03/04/07
Frog & Bucket and stuff -
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Hey you.
My Manchester excursion started on Friday morning when I had my first proper training session on the gym. This business of me starting at 'intermediate' level was confirmed as tremendously misguided as the session concluded with me being violently sick. I've not been sick for fucking ages - in fact the last time was at the beginning of the fringe when I followed a load of buffet food with an entire bag of Haribo and paid the price. The lessons I learnt on Friday were a. That I am far from fucking 'intermediate' and b. It is unwise to eat a bag of crisps before embarking upon exercise.
I consoled myself with the fact that, no matter what, it would never be as bad as Friday's session again, and I was right as there was an all round marked improvement during Sunday's one. Wasn't even sick.
Anyhow, onto the Frog and Bucket comedy club.
I made a decision a couple of years ago to no longer play that club, as I really didn't enjoy it the last time I was there. Can't even remember what it was that upset me now, but I get like that from time to time, and make no apologies to anybody that feels this to be pompous in any way. I like to enjoy my job, and don't tend to repeat places that have previously intefered with that. Not always my choice of course, but I pretend to myself it always is. Anyhow, I was sulking with the Frog and Bucket but several assurances later from Lee over the years - who does the bookings and stuff there - that it was much improved, and I decided to give it another go.
I think I would have to concede that it is better than it was, but it was still a weekend of battles.
Friday night's show involved me having a surreal debate with a drunken gentleman in the audience about Jasper Carrott. He'd been piping up for most of the evening, in that charming way that drunk people do (ie. with no consideration for anyone or anything other than their own completely out of control innebriated ego), and I rose to the challenge with gusto, slapping him about (with just my words of course) and trying to decipher just what exactly he was actually on about.
Ten minutes later and here was the difficult bit: Security stepped in and chucked him out.
In fairness, it had been going on all night, but the thing was, I was just getting into my stride with him and the audience were enjoying watching the battle. I'd pretty much decided to abandon material and make his destruction the sole theme of my set, and then suddenly he was taken from me. It threw everything off, and whilst I fully understand the actions of the doormen (who were, I might add, impeccable all weekend), I was quite prepared to deal with him myself, and it upset the balance a little.
My set was all won back by the end, and finished as it should with clapping and cheering and the like, but it was a little niggle for me as I drove back to my mum's house. The other niggle was the behaviour of my SatNav machine.
I have mentioned on here before that it occasionally takes me on little diversions, but this weekend I have finally sussed exactly what it does. If I am nearby to, or passing, somewhere I have recently (ever) been to before on the way to my destination, it takes me on a little nostalgia tour. I'm sure it thinks it is being friendly, but I could have done without a trip to a hotel I stayed at just before Christmas (it tried to take me into the fucking car park but I rumbled it at the roundabout just before) and places I ate at around the same time. I just wanted to get back...
On Saturday night, on my way back down South, it surpassed itself by taking me to fucking Huddersfield rather than the M6 which I had been expecting it to, but we are getting ahead of ourselves...let's go to my second night in Manchester shall we?
Saturday night at the Frog and Bucket, and Dan Nightingale came bounding into the green room announcing that he was confident that the show was going to be much better than the Friday one. All of us had felt a general sneering amongst the audience on the Friday, thanks in no small part to a lady who sat at the very front of the stage with her back to it, looking very unimpressed with proceedings. When I was watching Dan on the Friday, it was very difficult not to be looking at the lady's sulky face - and if she was pulling my focus then god knows what she was doing with the rest of the audience. On Saturday, Dan said he could feel it in the air that this was a better audience.
And to be fair to them, and young Master Nightingale, they were. But fuck they got over-excited about my lightsaber.
I often get a couple of shouts of "turn it on" when I first arrive onstage, and I never, ever do, but most audiences are happy to let it go.
Not this one.
We went from "turn it on" to "what colour is it?" to shouts of "red?", "green?", to me saying there were no batteries in it (which wasn't true), to them shouting "Wookie" at me, to me doing five minutes in just Wookie growls and grunts (which was surprisingly effective in seducing some members of a hen night and lasted much longer than I ever thought possible), to me sitting on the floor in defeat, to someone shouting "Plug it in" (about the lightsabre) to me discussing the inherrent flaws of a "Plug in" lightsabre ("When I left you I was but a learner, now I am the master...now...I need a two prong plug...and then you are fucking dead Obi Wan..."), to me giving up and lighting the fucking thing to a cheer that should only have really come from a Variety Club excursion when seeing a toy lit up...
And that was it.
So, the Frog and Bucket probably was better than it used to be, just not really the place for me to tell my long stories. They don't like to do too much listening.
It was an enjoyable weekend from a social comedy level though. I shot the shit with Dan Nightingale and teased (bullied) him with the other acts about his overrunning, had some great chats with Martin Bigpig about keeping fish and comedy in general (he persuaded me that my recent desire to own tropical fish was worth following up...you couldn't wish to meet a nicer man than Martin, completely lacking in any apparent bitterness that so often accompanies us comedians) and had a bitching session with Seymour Mace about a mutual acquaintance (see previous brackets about bitterness).
The other thing I noticed this weekend at the Frog and Bucket is quite how much your clothes smell when you leave.
You expect cigarette smoke and all that, but because as an act you end up waiting by the kitchen before you go on you get that smell permeating your clothing too. It reminded me of a time I went on a ferry with an ex-girlfriend and we fell asleep on deck next to a massive extractor fan. I really love to fall asleep next to warm blowing air, when I was younger I would take a blanket down the side of my parents house and sit and snooze by the outlet for the tumble drier, but what me and my ex hadn't taken into account when we cuddled up by the ship's exractor fan was the fact that it was extracting from the kitchen and we would spend the rest of the weekend smelling of chips.
And that's exactly how you smell after doing a weekend at the Frog and Bucket so other comedians be warned. I'll still go back though, if they'll have me.
And that's me. Today I went for a casting in London (really enjoyable one too, was a proper laugh, and I avoided the sex shops - I did in Manchester as well - the Frog is on the same road as a sex shop, but I went in it the last time I was in Manchester and it is reeeeally rubbish so walking past it wasn't that massive an achievement to be honest) and now I am going to go downstairs and make some sushi (yep - make it myself - how brilliant am I? I've got a rolling mat and everything. I don't have a headband though - I'm a chef not a twat. This recent hobby perhaps stands in perverse opposition to my previously mentioned desire to own tropical fish, but whatever).
I'm looking for stuff to do tonight, I think sleeping may be a difficulty. I am dreading the fact that I have a training sesh in the morning (gonna stick with intermediate for now, so if I die, remember that it was essentially my choice and swallow your guilt), yet also looking forward to the fact that I am going to "An evening with Kevin Smith" tomorrow night in London.
Yeah, you're right to be jealous. I'll tell you all about it next time.
love x
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