to have a laugh, a woman in every port, highly intelligent… all the things I wish I could be… So I resented him a lot of the time!
But the measure of this man is that he could wind you up, rip you off, embarrass and exasperate you… and you’d still love him despite all that. What a rare quality!!
I will miss him, despite the load of shit he spouted about me and the world is definitely a poorer place for his passing. Why could this not have happened to any other comic or promoter????!!!!!
MAURICE GIBB, Edinburgh fireman – 6th February
I first met Malcolm back in 1981 when he appeared with The Greatest Show on Legs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival following on from their successful TV appearance on OTT performing the Balloon Dance.
I was the Fire Brigade officer that year tasked with ensuring the public were safe in respect of fire hazards during a performance – no mean feat considering Malcolm’s love of all things incendiary!
Like many others who knew Malcolm I was taken by his personality, intelligence and love of fun but in particular it was his “Fuck it” attitude to life that I truly admired and envied the most.
Malcolm and I remained friends and in contact right up to his untimely death and I will always be grateful for the fun and laughter that we shared over the last 23 years.
I will miss him a lot.
PAUL ‘WIZO’ WISEMAN, accomplice – 6th February
I first meet Malcolm when I was five.
I was dressed in a full cowboy outfit (it was the fashion then) and it was my first day at primary school. He looked at me and started giggling.
We then spent the next 48 years giggling with occasional bouts of prison, setting fire to cinemas, blowing up stolen buses with fireworks and driving cars through supermarket windows as well as showbiz bollocks.
He was the most fearless man I have ever meet as well as painfully shy, which he overcame with bluster and sheer persistence and a large pair of bollocks.
When we were both sentenced to Borstal for various naughty boy things at Exeter Assizes in 1971, we both got our dicks out to the judge when he sent us down.
I was 19 when I did my first paid spot on the comedy circuit. It was at Up The Creek and for many years after it was the only club I played, because Malcolm was the only person who’d book me.
Some years ago I’d expressed interest in the fairground mirrors that were in the since closed Comedy Empire in Willesden and Malcolm had assured me I’d be able to get them for only a few quid so I took a trip up to London especially.
I was directed to some bloke in Greenwich market who said they’d cost me a grand, so I called Malcolm who apologised for the mistake but asked me to pop round.
We visited his boat and ‘Concrete Ken’, where we had a beer, and then we drove to some place in Whitechapel for a fantastic curry, all courtesy of Malcolm of course.
Next we visited a bookie’s where he proceeded to bet shockingly high stakes on two races, both of which he won and we finally drove back to his place where his son’s friends were hanging around outside the house, sitting on steps and car bonnets.
“Look, it’s like New York,” he said, and then, “Right, I’m going back to bed. Knob out!”
It’s a small but fond memory.
A genuinely lovely man. The comedy circuit will not be the same without him. Malcolm was to British comedy what John Peel was to British music.
Is there anyone in comedy who was more liked than Malcolm?
It is sad but, in an industry where success is covertly resented by too many, I suppose Malcolm fitted the bill for being liked perfectly. He was notorious but crucially not so successful either.
What he had that set him apart was his great generosity of spirit.
A rogue and a shyster, of course, but he was also a genuinely kind man and, aside from all his knob out antics, he was actually a shy and sensitive man who needed just as much approval as the next comic.
I expect most people that knew him weren’t altogether surprised to hear the sad news about his death, but their sadness would have been brief and countered by their own memories and warmth of this lovely man.
I’ll remember him most for the way he brought me on stage at the Creek on a dire Sunday night. I’d avoided Sundays for years. All the comics said that they were shit, so I thought What’s the point? But Malcolm kept on at me and finally I stuck it in the diary.
So, after about 8 acts, most of which hadn’t gone very well, Malcolm was about to bring me on:
“Last bloke on now. It’s his first Sunday night down here, because he just does Fridays and Saturdays and storms it… so he’s well overdue for a shit one. Oy, oy.”
And he was right.
I had a shit gig and smiled all the way home because only Malcolm would have said that and only Malcolm Hardee could have got away with it.
In comedy, people try desperately hard to appear different.
Malcolm was different, and as said by so many other people, he will be very very missed.
I always thought that, underneath all that East End stuff he had going on, Malcolm was genuinely a really nice bloke and a real character. There’s not enough characters around these days and consequently its a sad loss.
You were suspicious of poetry
saw clear through most of it
even with those glasses.
Dickens would have loved you Malcolm
would have immortalised you, given you
a name like Swindle Rotherhind, or Tucker Lawless.
But you didn’t need Dickens, you wrote
the chapters of your own life.
MALCOLM HARDEE
Your name fitted you like your food-stained ill fitting baggy suits. You were wide open, a big bad innocent book with no new leaves to turn.
All your pages stuck together, bound by your first rule of comedy: “Fall over! Get your knob out!”
You once caused me to cry with laughter until
I thought I would die. You took me for a ride in The Tartan Taxi. It had tartan seats and tartan carpets and tartan fairy-lights and a tape playing awful tartan bagpipe music and the driver changed hats and smiled like a lunatic as he drove us round and round and round the same roundabout for half an hour.
You encouraged him Malcolm. You encouraged the child in all of us, blew raspberries and pissed down the back of pomposity. We will miss you Malcolm. No one is brave enough to take your place. So when you fell over for the last time on Monday the thirty first of January two thousand and five, I really hope you had your knob out.
This last bit of the poem is a bit tasteless Malcolm. Some people might be offended by it.
They might think it’s not very nice to speak of the dead in this way… What’s that you say? Fuck ‘em Oy Oy!
Yes, that’s what I thought you said.
Yesterday afternoon, someone said to me: “You will miss not going to the Edinburgh Fringe.”
I said (I paraphrase myself): “No. I can walk away from anything. I spent 20+ years of my life saying Goodbye to people and not knowing if I would ever see them again.”
When I was working in TV, it was mostly on very short-term contracts – one week, three weeks, two weeks, one month, whatever. I once worked at Granada TV in Manchester for six months solid but I don’t think any individual contract I had during that solid six months was for more than three weeks.
When I left a company at the end of any of these short-term contracts, I said Goodbye to the people I worked with not knowing if I would ever see them again. Maybe I would be back in three months time; maybe in two weeks; maybe in four months; maybe in six weeks; maybe never. Some companies I worked at for over ten years, coming and going. But I spent my entire life saying Goodbye to people I might never meet again.
Last night, someone who does not really know me decided to describe my current lifestyle in less than 27 words. In fact, it only took 20:
Comedy, writing, observation, books, spontaneous, baths, London, culture, bad geography, sleep deprivation, rain, rough diamond, cinema and rain (not purple).
Not sure about the “rough diamond” and I bristled a bit at the “bad geography”. But this was put down to my thinking that Preston was North East of Manchester rather than North West. So I can’t really complain.
But I think throughout my life people have mis-read me. I have only ever really had two guiding thoughts in life. They are:
A) Never trust anyone.
B) Everything ends.
If I were being pretentious (perish the thought) I might add:
C) So it goes.
On the “Everything ends” front, here is a photo of the facade of the Up The Creek comedy club in Greenwich, London, taken in 2009. It retained pretty much the same facade until yesterday.
(L-R) The founding four for Angel Comedy 2.0 – Barry Ferns (horizontal), Dec Munro, Rachel Warnes and Sarah Pearce
Oh Jesus.
Mea culpa.
Today is 21st July.
On 3rd June, I had a chat with Barry Ferns and Dec Munro about the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign they had just started to help finance the new Angel Comedy 2.0 comedy club in London’s Islington. The idea was that I could give their campaign a boost with a blog. What could go wrong?
Well, my laziness and tortuous Things I Am Doing for a start.
I mean, if I am going to bullshit, they didn’t really need me anyway.
Their target was to raise a whopping £20,000.
They did this within a week.
At the time of writing, they have now raised over £45,000 and there are only a five hours left.
As an incentive to pledge money, donors will be given various limited-edition Angel Comedy goodies. If you donate more than £30, you can name a random object in the building. So there might be a John Fleming knob (on a door). If you pledge £75 or more, there will be a tankard with your engraved name on it above the bar. For £200, you can name the glitter ball. For £500 you can name a toilet. And – recently added to the incentives – you can also re-name Barry Ferns.
“All of our backers get a vote,” Barry told me last week. “Even just a £1 pledge gets a vote. We will be having a proper naming ceremony as part of the official club opening in September – where I will sign the deed poll form and one of our winning backers will get to counter-sign and witness the name change.”
“Why?” I asked. “Just simply, why?”
“To show how grateful we are,” said Barry. “Anyone can suggest a name for me – even a vengeful ex-girlfriend or a maniac like Adam Larter – who is trying to create a name that will get me into as much trouble at passport control as possible. Suggestions so far include: Mr Terrorist, VOID NAME, 000000000 and First Name, Surname. The stakes are quite high…
The new Angel Comedy 2.0 – Yes, it’s the whole building
Way back on 3rd June, when I originally talked to Barry and Dec and they only had around £21,000, Barry told me: “The money so far has mostly just come from people who have been to our shows and know we are good people and are not gonna spunk their money on things. We want to do something good and they’ve seen us do something good over the last six years.”
“Why,” I asked, “did you decide to start the second club in Islington when you already have the 7-days-a-week original Angel Comedy club still running?”
“Most clubs,” explained Barry, “are run out of upstairs rooms in pubs – like Angel Comedy. Malcolm Hardee started Up The Creek, but he bought the building. So the four of us put money in to buy this building but with the realisation that, once we owned the building, it would take more money to make it right.”
“You have the building on a seven-year lease?” I asked.
“Seven to eight,” said Barry. “Between the two.”
“That gives you great security,” I said.
“Security is one word,” said Dec Munro. “Millstone is also a word.”
“What do you need the Kickstarter money for?” I asked.
“When it rained two days ago,” said Barry, “we had buckets and things.”
“So,” I said, “you are doing a ‘soft’ opening with various things happening in July and August, but a ‘hard’ opening in September, after the Edinburgh Fringe is done and dusted. What does a ‘hard opening’ mean?”
Dec said: “Consistent opening hours, some resident acts, regular format nights like improv, mixed variety, musical comedy, different weird stuff.”
“There are so many comedians out there,” added Barry, “who are not really supported, because there’s nowhere they can get free preview space or a place that will let them perform absolutely bat-shit crazy stuff or if they are going to take a risk. The reason Angel Comedy has worked is because the new comedians are brilliant. That’s why it works. Not because it’s free; but because the shows are good.”
“Why are you keeping the original Angel Comedy club open?” I asked again.
“Because that is not this,” replied Barry. “That is an open mic club. It is the top of the open mic circuit. Angel Comedy 2.0 is not the open mic circuit.”
“How will the charging here work?” I asked.
“It’s whatever the performers want to do,” explained Barry. “If they want to put on a free night, they can collect in a bucket at the end. If they want to run Bob Slayer’s model, they can do that. If they want to charge £15 for a ticket, they can do that. Our cuts will be cost-only cuts. We won’t take a 60/40 split.”
“So how can you calculate covering costs?” I asked.
“A permanent home for London’s loveliest comedy night.”
“What we can say,” replied Dec, “is we hope from September not to charge more than a 20% split of any tickets. And that money would go into a magazine or similar to be distributed in the local area to let them know about us.”
“And there is no rental fee for the room?” I asked.
“We,” said Barry, “will not charge a fee that we will make any profit on from renting it out. If we charge any money, it will just go to the publicity costs.
“Here at Angel Comedy 2.0 it’s not always going to be free, but we want it to be a place where people can take risks. We also have space where people can come in at low cost or no cost and record a podcast. And we can teach people how to make films or sketches.
“If you’re an art or theatre student, you can go to university and get access to a lot of other things but, in comedy, there is not that. I have gone bankrupt. I have done the craziest things just to be able to perform. And there is no support unless you have wealthy parents who own a house in London. You have to work at least five days a week to make your rent and then you have two hours to perform comedy when you’re exhausted and you have no resources.”
Thus said Barry Ferns.
But he may not be Barry Ferns for much longer. He explains more about his re-naming in a video on YouTube:
Time Out listings in 1986 with an even-younger Arthur Smith
Last week, the UK listings magazine Time Out ended its Comedy Section. When British alternative comedy started in the mid-1980s, one reason it flourished was that Time Out allowed people who lived in one part of London to know that gigs were happening in various other parts of London.
Now, with the internet, comedy gigs can be found instantly, though not with short, objective descriptions in one easy-to-use single list.
DEATH TWO
This daily blog, which I hope has had a tendency to publicise the fringe and less-publicised comedy acts – interesting people doing interesting things. – will end as a daily blog on 31st December.
BIRTH ONE
Up The Creek with new bar to left and Lord Hood pub to right
Last night, I went to Up the Creek comedy club in Greenwich where they have opened an adjoining bar and cafe. Well, that is rather understating what they have done.
A long strip of Creek Road is being re-developed into multi-storey, up-market flats. The two brothers who own Up The Creek fought a long battle against the knocking-down of their building. The developers’ plan had been to buy and knock down the entire interior of the building, retaining only the frontage (which is ‘listed’ and cannot be knocked down).
Now the club has lost its back section, which used to be the bar area, and the developers are turning that part into town houses costing, I understand, £750,000 each. But Up The Creek – still under its old owners – has survived.
New Up the Creek bar and box office area opened last night
A new bar and cafe area has been added at ground floor level to the left of the existing building above which the developers are building (I think three storeys of) luxury flats.
Over the last three months, a new bar and cafe have been built in this new area, extending into what used to be the entrance area and box office of the old Up The Creek club. Inside, the stage has been moved, there are new stairs to a new upstairs bar etc etc etc.
A weathered look to the cafe/bar, with ceiling still incomplete
The building’s interior is spectacularly successful in a low-key way (if such a thing can be possible) because the new cafe and interior look as though they have been there forever.
Old wood has been extensively used, the bricks have been ‘weathered’ to make them look even older and nothing looks ‘new’.
All this has been done over the last three months without closing the club at any time.
The new Up The Creek cafe and bar opened last night, although a few minor bits-and-pieces of detailing are still to be done.
DEATH THREE
Up The Creek was started by now-dead comic Malcolm Hardee. He originally owned 25% of the club. Three brothers (one has since died) owned the other 75%.
Last night, I stood outside the now doomed Lord Hood pub (Photograph by MEUNF)
Malcolm had a routine (especially for his Sunday night shows) in which he used to go into the Lord Hood pub next to Up The Creek, drink, then walk next door to the club and start the show.
Up The Creek was at risk of being knocked down but has now been saved.
But the Lord Hood is going to be knocked down in the continuing redevelopment of that strip of Creek Road. The pub closes on 31st December. There is talk that the developers may replace it with a gastro-pub, but that might be five years away.
CODA
Shiva becomes Najaraja, The Lord of The Dance
I used to own a company called Shivadance Services.
Spencer Jones, The Herbert – not a toilet act, despite the signs
“Your comedy character is called The Herbert,” I said to Spencer Jones.
“Well,” he told me, “I wanted to call him The Dickhead. Dickhead to me is quite a nice term: He’s a dickhead – I like him. It feels like a warm character to me. But Northerners told me it was too strong.
“So then I messed-around with all sorts of names – The Idiot… The Herbert.
“I settled on The Herbert – He’s a Herbert – He’s really clever at one thing. But also Check out this Herbert: quite a London phrase for He’s a bit of a prat. And Herbert Spencer wrote theories on comedy. The name just seemed to fit well.”
“How did the character start?”
“About three years ago, I did a Doctor Brown course for five days and I was awful for the whole week. I loved it but I was awful. I was the worst. But I found it really interesting.”
“Why do a clown course?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because it was trendy?”
“It wasn’t trendy to me.”
“You were no good at it, but you loved it.”
“What I loved about it was realising the magic that goes on in the audience’s head. When you do a clown class with 30 people and they’ve each got to walk on stage within the group three times, you see 90 entrances. It’s a crucial moment when you walk out on stage. Every person in the audience makes up their mind about you in different ways.
Audiences make assumptions about acts
“Someone walks on stage and you can think: Ooh. He looks like a builder. Or Ooh. He looks like he’s got issues. Or Ooh. He looks like he thinks he’s a dancer… All these little things. When you are doing stand-up in little clubs, it’s about how you walk on stage and your opening gag: the audience make their mind up about you.”
“So,” I suggested, “like most ‘silly’ acts, you are analytical.”
“When you decided to be a comedian, were you the Herbert immediately?”
“No. Before that, I was a stand-up for a little while. I’m a kind of private person, so I found it kind-of difficult to do good stand-up. Then I did sketch comedy: I put together a little troupe called Broken Biscuits. Then I did characters – builders, Foley artists…”
“Foley artists?”
“Foley Phil. I had seen Chris Luby at the Glastonbury Festival, doing marching sounds. My Phil Foley was a bit like him.”
“The cliché is that performers hide behind characters.”
“Definitely. Though there’s a little part of myself in there. The kid in me.”
“So, getting back to the elevator pitch again…”
“The Herbert is basically physical comedy and props. And some weird music. You know what, John? I really don’t know yet.”
“How long have you been doing it?”
“Three-and-a-bit years. I just take stuff on stage that I think will make people laugh. I never thought of myself as a physical comedian or wanted to be a prop comic, but I found something to take on stage and then something else and suddenly I had props. The key thing is to go on, smile, be nice and make sure I am the biggest prat in the room.”
“Did you study drama at university?”
“I didn’t go to university. My mum always used to encourage me when I sang and when I acted and, when bullies used to bully me, I fought back and she used to say: You’re doing the right thing. But the rest of it – school – she wasn’t bothered about that. I kind of fannied around until I was 30 and then I thought: I’ve got to stop being a dick. And now I’m a professional dickhead.”
“What had you been before you were 30?”
Spencer Jones, a man of many occupations & props
“All sorts, I’d worked in a pastie factory. I was a teaboy and then a producer for TV commercials. I worked for the council in West Ham and Plaistow.”
“As what?”
“It was called New Deal for Communities: I used to teach kids things like radio presenting. I’ve done lots of things. Bar manager. Wedding DJ. Wedding singer.”
“So why choose to go into comedy at 30?”
“I’d done a double act when I was 16 or 17 – three gigs and we got booed off stage on the third gig by all my friends. I wanted to entertain. When I was 18 or 19, I went to Malcolm Hardee’s club Up The Creek and saw some acts get absolutely annihilated and I didn’t have the balls to touch comedy again until I was 24.
“I used to play in a junk band – gas pipes, shopping trollies, kitchen sinks and we used to open the cabaret stage at the Glastonbury Festival for a few years.”
So there you have it.
Spencer Jones is the Herbert.
A surreal, absurdist physical comedy act with lots of props.
“The act is all mumbling,” he told me. “I’m trying to get it down to just mumbling and noises. The occasional well-chosen word.”
Spencer’s preparations for Edinburgh Fringe are going well
“Has your Edinburgh Fringe show next month got a theme?” I asked.
“It’s about my daughter being in hospital,” Spencer told me. “About having no money. Being skint.”
“Autobiograpical?” I asked.
“Absolutely. If you spend five days in hospital with a kid, as a clown, you’ve gotta start messing around with the equipment.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Meningitis.”
“How old?”
“She’s four months old now. It was full-on for a month. You’ve got to perform what you know and what’s honest to you. I try to do silly stuff, but it always gets informed by what’s going on around me.”
“What’s next?”
“I dunno. I just want to carry on trying to make people laugh. Just pay the bills. I’ve go a roof that needs fixing. There’s a short film coming out called Showtime, directed by Anthony Dickenson who is a commercials director looking into longer narrative stuff. I play a bit of a cocky stand-up comedian who’s in a bit of a pickle. In the film, I am the Daily Mail Comedian of the Year.
“I’m an actor, really. One of the main reason I started doing comedy was I figured it was a good way to get acting jobs, because I saw it as a meritocracy where, if you’re a good comedian, you get work.”
I told Spencer: “You didn’t say: I ALSO act. You said: I’m an actor. Which implies you see yourself as an actor first.”
“Yes. I’m an actor, yeah. I do quite a few commercials. I’m the current face of Barclaycard. I like an easy life. I would love it if someone just gave me a script and I learn the lines, do the thing, go home and hang out with the missus and kids. That would be the easy life… But…”
There is a clip of The Herbert’s 2014 Edinburgh Fringe show on YouTube.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 