Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Oh, I hadn't thought of that!' she said enthusiastically. 'I did put a poster up on the side of a
fish and chip van today, though.'
It didn't bode well. I booked comedian friends of mine, Paul Thorne and Paul Sinha, who I
knew could handle most situations and who would be prepared to give me a little leeway if
things were a bit 'amateurish' to start with, but those relationships became definitely strained
by the second show when we found ourselves in a massive, 500-seat
salle des fêtes
with no
sound system. An emergency system was rented, which we then had to rig up even though
none of us had a clue what to do.
'Do you not carry your own microphones around with you usually?' Julia asked, pulling on
a cigarette, as we lugged the heavy sound equipment around the venue.
'No, Julia. No we don't.' I looked at Paul Thorne, who was a close friend, and rolled my
eyes in a 'what can you do?' way. He looked back at me and mouthed some particularly nasty
insult in my direction.
'Don't ever ask me to work for you again,' he added.
In all we did six shows over two months, two runs of three, and a couple of them were very
good, enjoyable comedy gigs, but we played to ever-decreasing numbers as Julia and Pete
insisted, against my advice, on changing the venues every time.
In the penultimate show somewhere in a tiny village outside of Cognac we had seventeen
people in. Of course the show went ahead and I introduced the first act and went outside to
lick my wounds. As usual Julia was there, puffing away on yet another fag.
'Why are we in the middle of bloody nowhere, Julia? We've got seventeen people in! Seven-
teen!'
She looked at me, shocked that I was angry. 'Do you normally get more than that then?'
I had already decided that I was working with idiots, that they were costing me a fortune and
putting long-term friendships under considerable strain. The sixth show would be the last, I
thought, but decided against telling Julia until the thing was over. Also, it was the effort in-
volved that didn't seem worth it, the organising, the funding, the travelling and the perform-
ing was a lot harder than I'd anticipated. It's much easier, I thought, to just walk on stage and
tell jokes for half an hour and let somebody else take the strain.
We arrived at the last gig, again at some tiny town in the middle of rural Deux-Sevres, the
venue having been changed from the most successful show we had had on the first run. Again
I was with two very good friends, Andy Robinson and Gavin Webster, and I'd already told
them that I thought this would be my last; the strain, emotionally, physically and financially
was just too much. Andy later described my pre-gig condition as something resembling a
stroke. I got out of the car and the entire left side of my body seemed to droop, he said, I then
pulled myself up and staggered into the venue and like a man possessed started fiddling about
with the sound system. Apparently happy with my work, I then marched out of the back of
the hall and promptly collapsed.
