For a couple of hours my gigantic Hitlery face was on the front page of the BBC website. Then Ted Kennedy inconsiderately died and I was relegated to relative obscurity. But nice to be back on the BBC if only for a few minutes. And perhaps that was enough as by lunchtime today all my remaining tickets for this Fringe had sold out. I had been considering doing an extra show on Thursday, but sales had looked like they were slacking so decided against it. Perhaps I should have done. Or perhaps I am tired enough already.
I had got up quite early this morning to head over to the Gilded Balloon to do the Guardian podcast with Miles Jupp. There is no hard feeling between me and my beloved Guardian and we even discussed the furore a little. It was a packed show with some great interviews and performances with other comics. You can
hear it here.
Tonight's show was zinging along nicely. I had been a bit distracted by the door at the back of the venue opening and closing a few times and was getting a bit annoyed, thinking it was venue staff entering and exiting for no reason. At one point there also seemed to be a bit of shouting out there. I ploughed on, hiding my annoyance, although as I get more tired the more that noises and camera lights and the tinny ringing of the mic are annoying me. Yesterday a guy kept squeezing his empty plastic pint glass and I came very close to snapping at him.
So this seemingly unnecessary kerfuffle was putting me on edge, though luckily the crowd were attentive and responsive. I had also been a bit perturbed to see a boy in his early teens sitting near the front, seemingly on his own. He didn't seem to be enjoying the show too much and made a couple of comments to a young woman sitting a few seats away from him. On the other side of the audience a man shouted "Bingo!" after one of my gags. I commented that that might get a bit wearing if he did it after every joke that worked. But that was the only time he did it, which either means he took the hint or I was never quite funny enough. There was already a slightly weird atmosphere.
But just after I'd finished the bit about seeing Al Murray at the O2 arena all Hell broke loose. A woman's furious voice came out of the gloom. "Get off!" she shouted. She was clearly approaching the stage at some speed. "Get off!" she repeated.
I assumed this remark was directed at me, though was unclear what exactly she was so angry about, but seeing her looming towards me out of the dark, followed by three or four members of security, I feared the worst and thought I was about to be attacked. But by whom? An angry Al Murray fan? A member of the BNP? A liberal Guardian reader? A descendant of Hitler?
I took a step back, bracing myself for the assault, but the woman was not coming for me and her cries were not directed at me. She was attempting to evade the clutches of security and headed for one of the empty seats next to the young, bored lad.
"I've paid for my ticket and I'm sitting with my son," she insisted, but having already created such a scene and disobeyed the people on the door it was unlikely she was going to be able to stay. She was surrounded by security people telling her she had to leave, but aware that they couldn't manhandle a middle aged woman out of the room and she was remaining steadfast and still shouting and complaining. Clearly I couldn't continue with the show.
Later I learned that she had turned up 15 minutes late, though the rest of her party were already there and she had been told by the venue that she could sit at the back, but she was insistent on being with her family. They were refusing this request because it would be too disturbing for her to get to the front and in any case, she was at fault for being late. They don't even have to let latecomers in as it happens, though my view is that it is OK, provided they are seated at the back and don't disturb the show.
But this woman had been insistent, to the extent of borderline madness (like an animal separated from its child and trying to protect it) and had now caused enough of a rumpus to make the show grind to a halt.
I didn't know any of her reasons for being angry, as far as I was concerned she was just a crazy and maybe drunk lady wrecking my show and causing an unnecessary distraction and prolonging a set that is already 5 minutes longer than the time slot available to it. In many ways the show is my child and this interloper was attacking it and so like her I had no option but to go on the attack.
And I had to assume that the security people had good reason to be trying to eject her, as it's their job to make sure people have a good time and they are not in the habit of picking on someone without just cause.
"Should I try and carry on with the show?" I asked the audience, as the woman obstinately refused to leave and continued shouting at the staff around her. "To be honest this is quite exciting for me. I've seen my show before and it's getting a bit boring for me. I might just sit back and watch this entertainment. The best things in Edinburgh happen off stage."
The woman wasn't being persuaded though and said she wanted her money back. Conscious that this could derail my whole show and seeing her there with her son, and I am guessing her daughter (who'd been the person the boy had been talking to) I immediately offered to refund her myself if she would leave at once. "Look I'll give you thirty pounds to go," I told her, because there was no way she was going to enjoy the show now even if she was allowed to stay, which she wouldn't be.
"No," she said, "Because I have bought and paid for four tickets."
"All right," I said, "Well forget it then. These people will just take you out and you'll get nothing. After all you've missed twenty minutes of the show and you're now ruining it for all these people, so maybe you should compensate them. They look quite angry. I'm not sure you want to piss off a man with a Hitler moustache with a room full of devoted followers!"
This at least was the gist of it. I was conscious of my time ticking away, but the audience were enjoying my commentary on the incident, even though it was not getting any closer to resolution.
"I am staying here with my son," she shouted, "He's only 13 and I need to be with him."
"If he's only 13 I'm not sure he should be in the room anyway," and then an idea occurred to me of a way I could maybe get rid of them, "Huge erect cocks!" I declared, "Probing into diseased and gaping anuses." I ad-libbed a whole spiel of disgusting images using the most offensive language I could think of and then said, "What kind of responsible mother would sit by and let her 13 year old son listen to such things?" She remained unmoved. "You have to go," I told her, "Because you're eating into the next act's time. Because of you Ben Dover won't be able to deliver his important political treatise on having anal sex with women." My audience, who had been behind me before this happened were lapping up the unexpected extra fun. I felt justified in saying anything I wanted to get rid of this woman, because I really couldn't start up until she'd left, though I made a couple of false starts as if to do so.
The children, now unsurprisingly embarrassed about their mother's behaviour, got up and left the room. I thanked them for coming and made a slightly cruel comment that they shouldn't be too ashamed by their mother. She had brought this on herself though and was still sitting tight, but she was close to defeat and finally left accompanied by the staff. As she went I asked the audience to applaud her, explaining this was all part of the show and that the woman was a promising comedian, up for the best newcomer award - although of course, given the fact she was a woman, this should have been enough for everyone to realise that that was an impossibility (not one female on either list this year, shamefully).
It had been crazy behaviour on her part and no one minded the fact that I had laid into her quite so harshly and the show rocked along even better after that than it had before, though interestingly the temperature (already high) shot up even further in all the excitement.
And, I thought to myself as I returned to the script, that is today's Warming Up sorted out.
