27/10/06
Big And Daft (part one) -
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I have posters on my walls from shows I have done.
I'm not sure if this is down to egomania, narcisissm or just pride but they are there regardless. They are mostly solo shows now, Comedy Network posters, "Ray Peacock" stuff, but tucked away in my office (spare room), just beneath the framed "Rugby Leaguer" cover from 2001 declaring "St Helens do the treble" there is a frame filled with four "Big And Daft" flyers. Two at the top, two at the bottom. It's just by the door, and the reason I mention it is because the final date of the tour flyer corresponds with today's date. It was five years ago today that Big And Daft performed together onstage for the very last time.
It was at Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline, Scotland, and was the last date of our 2001 tour. We all knew it was the last time we would perform onstage together, after the show we binned the props, had a beer, gave each other cuddles and generally felt a bit weird and numb around each other.
Big And Daft (or B.A.D as I always wished it to be known) was essentially a live sitcom, performed by myelf, Rob Rouse and Jon Williams. It had started as a sketch show at the Torrington Arms in North Finchley (it's a Starbucks now).
I'd wanted to put together a five piece comedy team and had recruited Jon (who I had been to University with) to help me. I was running the comedy nights at the Torrington as a straight stand up night, 'compering' it myself, and booking the acts and stuff. Jon would usually be on the door, or on some evenings he would dress up as "Spiderman" and dance behind me as I started the evening (I enjoyed singing a song at the beginning of the show but that was usually as far ahead as I got with planning my performance). It was a monthly show and about three months in I had booked an act called "Cyril" who had called me for an open spot. As I said I was doing the booking of the club, but I didn't even know what an "open spot" was, as far as I was concerned if you rang you were on. So Cyril got a gig at The B.A.D comedy nite.
He was a decent act. He had a guitar, was exuberant, was rude, and got on very well with myself and Jon - it immediately felt as though we had known each other for much longer than we had - like a successful date. After the gig, Jon and I went back to my flat with a bottle and discussed the evening. We spoke about Cyril (or Rob - as that's who it was) a lot and the following morning I gave him a ring and told him about the sketch team idea. He was immediately keen. It was still the plan to have another two members but after a few weeks of 'working' together, somewhere along the line we stopped looking.
The first official Big And Daft performance with the three of us on together was on 31st October 1997 (ten years ago this Tuesday - oh the anniversaries I remember...). We opened the show with "Relight my fire" (Jon and me wearing devil horns and Rob in a dress as Lulu) and did sketches in between the stand up acts. The shows would last in excess of three hours, until eventually the amount of acts on the bill were reduced to accomodate our bits.
We would go out into Finchley and film ourselves on the day of the gigs - no editing - we just showed what we had filmed as the audience were coming in. Just us fucking about on Finchley High Road. Highlights of the films included Rob sexing cuddly toys in the Tally Ho discount shop, me running around a car park with my cock out shouting "look at me everybody", and Jon standing looking at the camera saying "nothing interesting ever happens to me" whilst there was an actual car crash behind him. The car crash tape was used by one of the drivers in evidence during a court case.
The sketches we did (such as they were) were the usual stuff you would expect from three cocky northern lads with little experience in the comedy world - "Transvestite cops" about two of New York's finest trying on dresses, "At Home with Darth Vader" where the Lord of Sith, sounding very much like the character of Ray Peacock, would come home and complain to his wife about what "our Luke has done", and "Millenium Fever" in which the three of us would pitch our own ideas for millenium merchandise (such as the Millenium Starfish).
You get the idea.
Naive as we were though, we were still clued up enough to know what was working, and as the months flew by it was clear that the best bits were when we played extensions of ourselves rather than characters. It wasn't long before the character stuff was falling by the wayside, just as the stand up acts had. The shows were becoming about the three of us.
In August 1998, Rob ran away to the Edinburgh festival and came back with the "So You Think You're Funny" award, sending Jon and me into a panic as we dreaded the impending break up of our little family whilst he went off to do all the gigs he was suddenly being offered. To Rob's credit, he never did run away forever, and when Karen Koren of the Gilded Balloon offered him a spot at the following years festival to do a stand up show, he turned it down in favour of using it for B.A.D's first show. Karen was unsure and so came down to see us at the Canal Cafe. After the show, she offered us the slot, advising us that we should get a girl into the show to improve the dynamic. Jon asked her with a straight face "But are girls funny?". Karen never tried to offer us advice again.
One of Rob's biggest problems at that time was his inability not to try to please everyone. It was as endearing as it was irritating. He would regularly be set projects by myself and Jon to write things, and would lie and tell us he had done it. When we arrived in Edinburgh in 1999 he was meant to have written two sketches to complete the show. He said he had, but then admitted when he arrived in Scotland that he hadn't. It was funny at first, but thinking back - even that early on - it was the first fracture. It was also our first row. On the plus side, the last minute scribbling meant the show was fresh (and edgy apparently).
Edinburgh 1999 was a very successful year for us. We sold lots of tickets (due to good word of mouth and the fact that we would flyer for it ourselves whilst doing pathetic publicity stunts in the Gilded Balloon bar - stuff like Jon carrying me around on his back). We actually made a profit of fifty pounds for the whole run, but as it was Rob's job to invoice the Gilded Balloon we never actually got it. Too late now...the records of the finances were mysteriously destroyed in a fire a few years later. Bit of an extreme solution to get out of paying fifty quid but there you go.
Our time in the Wee Room at the Gilded Balloon in 1999 was a good three weeks, with brilliant reviews from Stephen Armstrong in the Sunday Times, Malcolm Hay at Time Out and Ella Kenyon in The Independent. Everyone it seemed thought we were as good as we did, them two went and networked with proper comedians whilst I got off (and sometimes fell in love) with girls, and we left the festival with two television development deals on the table.
The BBC and Chrysalis TV were vying for our attention.
Gary Reich at Chrysalis had been at the BBC, and had worked with Sacha Baron Cohen and that lot on Comedy Nation. He'd moved to Chrysalis after being headhunted to form and develop a comedy and entertainment wing. Producer Myfanwy Moore at the BBC was working with Lucas and Walliams on Rock Profiles for UK Play, and convinced us that they were heading for great things by being brought through the ranks slowly.
We had several meetings with both companies. The Chrysalis meetings were usually on the roof and always a laugh, mainly at the expense of Gary Reich being a gay man. Not that we were childish. Well, Rob was. A meeting there was never complete without some pseudo-homophobic comment about bumming or how come Gary didn't have a wife. Gary would stare at us as only Gary can as we snorted like children. Gary blanked me in Edinburgh this year and I'm sure it was because he remembers. It was made worse by the fact that he was talking to Andrew Lawrence at the time...but I digress.
The BBC meetings on the other hand were far more sensible affairs, probably due in no small part to overwhelming feeling when suddenly finding yourself in TV centre. You just couldn't shout so much in there - although we did run riot in the Blue Peter Garden once, but we tidied up afterwards. In fact, thinking about it, I reckon it was being allowed in the Blue Peter garden that eventually swung us to signing with the BBC.
We really had that little idea.
Ironically, as it would turn out, the only television programme we ever made was a joint venture between Chrysalis and the BBC. It all felt very exciting, as though the script was running exactly to plan - we'd made a splash at the festival and now we were going to save the BBC.
We should probably get a manager...
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