A Young Man's Passage (20 page)

From then on I was to be the Joan Collins Fan Club with Fanny the Wonder Dog. I would throw her choc drops and demand the audience applaud her, then throw them to the crowd. ‘See, it’s not as easy as it looks!’ Her impressions were next. If you whispered in her ear she slowly raised her head: this was Tower Bridge. With a red wig she was Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York (‘complete with facial hair’). Lift her gums to reveal brown teeth and, hey presto, she was the Queen Mother.

She did films too. A green soldier’s hat:
The Dogs Of War
. A shower cap:
Psycho
. But Fanny’s main gift was to stare at the punters. Particularly rowdy ones. Perhaps it was her protective instinct towards me: she could silence a heckler with one glance and stare him out for the next 20 minutes before turning her back with body language of unmistakable contempt. Her timing was always spot on.

This, then, was my life for a couple of years. Between the comedy circuit and the singing telegrams, I survived. The latter made me fearless. I could deliver a telegram in a rowdy pub or at a drunken party no matter what the obstacles. I learnt my way round London in the Honda van, became expert at extracting a tip on top of my fee, and after a year or so earned a reputation on the circuit as a reliable turn.

My disastrous gigs became fewer and there were more and more calls for bookings. I grew my hair long; shoulder length, bleached and tonged into a spiky cross between Rod Stewart and Tammy Wynette. Off stage I wore ripped jeans and studded belts with a black handkerchief tied round my neck, a rock’n’roll gypsy look, and called in at gay pubs and clubs after work to meet Stephen or Mark, adept at finding my man for the evening, and Oscar winning when it came to ejecting him the next morning.

I didn’t analyse my lifestyle or my prospects much. For those few years, ambition was bubbling under the surface, but I didn’t seriously imagine cabaret gigs were a stepping-stone to anything more lucrative or exciting. I had stopped applying for acting work after a miserable Theatre in Education tour with Buster Young People’s Theatre. (I’d been miscast as a blokey bloke, doing a dreadful play four times a day for a pitiful wage and having to turn down cabaret gigs into the bargain.) As the Joan Collins Fan Club, I could make an asset of my mannerisms and voice, aspects of my performance that were criticised in the theatre. It didn’t feel right to me to suppress them. Why should I? I could write my own material, arrange my own bookings and direct myself. It was a wonderfully self-sufficient lifestyle.

What I liked best about it was the utterly trivial nature of my ‘job’. I was paid for speaking the thoughts I’d be having anyway, for criticising hairstyles and holding up punters’ grubby coats for everyone to ridicule. I purposely nipped in the bud any material that might be construed as having ‘meaning’. Anything that smacked of resonance was undesirable. I was lightweight – that was the whole point of me. JCFC was about choc drops, glamour, mild humiliation and gentle laughter, nothing else. I deliberately set out to create my own world where I was the norm and the audience were the outsiders. What’s more, they were to feel privileged to get a glimpse of my superior environment. Their lives, I declared, were dreary by comparison with mine. I was kind to let them in but scornful of them once they arrived. My satisfaction in all this, and probably my psychological motivation, was a reversal of all I had experienced at school. I would be vindicated. I would be applauded for the very things I was once victimised for.

Whether or not it worked this way varied from show to show. A lot of factors could spell ruination. It’s never been a watertight act; failure was always a sniff away. I might go on too late and the audience would be too drunk to enter into the conceit. The p.a. might be dodgy so they couldn’t hear properly. My self-confidence (always fragile) might evaporate, or Fanny might not be in the mood and leave the stage. I might go too far in picking on a particular individual and sympathies for one of their number could cause the audience to turn on me. The act on before me might go down a storm, in which case the audience were laughed out and willing me to die for the sake of some variation.

There was a flurry of excitement in 1984 when I was asked to appear on a television show called
Live From the London Hippodrome
and be interviewed by Janet Street-Porter. Dusty Springfield was the star turn. I can’t remember much about it, except that the van broke down en route and Sue Holsten from the singing telegram agency spent the evening fending off the clampers while I rehearsed. I was shown to the seated area where the interview was to take place, to find it was all wet. Apparently Dusty had had a tantrum and thrown her gin and tonic around. I was thrilled to sit on such an icon’s spilt beverage. I was only on air for a fairly uneventful three minutes and no one at all seemed to have seen me, so after a few days had passed and I’d had no phone calls offering me highly paid bookings or more TV work, I went back to the telegrams and the circuit.

Bigger and swisher venues began to do alternative comedy nights, and more comedians and more punters were attracted to the circuit. Jongleurs, Banana Cabaret, The Comedy Store: work was there almost for the asking. Quite a few comics ran their own clubs, with varying degrees of success. Malcolm Hardee ran a club called the Tunnel – so called because it was right by the south-east London side of the Blackwall Tunnel – in the back room of the Mitre pub. It was always well attended, a rowdy well-oiled crowd waiting for the inevitable moment when Malcolm would get his genitals out, which he did most weeks. He was quite rightly very proud of his enormous testicles. A man fell asleep in the front row once and Malcolm woke him up by pissing on him. Paul Merton and John Irwin ran the Room Above a Pub cabaret in Wimbledon, although not many people seemed to come. I played there in June 1985 for £7, my share of the door takings. Usually you took home a percentage of the box office, never knowing in advance what your fee would be. I didn’t mind this, as the money was always fairly divided and no one was making huge profits.

In April 1985 I worked what must have been my first seven-day week, and my earnings were as follows:

Monday – Earth Exchange, £15.

Tuesday – Word of Mouth Club, £10.

Wednesday – Pindar of Wakefield, £17.

Thursday – Rosemary Branch, £9.

Friday – Jackson’s Lane, £50.

Saturday – Finborough cabaret, £25.

Sunday – Xenon’s, Piccadilly, £50.

I was the only camp act on the circuit in those days. No one else dressed up apart from me, and other comics looked on bemused as I painted my face and pulled on my tights. Fanny rested in the empty suitcase prior to her performance, stepped on once by an apologetic Patrick Marber, in those days one half of an act called the Dross Bross. I’d found a gap in the market and I had novelty value, if nothing else.

Susan Sontag in her ‘Notes on Camp’ was moved to write that camp is ‘a feat goaded on, in the last analysis, by boredom’. Who knows what she was talking about, but from time to time boredom and then depression crept over me. When the dark cloud descended, my life seemed tiresome. I only got up in the morning to walk the dog, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. I trekked round London with Fanny and a suitcase trying to entertain a few dozen members of the public in charmless pubs and clubs. I enjoyed the chase when cruising a man, but post-coitally I was under no illusions. My existence was vacuous and lonely. There was no point to it. I sometimes felt like I had deliberately fashioned an existence that would starve my soul.

But I gamely carried on, diligently keeping a journal for a week or so, reviewing my own performances with a critical eye.

Saturday 9 March. Pranksters cabaret, Southampton University

Shameful. Lifeless and uninspired from start to finish. Mitigating circumstances might be that I was deaf in one ear and the audience not a sophisticated one, but I didn’t rehearse and was overconfident until the moment I stepped on stage. Before my first sentence I heard a ‘fuck off!’ and many people walked out while I was on. Extremely embarrassing in front of Arthur Smith, Jeremy Hardy, Podomofski and Berni Bennett.

Sunday 10 March. Room Above a Pub cabaret, Prince of Wales, Wimbledon

Fine. Did some improvising as soon as I came on, prompted by the tape not coming on (‘What is this? Amateur night?’), then delved behind the curtain and found a fridge and pulled out an empty packet of Dark and Golden (‘Rather like this place: empty’). Did a lot of touching and walking around. Had 3 stooges: Sebastian, Hermione and Trevor (‘I could almost be in Hampstead!’). All went according to plan. Hadn’t rehearsed.

Friday 15 March. Bangor University, North Wales

Audience quiet but good-natured, as opposed to disinterested. Necessary to move in close and prod them about a bit. Did well to pick on the union secretary and ask if he was the college stud. Asked a group of rugby players, ‘Are you six individuals or three couples?’ On the whole it was confident, if not inspired. What you might call satisfactory.

Saturday 16 March. MacClachlans cabaret, Hemingford Arms, N1

Very good. Lifted by the presence of Linda and Charles Miller, BBC. Got myself into a speedy, hyper mood before I went on, which worked, so that I interrupted myself all the time. Kept referring to some poor man’s extraordinary ears, then another man’s mouth, someone else’s nose, etc, and built up an identikit picture of an Islington punter.

Sunday 24 March. Xenons, Piccadilly

Got quite carried away and did half an hour instead of the specified 15 minutes. A lot of heckler stoppers including, ‘Did you forget your broom?’ Put most of the new ending in, about the JC School of Acting, but bottled out of getting a punter up for the finale. Next time. Shouts of ‘More!’ which doesn’t happen often.

Sunday 31 March. King’s Head, Crouch Hill

Good, but a regression in that I didn’t include any of the new stuff this time, and still didn’t do the new ending although the time was ripe. Had a very friendly stooge called Ian and made the most of that. Timing good.

Sunday 7 April. Tunnel Palladium, The Mitre, SE10

With the usual crowd of hecklers it was necessary to keep the laugh lines coming, so there was much chopping and changing to keep them at bay, which I did. Did the new script, too, at last, which works really well. Unfortunately I’d already used half the jokes in it, which was silly. Sweated buckets and was indeed emotionally drained.

Thursday 11 April. Rub-a-Dub Club, Sydenham, SE26

A good night. Took my time and did half an hour. One punter was persistently talking to his friend so I asked what they were talking about. ‘I’m trying to find out if you’re any good.’ Shut him up on my third attempt. Commented on the large number of quiffs in the audience. Did new ending. Went very well.

Friday 12 April. Donmar Warehouse, Late and Live

For BBC and friends I excelled myself. Constant ad libs, including, ‘Did we get up the wrong side of the slab this morning?’

Saturday 13 April. Not the Camden Palace, NW1

OK. Nosebleed started as soon as I did, so that threw me somewhat and according to Linda I had my glazed expression on. New ending but punter refused to sing ‘I’m Gonna Leave Old Durham Town’. Should have it on tape in case.