You must NEVER heckle the old people on the bonfire! This is a dire warning that comes too late for a man and his innocent partner from the second show of the DVD record in Cardiff tonight. And there are only now four more occasions when you will be able to heckle them before they spin off into the infinite void of nothingness, but really, for the sake of yourself and all you love, keep your mouth shut when they are on stage.
There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is rather prosaic. It is quite an internalised part of the show and if people shout out with stupid comments (as they did in Fareham) then it breaks the fragile fantasy and involves the audience and is likely to send the whole poorly constructed edifice crashing to the ground. In a sense the routine is not breaking down the fourth wall, but constructing a fifth wall. I tend not to even look at the crowd while I am possessed by these malevolent spirits and for it really to fly I must almost believe that they are not there (though having said that, in show one tonight they had a lot of fun discussing the one woman in the crowd who was finding the whole thing hysterical). So whilst most of what I have written there is pretentious guff, it is true that a mis-timed remark can throw the whole thing off the rails.
The second and main reason not to heckle the old people though is that I have no control over what they say. Clearly you will think that is mentally ill as if you understand what I am talking about at all here, then you will know that I play both characters and it is, you would imagine, me who decides what they come out with. And whilst on a basic level that is true, I am also giving myself over to the unfiltered part of my brain where anything goes and in fact the whole point of the characters is that I can't know what they will say next, that they are trying to derail me, that they are attempting to destroy the night. So whatever they are not meant to say, they will say it. This is somewhat true of myself when I am being "me" on stage, and occasionally I have gone to far in the heat of the moment, or under the influence of alcohol. But for the characters to work, I have to believe that they truly exist and that they resent existing and that they will follow through with their threats to say the worst things possible. Usually these will be about me, revealing worries about my career or sexuality or general paranoia (they have access to my brain, as they are essentially limpets of my soul), but if you come in and heckle them and disrupt what they are doing and annoy them then they are liable at best to throw the rattle out of the pram and refuse to carry on (essentially saying it's there ball and if you don't let them play with it as they want to then they will take it home) or at worst to turn on you and launch the vitriol usually reserved for me, at you and whoever happens to be sitting around you.
I am not in control of this section of the show. You have to understand that. Much as it pains me, usually when the old people reveal I have pooed myself in my car or something, but tonight when things involved others.
The first show tonight had been a pleasant and enjoyable experience. I had done over two hours, but people had enjoyed it and I was happy we had at least one good take of the show. I had decided I was going to do some different bits in show 2 for the sake of some fun extras, but also thought I would get the old people to go off in a different direction, put that on the dvd too and give people an idea of how things can alter. As it turned out, the whole last 30 minutes of the show transmuted into something else, which was both exciting and embarrassing and I am glad and ashamed that it was recorded for posterity.
The second audience was a little smaller than the first and I think I did the first half of the show better, but it was clear that certain people in the audience were a bit shocked and upset by some of it. A row of women looked particularly disgruntled about the Jesus bit, but when I challenged them about it and talked about turning the other cheek and how Jesus was probably more powerful than me, they laughed a little bit. One of them came up to me at the end and said she had thought it had gone too far but that God would forgive me, before laughing and punching me playfully but hard in the arm. I think this is an excellent response from a Christian and the correct one (apart from the violence which is against the Christian ethos) and I was glad that she had appreciated that the routine was more than about unnecessary offence. So it was an interesting reaction.
During the old people on the bonfire though (and if this is making no sense then you'll have to buy the DVD when it comes out), things were progressing quite well and I was off in a different direction and skirting between tedium and hilarity.
When one of the old people (the one who looks to the left for old people fans who feel they are able to discern the difference - he does tend to be the more aggressive and cantankerous one generally, though it can change) made a comment about being boring or something like that, a man at the back shouted out something sarcastic (I genuinely can't remember, as it's not me on stage at that point, but it was something misjudged and not very funny). The old person who looks to the left took umbrage at the interruption and started laying into the heckler rather wittily, criticising him for failing to be funnier than the act on stage, especially given the fact that the bar was set so low. It was funny for the moment. Then the old man who looks to the left noticed that the man who had heckled had quite crazy Mad Professor hair and started picking on him for that. Then the old man who looked to the left noticed that the man's partner who was sitting next to him was pulling the most bored, sourpuss, annoyed face. So the old man who looked to the left (not me) started commenting on that and criticising the woman who had done nothing at all wrong and commenting on their sex life and lack of it. It was progressing quite merrily, until the old man who looks to the left got a bit over-exuberant and said that the innocent woman had a face like a dog. Now, I think what he had meant to say is that she had a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, which is not quite as offensive, but in the heat of the moment he just called her a dog. That is quite rude. Especially given she hadn't done anything wrong.
Now if I had said that as me, I would have apologised and explained the mistake and asked for forgiveness, but the old man who looks to the left cannot do that and still be the old man who looks to the left. The old man who looks to the right did chastise him and demand an apology, but the old man who looks to the left refused and couldn't resist the temptation to be ruder and make things worse.
The old men tried to discuss the nature of their part of the act and how you mustn't heckle them, as I have above, but it created a strange atmosphere combining shock and amusement. It was true theatre.
But within minutes the justifiably angry woman and her mad professor boyfriend were up on their feet and leaving. Some of the audience applauded their exit. Others were stunned. The old people were delighted. I felt a bit gutted.
I genuinley don't want to offend anyone and I don't like the idea of someone coming to one of my shows and having their night ruined. And the woman was entirely innocent of anything apart from not really enjoying my show (which is no crime), but if it is any consolation I am pretty sure she would have taken the whole thing out on the mad prof. So there is some justice there, as the whole thing is his fault for not keeping his mouth shut.
Of course I have been guilty of misjudgement in the past without being able to blame some fictional characters, and it never feels good. But I suppose I was aware that all this was being filmed too and that I was going to have to watch it back and see my mistake in the cold light of day.
But it's not entirely a bad thing. I think my own discomfort will be palapable and it really helped me to head to the dispondent ending with me breaking down that happens on the best of nights. People were chipping in with other (mainly witty) comments and everything ground to a tense, yet exciting and amusing halt.
I can't remember too much about it, but doubtless you will be able to watch the whole car crash as a DVD extra in four or five months when the disc comes out.
But excited and unhappy as I am about that prospect, I would like to apologise to the woman concerned for the offence that my alter-egos caused her. You had a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, not like a dog. That is what they meant to say. And that is slightly less insulting than what came out.
But don't heckle the old people on the bonfire.
I am now quite sad to realise that they have so few nights left to strut their stuff, though I am sure that they are delighted that they will soon be in the soft embrace of oblivion and not have to do this shit any more.
I am not mentally ill.
