It was my final bit of shooting on the best man thing this evening. Obviously it was with the other best man, who I first met last week and who was less outgoing and confident than the guy who did the weird gig at the Old Folks' Home. As well as a bit of a chat and some coaching there was another challenge for him to attempt, which I thought would be the toughest of the lot. He was going to have to go on stage at my gig at Happy Mondays and do a minute or so of stand up from his speech. Worse still he didn't know for sure what was going to happen until about fifteen minutes before he went on stage.
I had had doubts that this fella would be able to go through with this. Well, that's not quite true. After last Monday I was fairly certain he would give it a go, but whether he would get through it in one piece was another matter. Doing a stand up gig seems to be one of the worst possible nightmares for most ordinary people and it would take a lot of courage and bottle for him to get through this. I was going on to prep the audience and I knew that the Happy Mondays crowd would be supportive, but evenso I was nervous about it and a little concerned that the experience might have a negative effect on this poor fella's confidence.
And if I was nervous I couldn't imagine how he was feeling. He looked terrified, but was determined to do it, knowing he would look more stupid if he wimped out of it. You had to respect him.
I was brought on stage to introduce him, but as I walked up the director was in a panic as the start of the show had caught him on the hop and his camera wasn't plugged in for sound. So I was going to have to fill for a couple of minutes whilst the sound man rushed through the throng to get to him. The crowd seemed warm and friendly as this was all going on and once the camera was plugged in I went on to tell them what was going on and that they should be welcoming to this man, who had never stepped on a stage before, let alone performed stand up. I did add that it would make for excellent TV if they gave him a horribly difficult time, but only because I knew they wouldn't do any such thing.
The Best Man came on with a sheet of jokes to read out. I think they had been written for him that day, as I hadn't seen them in his speech. They were all about him being a pizza delivery man, which is the job he had been doing when he had met the groom.
The audience gave him a solid minute of loud applause before he had even started. He was caught in the headlights, looking bewildered and a bit green. He started falteringly, but was getting kind laughs, partly through the audience having empathy for this fish out of water. He admitted he was nervous and everyone laughed (not in a nasty way) and then he came to a bit of a stop as his throat went dry. But he gathered himself and pressed on and suddenly got some genuine laughs for the material. He relaxed a little and looked like he was enjoying it. He rode a couple of the laughs and the audience loved him. It was an incredible performance and he got a great cheer when he finished. My concerns proved groundless. Doing this gig must have improved his confidence and self-respect enormously. He admitted he had enjoyed it later, but said he would never do it again.
He was a tough act to follow, but my own gig went pretty well too. The show is really coming together, even though I am doing most of the work on stage. I had a friend in the audience who hadn't seen me gig for almost a year and she said that my confidence on stage had improved by some distance. Most of the stuff is really working well too and I think I somehow have the makings of a good show.
There was a couple on the front row though who seemed to disagree with me and the vast majority of the packed crowd. They sat sullen faced through the whole thing. Being a comedian means that the one person in a crowd not laughing will always attract your attention more than the hundred people pissing themselves. They looked like they had just received news about the death of a friend for the first five minutes. I asked the woman what the problem was and she said that she just didn't find me funny. "Not even that Riddle of the Sphinx joke?" I asked, "That's genius."
She shook her head looking more miserable than ever. It obviously became my mission to make her laugh, just as it became her mission to not find a thing I said amusing. I managed to make her half smile with my kids' jokes (poo on stilts) which showed how pathetic she was, but apart from that, not a thing. But the rest of the audience mainly enjoyed my banter with her, as well as the way I would occasionally look at her after a joke had hit hard with the rest of the crowd and say "No?"
I couldn't really understand why she didn't leave, but she seemed insistent on staying in her seat, not enjoying anything.
"Why don't you leave me alone?" she asked on the fourth time I went back to her.
"I can't leave you alone until I have made you laugh. Why don't you just laugh?"
She refused.
"Neither of us is going to budge. We're trapped in this battle now and neither of us can back down. Now you can understand what's going on between Israel and Lebanon."
I managed to just about keep the battle at a level where it didn't dominate or unsettle the gig (unlike at the Red Rose the other week) and eighty per cent of the material I did seemed to work really well. So hopefully this all augurs well for Edinburgh.
Please do book ahead to ensure your seat as tickets are selling well. Try and get a seat near the front if you think you're going to be miserable for the entire hour.
But in the interests of balance. Here is an email I got from the gentleman in the couple who didn't enjoy the show.
"Dear Mr Herring
We watch a lot of comedy. We’ve been to every Edinburgh preview show at Happy Mondays. I smiled a few times, but failed to laugh out loud. I was so looking forward to your show, there was me thinking ‘eww, Mark Watson, young, First at Cambridge, a novel under his belt, critical acclaim, gotta hate him’ but he actually quite enjoyable. Some of the material was a little ropey, and the circular nature of his performance predictable, how many times has The Seven Deadly Sins been covered? He was decent overall without being startlingly inventive.
Now we come to you.
Richard Herring! Richard Herring! He fell out with Patrick Marber; he mightÂ’ve been on The Day Today, surely the greatest TV programme of the 1990s. HeÂ’s done this, that, check his CV, thereÂ’s hardly anyone any good he hasnÂ’t worked with. CanÂ’t wait!
I knew it’d be busy, and faced with the options of an inaccessible seat in the middle on a hot evening, or a seat near the front with more room and ‘round the back’ toilet and bar access, I broke the cardinal rule and sat at the front. My partner joined me later. The other performers we’d seen at Happy Mondays were neither heckled nor did they pick on the crowd, so in this cosy students are told what to laugh at environment, I assumed it’d be ok. And surely performers of such renown would be past picking on non heckling members of the audience? After all The World Famous Embassy Club this wasn’t.
I was expecting a show with a theme. I genuinely thought your opening selection of predictable ‘jokes’ were intentionally self-deprecating, you playing at being ‘a Working Man’s Club comedian’. The Van Gogh ear joke, “you can only use that technique once though…” I was expecting ‘and even if it works a second time, you have to learn to lip read, and what to use for a sweet nothing depository eh? One less hole for her tongue but that needn’t be a bad thing eh lads…’ But you didn’t even get that far.
The po-tay-toe, po-tar-toe routine - that’s established isn’t it? – was merely tedious, thereby rendering it something of a highlight of your performance. But again, I have better lines, ‘you say po-tay-toes, I say po-tar-toes, you say tom-art-erz, I say yes, it’s a perfectly legitimate aspect of jihad for a couple to engage in suicide bombing’. Geddit?
The reason I didn’t laugh at your show is because it wasn’t inventive or funny. It was predictable ‘Peep! Peep! Punch line for Mr Herring, punch line for Mr Herring.’ There I was thinking Chris Morris wins hands down in the ‘comedian who was good and is now shit’ category, but you push him close. Obviously you never reached his heights, but you’ve arguably sunk lower. Having a go at Steve Martin, you revolutionary, even Dennis ‘Mr Martin, Mr Martin, just one question, why aren’t you funny any more?’ Pennis acknowledged what a true great Martin was. Your “…because no one ever nailed that role” was good, “pissing on the grave of a genius” indeed. But I suggest history will remember Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man With Two Brains and All Of Me alongside the one or two good and subsequent poor Clouseau movies. To then moan on about ‘intelligence’ and take a swipe at Bo-Selecta, step back from the edge Mr Herring afore unleashing your wrath upon My Hero.
We probably agree politically. But yet again, this time relating to immigration, I have better lines, such as the signs I stuck on lorries at Dover to aid Customs and Immigration Officials, ‘There are no asylum seekers left in this vehicle overnight’.
Meanwhile you continue to victimize my partner, I can’t be certain if you heard my ‘welcome to the Embassy Club’ comment, sadly it was all too accurate. You enquired ‘Who do you like? Peter Kay?’ as if expecting, ‘Oh yeah, Max and Paddy is the new Reggie Perrin’ in gushing retort. As someone involved in script editing Little Britain, it is a little rich for you to attack Kay. Maybe you could’ve done a Ting Tong impression?
On to Hurricane Awareness Day, oh, it shouldÂ’ve been August 28th 2005 should it?
Perhaps July 24th 2005 should’ve been jokes about seven bullets in the head to kill Jean Charles de Menezes day. Come on, attack ‘stupid people’ and someone in crowd who isn’t laughing. Maybe we weren’t laughing because your act is so staid Mr Herring.
You suggested people not enjoying your act should leave, ‘I’m the last act on, you’re not laughing, why stay?’ Do you leave football matches at half time Mr Herring, or do you live in hope? Do you enter a pub and order every drink on offer, or do you only drink what you enjoy? Do you dance to every tune at the disco or…?
The grand finale, ‘only two people not laughing and they’re here together, how surprising’ you lost most of the sycophantic audience with that one, ‘pussy whipped’ you suggest. Did it occur to you two people might just enjoy comedy so much, mutual appreciation, critical awareness and understanding helps cement the bond? My partner and I don’t agree on all aspects of comedy, for example; I quite like the new series of Scrubs, she’s not so keen. She thoroughly enjoyed Mark Watson’s act, I’m still awaiting the equal of League Against Tedium, from which I’ll borrow by means of conclusion ‘I’ve nothing to declare but my intelligence and innovation’ said Mr Herring at Customs. ‘I’ll put that down as nothing then shall I? sneered the Official.
Yours cheerfully
Philip
[NB: Your work for Scope is admirable. I use the only non-profit ISP I could find, it supports Pressure Works and Christian Aid and others. If you feel compelled to mock the Christian connotations, feel free. If you can suggest a more right on ISP, please do. Maybe Murdoch does one?]
Please feel free to use this letter in any way you see fit, but remember, itÂ’s not our fault we didnÂ’t enjoy your show."
