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It was a strange and emotional day as we buried a friend and life went on.
It was Sean Hughes’ funeral this afternoon and I was able to attend before dashing off to do two more podcasts. It was a sombre affair, but with loads of laughs. Sean would have been pleased to see so many of his comedy peers turning up to celebrate his life, though probably less pleased about the him being dead part.
The weird thing about a funeral like this, as sad as it is to lose someone you cared about, it’s really nice to meet up with old friends. And sort of doubly bitter sweet as you want to let them know that you appreciate them too, in case they or you are next. You share your pain and your selfish fears.
I arrived very early and bumped into Owen O' Neil who I haven’t seen in over a decade, but as with everyone this afternoon we had that comedy kinship that meant we didn’t need any time to be chatting freely and sadly about our friend (a much closer pal for Owen). And after that it was like a very sad party with a fabulous guest list as I bumped into comedian after comedian, the circuit of the last 30 or more years well represented, with people like John Hegley and Hugh Jelly and Arthur Smith, the nineties comedian Stewart Lee representing the decade in which he was famous and then younger comics like Joe Lycett and Carl Donnelly. But there was so many people there that they didn’t all fit in the chapel and there was plenty of people I didn’t see.
Luckily the journalist who wrote a pretty mistimed and misjudged article about Sean didn’t turn up as he had promised.
We shared stories about Sean and laughed a bit, before remembering why we here and then feeling bad for laughing. Before feeling bad for not laughing, because that was expressly what Sean (and any comedian) would want.
The service was a terrific mixture of funny, moving and disrespectful (in exactly the right way that the Guardian journalist missed). Sean was a complicated man and had some turbulent relationships with friends and family, but the love was palpable and laughter and grief rippled through the congregation like a tide. I don’t want to go into any specifics as it was made clear that this was off the record, but my heart was tugged this way and that and I mainly laughed until suddenly at the end being overwhelmed by the mood (as I think everyone might have been) and properly crying.
Sean perhaps coveted the title of tortured artist and an early death feeds into that myth, but standing amongst the people who mattered to him, I wasn’t sure coveting such an accolade was a good thing. The sadness to those around you is not worth the legend. We’d all prefer to have him around, making us laugh and making us cross. It didn’t feel romantic in the least. It was just horribly tragic and wasteful.
I had managed to find a space squeezed, standing to the side at the front of the chapel and at one point I looked at the couple of hundred people in front of me (maybe more if you included those in the doorways) and it suddenly hit me how weird it was that they would one day all have funerals too. That people would one day gather to remember and talk about them. I mean, obvious I know, but there were so many of them, it seemed impossible that they’d all die.
I won’t obviously. But I will miss them when they are all gone as I wander the earth, mourning the mortality of humans. Wondering why I created them if they were only going to suffer. I
I couldn’t go along to the wake and participate in the necessary but slightly inappropriate heavy drinking as I had to head into town to do my podcasts. Life and “comedy” and the show goes on. Again it felt wrong to be laughing, but also necessary. Grief and tiredness made me more giddy than usual, with a bit of despair thrown in. Armando Iannucci and John Moloney were very good value. I forgot and remembered simultaneously.
We are all going to die, but let's live a little before that happens.
