05/02/07
Showbiz Parties -
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I have no idea how to behave at an industry party - literally no clue.
To be perfectly honest, I don't think I would know how to behave at any party, but as I am rarely invited to them, and even more rarely go to them even if I am, it is not something that needs to overly concern me. It would be true to say I am not the most sociable soul (not in group get togethers anyway - I am more than capable of dealing with one-on-one social situations, even better at one-on-one private situations...by which I mean I am dead good at 'having it off' - and I'm not bragging - everyone says so).
I run out of smalltalk pretty fucking quick (at parties), usually resorting to being plain insulting in an effort to be 'entertaining' (as much to myself as anybody else), and when you see people that you haven't seen since the last party there is usually a reason that you are not more often in touch. I am rapidly learning that it is the done thing in the comedy industry (or indeed any industry) to maintain a level of willing around the important folk, but a lot of the time I simply can't bring myself to do the faux polite thing. A cunt's a cunt, no matter how much potential career power they have. This is why I have a manager to talk to them for me - I'd just say the wrong thing (like I probably am right now).
The other thing is, I don't really drink, and get pretty uncomfortable at the thought of being drunk in front of people. So I always drive to avoid the temptation, but that doesn't rule out other people drinking. Some of the most embarrassing and awkward moments of my life have involved the innebriation of others, be it people passing out and me panicking or that all too familiar boozy strop that drunk people tend to do at a certain point late into the evening. I simply can't be arsed with it, and I certainly can't be arsed with the apologies and all that bollocks that come the next day/week/month.
I have even more of a difficulty with people I know in a purely professional capacity getting to the point of coma from booze. I once worked on a TV show where, after the first days shooting, the producer and director took the cast to the pub and proceeded to get fucking leathered. I hardly knew these people. I had to leave as I began to feel the respect slowly but surely drain from my body.
You can all, by all means, go and get drunk to your hearts content - I just don't want to be there to witness it with sobriety.
So given my self-professed social inadequacies, it is always with a due sense of dread that I trundle off to the Avalon (my management) annual winter party. It started as a Christmas party years ago, and has gradually been pushed back over the course of time to it's present February slot. One day it will be a summer fete.
I've actually had some great times at Avalon parties over the years, unlike the Edinburgh Fringe parties where a million people are shoved into a shoebox to bitch and no matter how early you arrive the free bar has always just stopped being free, the decadence at the Avalon efforts has always unapologetically had it's tongue firmly planted in it's cheek. Be it the year that there was a grandiose ten-foot sculpture of Lenin behind the bar, or - my personal favourite - the time that all the waiters were little people dressed as elves.
However as the years have gone by, and the novelty has worn off, I find it more of a strain to attend. There's only so long you can stand and stare, or fight the feeling of uselessness as you realise that the producer that used to think you were the dogs bollocks is now avoiding eye-contact.
Most of the highlights of Friday night came about as a result of my writing partner Steve Morrison's youthful eagerness to do the industry party thing just right, which for a while reminded me of how I used to be when I first started getting invited to these things, and so enabled me to sort of enjoy myself for a bit. Within twenty minutes of arriving at the party I had gotten a text from him informing me he had got me "a job" by networking with a radio producer who was doing a panel show about rugby (it turned out to be rugby yawnion unfortunately - but fuck knows how he even got to the point of discussion).
All night long I watched him offer his hand to strangers, introducing himself and then, for some god-knows-why reason, compare his clothes to theirs.
He is truly one of the most accidentally funny fuckers I have ever met. He drunkenly informed me that he always reads this blog at one point, before apologetically telling me it's mainly to see if he's in it. So I thought I would perhaps make him a featured character in this entry.
Mainly because I want to tell you about his worst onstage experience.
Steve used to do stand-up years ago but has stopped now. I have promised my manager that over a period of time I am going to attempt to wear Steve down to the point where he does it again, but at the moment he is absent from the stages. I've even considered the possibility of doing a two hander show with him, especially as earlier in the year there was very nearly an opportunity of an idea to hang it on when I was approached by a TV producer who had been reading this blog and read that I'd said Steve was one of the cub scouts eating ice cream on the rollercoaster on Jim'll Fix It.
Steve had intitially told me to write this on my blog, and I had no idea if it was true, but humoured him. The TV producer was doing a show about old TV clips, one of which was the cub-scout clip, and so wanted to talk to Steve. After my conversation with the producer I immediately called Steve to ascertain whether or not there was any truth in his claim.
Sadly there wasn't - but my mischievous mind went into overdrive and I suggested he try to pass it off as fact. Most people at this point would say "No no no - I can't".
Steve said, "Yeah all right, be a laugh won't it?".
Unfortunately, the practical joke was over before it began as the producer in question was far too clued up to be fooled, but it was a potentially great idea for a show.
Steve stole a bottle of vodka from behind the bar on Friday. It was a free bar and so was an entirely pointless theft, but implied a kindred desire for mischief, and one day I am certain that Steve and I will be able to cause some genuine fun trouble.
It won't be this year's fringe - I think I have decided to give Scotland a wide bearth for the time being. My money is on Edinburgh 2008.
Anyway, back to Steve's worst onstage experience (his telling of which had me on the floor laughing on Friday night).
See how I am always getting into fights and stuff onstage? Like in the last post I made on here about the gobby girl? Well, they all pale into insignificance when I tell you that Steve had fire thrown at him onstage.
Yes you read that right...fire.
I thought I was going to fucking die laughing when he was telling me about it - apparently the audience were so unimpressed with him that they started setting fire to napkins and throwing them at him.
Then he said "And then I got them calmed down and I was doing quite well for a bit but I looked down and they were getting their lighters out and I thought, oh there's that fire again...that's not good"
If only YouTube had been around then - fuck I would have loved to have seen that.
I never found out what happened at the rest of the gig because at that point of the Avalon party Steve's girlfriend got in an altercation with Les Dennis and he had to go and sort it out. I didn't see him again all evening.
I went back to standing and staring, got upset with 'friends' for not being friendly enough, got in a bit of a mood, left and ate a takeaway in my car with the roof down (see I can do some showbizzy things).
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