Arrived back at Gatwick at lunchtime and passing Smiths in the terminal I saw that my book was already on sale. It was exciting to see it in the shops for the first time and it by comparison to the other piles it looked like someone had already bought one. Yes! Goal!
I hadn't yet been given any copies myself (since the ones I got at Christmas which I gave away to Andrew Collings and the person who had donated the most money to the Hitler Moustache programme fund) and I have to prepare for
the readings next week (in Nottingham and Norwich - come along if you can), so I decided to buy one myself. Not wanting to look like a prick and get recognised buying my own book like some kind of J R Hartley, so I got my girlfriend to do the actual transaction. I had possibly doubled nationwide sales in one move. This could get me in the best seller list. No one buys books any more right. Two is enough. No one would ever know I'd bought one of them myself.
In the evening I was heading down to the British Library to do a short introduction to a screening of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator". Obviously as a big fan of both Chaplin and the British Library (both of which figure to some extent in the Hitler Moustache show) I was quite honoured to have been asked, but what with one thing and another I had failed to publicise the fact that I would be there. And it became clear pretty quickly that the audience were probably not there to see me, but more interested in the film. It was a somewhat elderly crowd composed mainly of the kind of intellectual and let's say eccentric clientele that I am more than used to from having worked at the Library. I was somewhat apprehensive, but realised there might be a potential DVD extra in this unusual set up and asked my girlfriend to film me on her phone, as well as to get a quick shot of this unusual audience before we got going.
Especially after Jon, the organiser of the evening, went on to introduce and got heckled after about two minutes by a somewhat grouchy and abrupt old couple. The woman grouchily complained, "We can't hear a word you're saying!"
Her male companion then chipped in, in the brusque voice of someone who had lived a privileged upper middle class life, "You're holding the microphone too close to your mouth!"
Jon was a bit thrown by this unnecessary rudeness. He had been more than audible to my suddenly young-seeming ears. But he brought me on quite quickly after that.
I hadn't had ages to prepare, but was only meant to do 15 minutes (though had already said I might only do 10 given the composition of the audience) and had decided to talk about my show a little bit, the similarities between comedians and fascists and look a bit at Chaplin's motivations for making the film. I could then discuss a couple of my favourite moments - I like the bit when Chaplin as Hynkel tells Napoloni that he could pull him apart as easily as the spaghetti in front of him and then fails to pull the spaghetti apart (you have to see it really) before discussing the audacious ending to the film.
But I only got four minutes into my time when the grumpy women interrupted me and shouted "When do we see the film?"
I laughed at this. "When do we see the film?" I repeated, ever the pro, "It's a pretty good heckle." Her companion was also disgruntled by my continued presence on stage and I told them that if we were in a comedy club they would probably get a slightly worse comeback than what I was giving them, but that I'd be polite for now. I had not anticipated being heckled at the British Library and annoyingly it was only once the film had begun that I realised I should have said, "In the British Library there is only one response to being heckled - Sssssh!" But I was a bit thrown I have to admit. I had rushed here from my holiday to do something that I thought would be reasonably trouble free and I was now concerned I was boring the three dozen Chaplin fans who had come out to see the film.
But the woman who had heckled my was in her eighties at least and possibly older and all moral decency says we have to respect our elders no matter how crotchety they are and to be honest it's not something I've had a lot of experience of, so there's not a whole wealth of put downs for being heckled by an octogenarian.
I kept it together and maintained my respect, even though I had been shown none. "I'm sorry madam, " I told her, "I'll get off as soon as I can. Interestingly by heckling me you've just prolonged my time on stage... if you'd kept quiet I'd probably have been off by now." This got a small round of applause from the other people there, perhaps a little embarrassed by this old lady's rudeness. I was, after all, billed on all the promotional material. I was surely allowed to talk for four minutes before being verbally abused for daring to do what I had been booked for.
The woman just kept staring at me grumpily, her wrinkly face cradled in her hand, a look of utter disdain on her face, which only made me laugh the more.
"You're definitely the oldest person who has ever heckled me, I can say that for sure," I observed, not wishing to be rude, it was just a fact. Heckling is a game for the young and the drunk usually and perhaps I expected more decorum and politeness in this august institution. But I was hissed by some of the other elderly audience members for this comment.
"Next thing you're going to call her a bigot," shouted her companion, alluding to the Gordon Brown gaffe of earlier in the week. "I'll wait til I'm off stage to do that," I replied. But unlike our soon to be ex-Prime Minister I was not going to be two-faced about this and explained that the film was interestingly enough about fighting against bigotry and allowing freedom of speech. I was a little bit annoyed, but more cross that I wasn't going to be able to say everything I wished to say and was going to have to rush through this.
I was somewhat thrown and floundered a little bit, but was aware that I had been right and there was a 10 minute extra for the DVD right here and now, even if I hadn't got to discuss the political impact of the film, or the spookiness for me of there being a character called Herring in it. And all the time I was laughing to myself about the unchanging scowl of the angry old lady staring at me. I managed eight minutes.
It was cool to see the film of the big screen though and I spotted stuff that I had missed before and my new favourite bit was an almost "Airplane" style joke where the guests at the ball are shooed out of a room and a well-dressed pretty woman not only takes a plate of sandwiches but grabs a massive German sausage too. It's just a tiny detail, but a lovely little gag.
Afterwards a few more of the eccentric people tried to button hole me, but the grumpy woman herself made a bee-line for me and said, "You like the sound of your own voice don't you?"
"Not really," I replied as calmly as I could, "I had been booked to do an introduction to the film so was only doing what I was asked."
"But I had come to see the film!" she snapped back at me, "I didn't want to see you waffling on."
"Well my appearance was credited on all the leaflets, so you should have realised that."
She continued to berate me and I decided I was going to go against social convention and not allow this woman to continue her impoliteness to me.
"Listen," she said.
"No, I don't have to listen to you. You're a very rude old lady!"
She was affronted and called me a horrible man, and perhaps I should have made allowances for her age, but it actually felt pretty good to tell her that she was acting in an unacceptable manner and I have to say that the other audience members who witnessed this were astonished by her rudeness, not mine.
I had thought of quite a lot of other useful put downs at this point that I could have used. This one actually occurred to me at the time, but I bit my tongue - "I am only on for 15 minutes, but I suppose when you're your age every second counts. This could cause you to miss the end of the film."
I also thought of, "I should try to tear you a new arsehole, but there's a good chance that your doctor has already done that for you."
I mainly found the incident amusing though and it was only afterwards that Jon told me that such heckling from the unusual British Library clientele was quite a regular occurrence.
But you'll be able to see my discomfort for yourself on the Hitler Moustache DVD which is being released in October.
