I drove down to Folkestone tonight to perform a gig on Rendezvous Street. I think that is the most pretentious name for a thoroughfare that I have ever encountered. “Where shall we meet in Folkestone tonight?”
“How about Rendezvous Street?”
“Ooooh, get us with our flouncy street names!”
If Paul McCartney was aware of the existence of such a place I feel he would undoubtedly put it in an album title. “Let’s Meet on Rendezvous Street” would be my best guess at what he’d come up with.
The gig was above a snooker hall, high above Folkestone. An open fire escape at the back of the venue had a remarkable view of the sea and the town and some of its back streets. I could hear some of the younger male Folkestone residents already shouting at each other in pub car parks. It was a beautiful sight. Seriously. I felt very peaceful out there. I decided to test how secure the structure of this precarious fire escape was, by pushing on the railings quite hard. Hard enough, in fact, that if it hadnÂ’t been secure I would have gone plummeting to my certain death. What is it about human beings that makes us behave in this way?
Last night I did my “sexual harassment” bit (in which I essentially ask a female member of the audience to perform a sex act on me and then discuss how if I did this in the street I would be arrested, but doing it on a slightly raised platform in front of hundreds of witnesses whilst amplifying my voice is allowed – Only the mad and the comedians are allowed to do such socially unacceptable things and I enjoy this satirical aspect as well as the actual no consequences sexual harassment) to a respectable middle-aged lady. Her half pretend/half real appalled reactions were marvellous. Tonight in contrast my “victim” was a rather precocious 16 year old girl, who seemed to rather enjoy the attention. It was fun to point out the weird attitude we have to the sexuality of people of this age. It was another quite edgy moment and although it was nowhere near as divisive as the material in Bracknell last week, it was still enjoyably subversive. I felt like I was performing the social function of the Hopi clowns that Stewart Lee is so fond of mentioning. I think he is right to be obsessed with them. This is kind of what comedy is ultimately all about. You’re going to have to look it up to find out what I am talking about. I can’t do everything for you.
Her father later came back to the dressing room, not to beat me up, just to introduce himself. I apologised to him, but he didnÂ’t really care. He was almost proud about what had happened. Comedy is an odd job. I think it might be the best job in the world.
The gigs are getting looser and I am caring less about pleasing all the people all the time. I have started to wonder what is the best result at a gig: to make a handful of people laugh as much as they ever have at anything whilst leaving a similar amount of people cold or even angry, or to make everyone laugh a moderate amount. I know I prefer the former. It is, artistically at least, the best thing to be doing. I guess it would be nice if most people laughed moderately whilst the few are laughing a lot. Generally that is how itÂ’s been going, but the further I push it, the more divided the audiences are becoming.
And it's not an altogether unwelcome development.
I enjoy the struggle.
This is my struggle and if only Hitler had gone into stand-up "Mein Kampf" could have been an altogether more enjoyable read.
