30/04/08
Who cares about Euro 2008? -
Categories: Last week I did my first ever TV warm-up job, with a few catches. The first and foremost being that I didn't have to do any warming up. Or comedy. Or in fact anything you might need a comedian for. The second was that the line of work was all about football, and I know less than nothing about the subject matter other than sometimes people fight about it and that all the players earn far far too much money for kicking a ball about some grass and getting drunk in bars.
When I was about eight years old my uncle took me to my first football match at Highbury Stadium. Arsenal vs Oxford it was. A brave move on his behalf because he was a Tottenham fan and had to grin and bear it while we sat on the Arsenal side. I enjoyed the atmosphere, the fact I got to eat a kit kat, and the tension created when my uncle had to stop himself cheering for Oxford for fear of death. One wrong move and I could've seen my first boxing match that day too. Other than that I honestly had no idea what was going on. This was followed up by a couple more games with the same result, then I eventually just grew out of having any interest in it whatsoever. Even at school footie was the sport I enjoyed the least, because despite effort the only ability I ever had was to trip over the ball or kick it so far off the pitch even the PE Teacher would call me a dickhead. He didnt, but I knew he wanted to. And nowadays, I hate football because when its on, people don't go to gigs. That and Arsenal fans always leave litter all the way down my road after a match.
So I was incredibly surprised when out of four comics, three of whom know loads about the beautiful game, the TV people picked me.
Similar to my poker experience and lack of knowledge in that field (I'm starting to think my agent is a fan of 'Faking It'), I spent a week gathering all possible knowledge about European football I can ready for an ultimate blag. The Internet and friends whose footie chat I've previously been bored by, can be incredibly useful at times.
And blag I did, or more truthfully, would have done, if I had had to do anything more than ask the same few questions over and over again to the people on the streets of London. The main question was this 'Now that all the home countries are out, who will you be supporting in Euro 2008?' The main response to this question? 'I won't be watching it. I can't be bothered if England aren't in it'. Which is not the answer you want when making a trailer to promote the excitement of said tournament. Of course I don't blame any of them. despite my dislike for the game I might've watched the England matches, but now we're not in it, I'll just be glad there are more gigs around.
We went to some very interesting locations though, to find 'real' people, who would give us crap answers. One such place was the Billingsgate Fish Market, somewhere I never would have ventured otherwise, and will never ever venture to again. Fish traders are amazing characters though, which is quite a feat considering they start work at 5.30 and constantly smell of fish. We spoke to most of them and all the while I felt like saying, 'How can anyone ever love you except maybe a cat when you stink of fish in such a gross way?'
We also filmed in a bus depot in Bow which featured the scariest bus engineer I've ever met. A man who warned us that we had to be 'real careful because a bus can sneak right up behind you and then you're dead', apparently. Never again will I look at the Number 4 the same way. There was also a man who insisted he would be supporting 'Australia' in Euro 2008, despite us repeatedly telling him he couldn't. But apart from these few people I don't really know why it came as such a shock to me when I found out that most punters really are desperately uncharismatic and on the whole boring, resulting in 11 hours of filming for 6 seconds of footage. Its strange how most people shy away from film crews and when asked questions, they give dull straightforward answers. Where are all the characters that should be dwelling in these sort of places?
The answer came when I got my cab home and was treated to a tirade of racist jokes from a very large character of a cab driver. While I didn't enjoy any of our conversation all the way back, I couldn't help but feel he might've at least played up to the camera a tad.
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