Jesters

Years and years ago, from my local public library in Morden, Surrey, I got a book called “The Fool, His Social and Literary History” by Enid Welsford.

What a gem! What a joy. What a pleasure to discover was that book!

Seriously, if you are at all interested in the history of comedy, clowns and jesters you will love Enid Welsford’s book.

I loved that book so much and I deeply regretted that it was a library book which I had to return. The book was out of print and I tried in vain to find an old copy at an affordable price. These days, thanks to the internet and the digitisation of old books The Fool is available again.

I also used to read Punch magazine in those days and I still have copies on my bookshelves, some of them considerably older than me.

These are the characters I have loved for so many years. The jesters, the Commedia Del Arte, The strolling players and minstrels, the fools and buffoons. Danny Kaye in the feature film of “The Court Jester”, Jack Point in “The Yeomen of the Guard”.

I tried to make a career for myself as a stand-up comic in the early 1980s but I have to say, in all honesty, I was terrible at it. The material I wrote for myself was intended to emulate the style of old movie comedians like the Marx Brothers, Laurel and hardy, Charlie Chaplin, The Crazy Gang, Danny Kaye etc. This was a very bad choice considering that the “alternative” comedy scene had just become the greatest thing around and, by contrast, there was me, trying to be Danny Kaye and the Marx Brothers when audiences were clamouring for cool post-punk satire and political potshots at Thatcher.

On the other hand, if I was trying to make a fool of myself, I succeeded!

My “career”, if it can be called that, began at a talent competition in a pub in White City. I was a dismal flop with the audience but the musicians were laughing at me as I pretended to be “Professor Grodzinski” an expert in musical styles. After a few extremely lame alleged “jokes” I finished by singing “Windmills of Your Mind” in a speeded up variable tempo and a voice like a broken wind-up Victrola.

My second appearance was at the gong show of the Comic Strip club in Soho. At the door I told them I wanted to perform and they gave me some cut-up pieces of playing card to use at the bar as tokens for free drinks. I chatted briefly to Julian Clary. I told him I was a bit nervous and he said that we were “all in the same boat”, which I appreciated.

The act I did there was another dreadful mess of lameness which saw me going on twice as long as I’d intended to because they didn’t hit the gong for about ten minutes even though no-one was laughing. Absolute nightmare.

My third appearance was at an audition in Watford to be an entertainer on a cruise ship. I’ve mercifully forgotten what act I did for that one but I can confidently say that it will have been bad.

My next appearance was at Nero’s night club in Bath. This was the worst one of all but was a paid gig. I was collecting examples of work to support my intended application to join Equity, the performer’s union, so I needed to have done some paid work. I had been reading up on all the showbiz information I needed so that I could make the right sort of impression on potential agents etc. and I regularly bought and read The Stage.

I managed to get a ten minute spot at Nero’s by working for considerably less money than any sane person would have asked for. I wanted ten minutes at a pound a minute = £10. The management agreed and I was thinking “One day I’ll get a whole hour at the same rate, sixty pounds an hour! Then I’ll get a whole 40 hour working week at the same rate! £2400!!!!”

I had stars in my eyes. If only I’d had a brain to go with it. Oh Well…

I tried to be topical by painting a white stripe across my nose like Adam Ant and waving a court jester’s swagger stick around and saying “It’s very mystic! It’s m’stick! It’s ma-jest-stick!” Honestly, Frank Sidebottom has a better act than the thing I was doing.

The act was going well, in my imagination. No-one was listening to me and the entire audience were talking amongst themselves and drinking themselves under the table. Perfect! They wouldn’t be sufficiently conscious to know how awful I was.

Then I made the worst mistake.

I had a joke ready which was supposed to take the piss out of Nazis, racists and bigots in general. The idea was that I would announce that I was going to tell “a racist joke” and then, with everyone suitably shocked at that announcement, I would proceed to tell a joke about racists. Making the racists be the butt of the joke. I was stupid enough to think that this was a brilliant clever funny idea.

I began to tell the joke, announcing that it was going to be “a racist joke”. Then, before I could go any further the sound engineer (god bless him) turned off my microphone.

The audience didn’t get to hear my joke about racists.

I had stitched myself up like a badly stitched kipper.

The joke the audience didn’t hear was something along the lines of “Why are Nazis all the same astrological sign as each other? Pause for a moment. Timing it. Because they are all Sad-Git-Arians!

(Ha ha)

The audience remained drunkenly oblivious to the public suicide I had just committed.

The management still paid me the ten pounds.

I gave up the idea of being a professional comic. I realised that I wasn’t the comedy actor who plays the part of a fictional idiot, I was the ACTUAL idiot who gets played by that actor.

I performed one more gig before knocking the whole thing on the head for good and all. This was at Glastonbury Assembly Rooms sponsored by Tom Clarke of Gog Theatre at an event called “Art On the Dole”.

I changed direction. I went to work at the Children’s World charity playing King Crackpot, King of the Land of Sunshine. I was better at that, thank goodness.