12/04/07
Fopp Creche -
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At my time of life (early twenties - shut up), the question of children starts getting bandied about the place with alarming regularity.
Such a difficult one to answer too, since my (real) early twenties I have been fervently against even the mention of children, let alone the thought of bringing them kicking and shitting into the world. I've had my moments of weakness, don't get me wrong, when the idea hasn't been quite as abhorrent as usual, only yesterday on the tube into London for example, I became momentarily enamoured on seeing a babe in arms and found myself staring.
It was like a rag doll (and I say 'it' not to be rude, but rather because I couldn't decipher which one 'it' was), utterly fast asleep, contentedly oblivious to all around it, and resting it's head on the chest of it's proud mother.
Come to think of it, it's more likely that it was the chest I was staring and smiling at.
I'll never know, as by the time I was wandering around Forbidden Planet half an hour later, accumulating more shit I can't really afford, the memory had been all but forgotten. Let's say that the fact that my first port of call when I reach the capital is always Forbidden Planet and it's undeniable ability to extract cash from me is reason enough for me to continue to hold off reproduction for a long time to come yet.
I'm not particularly good with children. I can vividly remember that I used to be. The primary reason for one of my first girlfriend's falling head over heals for me was that she saw me animatedly telling a bedtime to story to the infants of a mutual friend. I pretended afterwards that I didn't realise she was secretly watching through the crack of the door, but I'd clocked her as soon as she arrived and proceeded to show off, performing the story far more for her benefit than it ever was for the kids, and slyly using it in my romantic pursuit to portray myself as a 'catch'. Once she saw how much I went to Forbidden Planet, that idea fell away sharpish. Amazing can turn into annoying very quickly around me.
The most contact I have had with children since then is my insistence on sticking my tongue out at them in Asda when they are staring at my long hair whilst their parents aren't looking. On a particularly good day I will then go on to see said parents telling the child off for sticking their tongue out in imitation. That's if they're not crying by that point because a hairy 'stranger' has scared them.
The reason I mention all this is because I wish to discuss the ocassional trend of children being at comedy clubs.
Last weekend at Bracknell, Katherine from the Comedy Company (three mentions and counting K), was discussing with the venue about what age limit should be put on shows, arriving at (I think) sixteen. We were trying to decide whether that would be any different with Scott Capurro, or someone of that ilk, being on that evening, as his act can stray (or positively charge) into far more sensitive areas of people's consciousness, without warning and certainly without pulling punches.
I started to think about when I had first been aware of what would pass as post-mainstream comedy. I'd always been a fan of Les Dawson as a youngster, and Cannon & Ball were firm favourites too (still am a major fan), but the first 'cool' comedy I was into was, like many others of my generation, The Young Ones. The first stand up of post-mainstream comedy I saw was Rik Mayall at the now obliterated Davenport theatre in Stockport. To this day, my all time favourite live performance bar none.
Now, The Young Ones was first on televison when I was nine or ten years old, and I saw Rik Mayall live for the first time when I was fourteen. With the demonic qualities I have been known to display as an adult I am perhaps not the best example when arguing a case for minors watching 'adult' comedy, but I've not killed anyone or anything that I can recall, so the damage has been limited to a refusal to surrender immaturity at the very most. I don't think it's that big a deal for younger teens to watch 'our' comedy.
However, like Jim Davidson with the disabled, where it becomes an issue for the comedian is when you are confronted with these youngsters in your audience.
It's happened to me a few times as a stand-up, it happened regularly when I was in Big And Daft, but that was, in all fairness, about as close to a family show as could be with a little bit of swearing (mostly from either myself or the "beer and ladies" obsessed puppet alter-egos that we used to operate). Whenever there have been kids in when I have been doing stand-up, I have always addressed it onstage, usually to the parents of the kids, and usually receiving the phrase "they hear worse at home". If that is the case, then they should perhaps have a visit from social services because I have been known to push everything that little bit further when there's youngsters in the audience, partly out of a rebellious streak, partly out of indignance and partly because the rest of the audience will normally be feeling a touch uneasy at the presence of youths and if they see the performer onstage not giving a fuck then they (usually) relax some.
At Fopp on Tuesday there was a whole new challenge. Kids without their parents. Two lads, around twelve or thirteen, supremely confident to the point that Russell Kane and I were believing they were taking the piss by having photos taken with us before the show, and sat, of course, right at the front.
In my first bit of compering I discovered that their parents believed them to be at the cinema on that particular evening, and also managed to make every conceivable paedophilic innuendo (I assure you hand-on-heart, completely by accident) known to mankind their way, much to the delight of the audience who for some reason found my frustration and embarrassment sufficiently amusing to not actually care that these kids were there.
Zoe Lyons and Simon Amstell did sets that discussed wank mags and the tsunami respectively, and everything took on a whole new meaning thanks to our young friends, and the fact that Simon ended his set by encouraging the audience to commit suicide whilst, I assume, inadvertantly looking right at the lads, had me thinking there was a very real possibility of the Fopp night making it onto the front page of one of the Sunday papers this week (Simon also whinged about the fact that the lighting was shit and acted all spoilt and stuff in that charmingly regal way that only he and Paul Foot can get away with - to think there was once a time that young Simon Amstell was going to play the son of the character of Ray Peacock...he missed an opportunity there...all downhill for him after that...not seen him doing much recently).
In the second section of the show I allowed the two lads onto the stage whilst I took a photo of them with the audience cheering. One of them actually said into the mic "What's the deal with airline food" which brought the house down, and I said that if their parents ever found out they had lied about going to the cinema then they could produce that photo and assert that they were actually stars in the West End and modesty had prevented them from revealing it. All very funny, but if we put it into the perspective of reality, I was taking photos of two young teens 'performing' in public. See? There's a little reality check for you...
By the third act I had decided that we were being secretly filmed for one of Ant and Dec's shows, and that these two lads were in actual fact Little Ant and Dec. They really did look like them, and it would have explained a lot. I said that I had used the word 'fuck' far more than usual in order to decimate useable footage if this was the case. My manager said to me in the break that they had "the confidence of rich kids" which was pretty much bang on the money, and got a round of applause when I relayed it to the audience.
It was that sort of night, where my manager's comments were getting claps (only because I sold it well though...don't be getting any ideas about restructuring commission, just read that fucking script I sent you ages ago and sort me out tickets for the Tiger Lillies at the Soho theatre like I asked you to or I'm going to Off The Kerb...well...all right Mirth Control tops...)
We got through it all though, Russell and I signed a poster for them, one of them hugged me (which was far more awkward than you could possibly have just imagined) and the other left MySpace messages for both myself and Russell (mine saying that they were going to come to the next Fopp night but it may be difficult because it is a school night, and Russell's saying that he was great and that they hoped mother didn't find out...I know, I know...has to be deliberate surely?).
So, that's my news. Haven't done gigs, more sort of babysitting with a hint of child abuse in front of a room full of people who swore not to tell.
And there's a sentence I never thought I'd conclude a blog with.
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