Nerd Do Well (30 page)

This is all very well when you’re studying Jean-Luc Godard’s
Numéro Deux
but slightly distracting when you’re watching
The Jungle Book
and feeling irked by the use of infantilised anthropomorphic proxies as racial stereotypes, while everyone else is dancing around singing ‘King of the Swingers’ or finding yourself unable to enjoy a film because of the clumsy use of hastily written ADR
¹⁶
employed to disguise unwieldy transitions that join scenes not originally intended to be consecutive.

It’s not totally debilitating, you can turn it down to a muffled complaint in the back of your head or even suspend it, if you’re determined to enjoy something despite its shortcomings, which is sometimes entirely possible. It leaves you with slight multiple personality disorder since the little voice is impossible to silence completely, but you can ignore it, like you might ignore an annoying younger sibling or the sound of pigeons having sex on your windowsill or your best friend kissing a French exchange student.

Personally, I value this capacity since it can be enormous fun and comes in handy as a screenwriter, enabling you to determine your film’s hidden meanings and identify its social context before a frame has been shot. I was well aware of the psychoanalytical implications at work in
Shaun of the Dead
’s Oedipal subplot and exploited them as a dramatic device rather than them simply reflecting my and Edgar’s own relationship with our parents. The ‘father as enemy and rival’ story is subverted slightly by a last-minute redemption for the dying Philip (Bill Nighy) that forges a crucial connection between (step)father and son, defined exclusively by their own (male) bond as opposed to their status as rivals for the mother’s affection. Similarly, I was well aware of the symbolic significance of Shaun having to literally kill his mother, Barbara (Penelope Wilton). The drama of the moment lies in the son’s rejection of his mother as the object of his affections, substituting her with a sexual partner. In order for Shaun to move forward, he replaces Barbara as his figure of worship with his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), and to that end, he shoots her in the head.

The situation arises because Barbara cannot survive this new phase of Shaun’s life, unlike Liz who survives with him until the end. At the very end of the film, we see Shaun and Liz living in domestic bliss with Liz as mother, doting on Shaun. Yet even after this transformation, Shaun cannot fully reject his past and clings to his dead best friend, Ed (Nick Frost), his proxy father/son, whom he has concealed in the shed.

We always intended an ambiguity at the end of the film regarding whether or not Liz knows about Ed. If she does, she is complicit in Shaun’s failure to evolve and as such is as reactionary as he is. If she doesn’t, then Shaun’s transformation from zero to hero has meant nothing, as he continues to cling on to his past by hanging out with his zombie friend. Also, there are numerous unintentional processes at work here, not least our fantasy female’s ultimate acceptance of Shaun despite his being a bit of an idiot. Deep down, we all hope to be accepted despite our shortcomings and Edgar and I were effectively building an all-new bride of Frankenstein in Liz, a gestalt entity fashioned to satisfy both of our subconscious desires. We tried very hard to make Liz believable and have her protests be justified and not just needy and boring, but ultimately she is still a male fantasy: a beautiful girlfriend prepared to look past failings in the face of one’s romantic gesture, maybe not a bunch of flowers but certainly extreme courage in the face of a zombie apocalypse (chicks love that shit).

The film is in some respects about human emotional consistency in the face of fantastic events. If a giant squirrel starts running amok in your city, it affects you only in a direct sense; you don’t suddenly start liking broccoli or stop being afraid of spiders. All of Shaun’s petty tendencies remain the same despite the zombie invasion – he still hates David and Dianne (Dylan Moran and Lucy Davis) and likes peanuts; the bravery he displays has always been in him and the changes he makes in his relationships are all forced upon him. By the end of the film, it is clear that Shaun hasn’t really been changed that much by his recent experiences, and although he has won the day by beating amazing odds, the fact that he remains unable to let go of his now literally toxic best friend hints that the final idyll will be short-lived. Or then again, maybe it’s just a film about zombies . . .

I have to get off this tip, as I can feel myself being drawn back into old patterns. I’ll be pulling an all-nighter with a bag of Murray Mints and a packet of Camel Lights next and we can’t have that (I gave up smoking in 2001). What I will say, however (as I desperately search for my lighter), is that my early love of zombie cinema has persisted well into my adult life because the genre is so metaphorically rich and interesting. Edgar and I were certainly able to develop Romero’s use of symbolism in his films and apply it to our own, specifically using the zombies as reflections of various social concerns: collectivism, conformity and the peculiar condition of modern city living. I believe it is this metaphorical richness that forms the cornerstone of their continued appeal. It’s why I get miffed at all the dashing around in recent zombie films. It completely misses the point; transform the threat to a straightforward physical danger from the zombies themselves, rather than our own inability to avoid them, and these films are about us, not them. There’s far more meat on the bones of the latter, far more juicy interpretation to get our teeth into. The fast zombie is by comparison thin and one-dimensional and, ironically, it is down to all the exercise.

Where was I? (Long exhale.) Ah yes . . .

It was customary in the drama department at Bristol University for the departmental students’ organisation, Studiospace, to throw a party at the beginning and end of every term. Being a drama department, the party also included a cabaret, during which students would sing songs, recite poems, perform sketches and generally feel pleased with themselves. However, almost nobody among our new batch of freshers was prepared to get up and risk humiliation in front of this collection of too-cool-for-school, bohemian intellectuals. The old school rules of social order applied even here, and although the second-years didn’t push us up against walls, their knowing smirks were enough to worry our self-esteem, as was the almost total disregard of the third-years, who barely noticed our existence. Everyone seemed so at home and assured, the thought of performing for them was too terrifying a prospect to endure.

One of our number, however, seemed fearless in the face of all the newness, due to a healthy disdain for virtually everything. Dominik Diamond, a fop-haired, young dandy from Arbroath, Scotland, got up and delivered an assured stand-up routine which outraged the numerous feminists in attendance for its use of the phrase ‘dolly birds’. This one incident set Dominik in permanent conflict with the moral elite of the drama department, whose rigid political correctness held inflexible dominion over artistic and social proceedings at the time. It was a period when the policing of language and behaviour was at its most draconian, and stories about a member of a feminist physical theatre group, ousted by his colleagues for offering to be ‘mother’ when pouring tea, seemed not only feasible but right. Dominik immediately became the Jeremy Clarkson of Bristol University Drama Department, a role that alienated him from and endeared him to his fellow students in equal measure.

I thought he was great. I felt a huge surge of admiration for him as he stepped up to the mike during that first Studiospace cabaret and a tinge of jealousy that I had not had the balls to do the same. I became aware of a sensation I used to feel when competing in athletics events with other schools or Cub Scout packs, finding myself pitted against their fastest runner or best bowler. Suddenly, the comfortable hierarchies of school seemed meaningless and the status you had worked so hard to establish was voided by someone who might actually be better than you. I had always been the funny one, at Brockworth and Stratford, and yet here was this ballsy young funny man in a big-shouldered jacket, doing pretty well in front of a not entirely partisan crowd. I clapped and I cheered and I was proud that one of our own was making a splash, but at the same time I was quietly hatching a plan for the next Studiospace cabaret.

I had dabbled with poetry while at Stratford and had even written a couple of comedy songs, one of which I wrote for the express purpose of seducing the girl whose heart I would successfully win. Caroline, a friend of a friend’s sister, was a vision in gothic gorgeousness to the seventeen-year-old me. Dressed in flowing black skirts and fragrant leather, she sported the most impressive hair extensions I had ever laid eyes on and, wonder of wonders, she found me funny. I spent the best part of a year wearing her down by openly expressing my affection for her in the Green Dragon pub and other goth-friendly venues, including a Fields of the Nephilim concert in Coventry. During one flirty conversation she had told me she was celibate, which I wilfully misheard as halibut. I then wrote a song called ‘Caz is a Fish Blues’ and sang it to her at the Binton Folk Club where Andy (God’s Third Leg) Harrison, Jason (
Sleeper
) Baughan and myself performed weekly as Blind Dog Harrison and the Dirty Gerbils.

The evening was supposed to be about folk music, but we had hijacked it and frustrated the regulars by bringing in a lot of much needed custom but somewhat muddying the point of the gathering. The evening became more of a free-for-all for drama students at
SWCFE
to indulge their musical fantasies in front of a friendly crowd. This loosening of parameters encouraged other acts and, before long, people were getting up and telling jokes and reading poetry. A chap whose name I believe was Mave, presumably short for Mavis, began reading his performance poetry and it greatly impressed me as a means of performing comedy without the need for a band and I started to write verse of my own, including the fish song, which I sang to a twelve-bar blues with the Gerbils, not quite ready to go solo.

Eventually, my persistence won out and Caroline succumbed to my dubious teenage charms. We stayed together for almost two years, eventually breaking up while I was at Bristol, a callous act of social evolution on my part which I still look back on with regret. Presumably I was too comfortable and chose instead to throw myself into an angsty pit of despair, which, while creatively productive, lost me a treasured friend and the first person I felt genuine romantic love for. The girl on to whom I transferred my unrequited affections provided dramatic impetus for me to fashion a brand of melancholy that formed my early efforts as a semi-professional stand-up. Finally we got together, and after five happy years, I found myself in the Hendon Garden Hospital with a smashed hand. I’m sure Caroline would call that karma.

I’m getting ahead of myself again here, or possibly behind. The point is, having seen Dominik Diamond perform a successful stand-up set in front of the student body, I decided I would do the same; styling myself as a performance poet, so as not to appear as though I was jumping on Dominik’s bandwagon, and developing strengths I had already acquired in Stratford. I bought a notepad, stole a pen and began to write things down.

In our third and final year a small group of us with an interest in comedy banded together to form the recurring line-up for a weekly comedy club in Clifton, Bristol. We called ourselves David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus, after the
BBC
sportscaster who publicly unravelled, pronouncing himself the Son of God, extolling the virtues of wearing turquoise clothing and expounding conspiracy theories concerning a global cabal of shape-shifting lizards representing the true axis of world power. He made these proclamations with such equable rationale, it was hard to dispel the creeping dread that he might know something we didn’t.

Whatever the truth of the matter, six Bristol University students took his name and the name of another much loved historical crackpot in vain and created a weekly showcase at the Dome restaurant in Clifton, which lasted for four weeks and much to our surprise drew in fire-officer-worrying crowds to every show. Dominik Diamond was the brains behind the enterprise, characteristically seeing it as a way to earn a few quid.

The six of us operated on a door split, with Dominik taking the lion’s share of the ‘box office’ because he was the compère and it was his idea and he was a rampant capitalist. Joining Dominik and myself were Myfanwy Moore, Barnaby (Carrier Pigeons) Power, David Williams and Jason Bradbury. We mixed up the running order every week, working from the socialist standpoint that we were all equal and should share the burden of opening and the luxury of closing the show (a standpoint Dominik was never comfortable with, what with him being a money mad maniac).

I had developed my act a little by this stage; I was in my third year and had performed at a number of cabarets in the drama department and the student union. I had started using the somewhat impractical gimmick of having a real live goldfish onstage with me. Rover, a fish I bought for my student house, became the central theme of the act. The idea being that he was a Marxist poet, using me as a proxy to deliver his blistering political invectives.

Luckily for you, gentle reader, I can’t remember or find any of these works – I presume that they have been either lost or more likely destroyed by the government – but the premise worked well in a surreal way and enabled me to open my silly poems up to include daft anthropomorphic love songs and protest rants.

I was so committed to the idea that I would actually take the trouble of bringing the fish tank to gigs and placing it on a stool next to me so that the audience could witness the fish swimming around during the show. When I performed my Edinburgh show in 1995, I was unable to transport him up to Scotland and so opted for a plastic facsimile rather than buy a stand-in. Poor Rover died while I was away. He was five and, although he denies it, I’m sure it was Nick’s fault. We will now observe five lines of silence in his honour.