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I think it's fair to say that I am not a high maintenance comedian. I am not the kind of person to ask "Do you know who I am?" mainly because I am aware that the likely answer is no. Even if people did know who I was I wouldn't feel the need to ask them if they knew who I was, mainly because they know who I am. What I am saying is I don't expect much and will put up with quite a high degree of disrespect and nonsense because in most situations I realise that if anyone is making a fuss of any kind that they probably have a tough job or might be an arsehole and I can't really be bothered. I am capable of being an arsehole too, as this blog should hopefully attest, but on balance I think I am a pretty patient person and it takes a fair bit to get me pissed off and arsey.
So tonight I think I found my limit and experienced something that was probably the most disrespectful incident I've been through as a comic (with a person behind the scenes -plenty of audiences have given me a harder time). It was pretty unexpected and it shook me up and even though I am writing about it a day and a half after it happened I am still quite shaken by it.
I was doing a try-out at the lovely Comedy Junction in Sutton Coldfield. I haven't been here for a few years, because I haven't been gigging for a few years, but I have done most of my tour shows at least from the last 15 years here. It's a small 80 seat room above a pub but it's run by people who love comedy and get comedy and do comedy and the audience know good comedy too, so it's a lovely place to do a tour show or, in this case, a warm up. It was quite a journey to get up here (and I decided to try and see if I could do it in the electric car, though that pushed it right to its limits and an attempt to recharge at a service station failed - any other day that would be the warming up entry - I made it home with 21 miles to spare) but I knew it would be worth it and I had missed playing the room.
There is a new landlord at the pub - the last guy in charge was very much part of the club and into comedy - and a young manager on duty. I set up my stuff and then, as always sat in the pub's office to eat my dinner. There is no other place for the performer to wait. It's an office through two security doors, with a small corridor outside. There's loads of tech equipment in there and a safe, I think, but obviously I just needed somewhere to sit and eat and leave my stuff in safety and then get in the right mindset for the gig. I ate my food and then went back to the venue to get my slide show working so the audience could come in. As I returned to the office the pub manager was leaving and looked at me askew.
It's a bit of a blur as to what actually happened as it escalated pretty quickly. He may have left and come back or he may have told me at this point that it was the policy of the pub that no one was allowed in the office - it's where they kept their money etc and they couldn't have people they didn't know sitting in there. I explained that I had sat in this office every time I'd come here and never stolen anything and that he could trust me, but he apologised and said it was policy and there was nothing he could do about it. I'd have to leave, but could stand in the corridor.
It was possible that the policy had changed since the last landlord had left, but this seemed a little bit rude and inconvenient, but he was insistent and so I left the room and he rather pointedly locked it - this was a minor piece of disrespect. I was performing in his pub and whilst the pub might be a separate entity to the comedy club, it seemed an aggressive and rude act to make me stand in a corridor for 30 minutes, when all I was planning to do was to sit quietly in a chair and touching nothing. Even if it was policy you'd think he might turn a blind eye to it if I absolutely promised to behave.
In hindsight I think he'd just seen someone he didn't know in the secure area and then doubled down, but there was no way for anyone to sneak into this area - you had to be let in through the first secure door. I was clearly part of the comedy, as I told him.
Mark, the guy who runs the club became involved. He seemed surprised that this guy was stopping me going in, pointing out that the club had been running for almost two decades and they'd always been allowed to use the office and that the same manager had been in the office with him and an act fairly recently and said nothing. The manager said it was nothing personal, it was just policy, but given this was the only time this had ever happened, it seemed personal. He was being ostensibly polite about his hands being tied, but there was a weird passive-aggressive jobsworthness about it. He seemed to be smiling about it all. I don't know why he had taken against me, but it did seem quite personal and his insistence that it wasn't personal just made it seem more like that.
I moved to the corridor nonetheless. It wasn't ideal, as there was nowhere to sit except some very dirty steps and nowhere for me to comfortably go over my show notes as I had hoped to. Then I realised that I'd left my bags and coat in the room, so hastily had I been ejected. So the sarcy manager had to come back to let me in, which took a little while.
I was annoyed by his intransigence and the fact that he'd locked me out as an added insult to say he didn't trust me to even obey that instruction. I'd spotted quite a lot of alarms and switches in the corridor and jokingly told him that I was going to fuck all that stuff up, given he didn't trust me. I didn't mean it but told him that if he did this to all comedians he was going to get into trouble. He again kept up his passive aggressive insistence that it was nothing personal so I shouldn't be offended. But of course I was offended. It's offensive to go somewhere to do a show - and bring in customers - and then be told you can't be trusted not to steal. So I was giving him a bit back, which is of course what he wanted all along.
As I expressed my offence he told me that I wasn't being very funny, because if I was a comedian I should of course be making jokes. Not only had I taken it quite well and joked about the mistake he was making, this is clearly a dumbass thing to say to a comedian. I could have expressed surprise that he was not being hospitable and giving me beers, given that was his job, but I just carried my stuff out (forgetting my coat and one bag so I had to go back in later) and the tone of the dispute became a little more angry.
He also seemed to be keen to tell me that he didn't know who I was, and that's why he couldn't let me be in the office. With hindsight again I now wonder if this was calculated to wind me up. As I say, I don't expect people to know who I am, because mostly they don't and I am not even affronted that the manager of a pub that's had posters of me up for a few weeks might not have registered that. Was he assuming that I'd be too big for my boots and expected to be treated differently? Or was in that office because I thought I was special?
I was more concerned about the disrespect shown to the club than to me. They'd been doing this night for so long and the disregard for the value of that to the pub was weird.
As I took my stuff back to the corridor (and again, if I wanted to be a cunt about it I could just have sat in the chair and refused to move, but I was reluctantly doing what he asked) I swore at him a bit and things got a bit more heated. He continued to smilingly tell me he didn't know who I was and that the comedy club had nothing to do with the pub. I pointed out that I had brought 80 people into his otherwise fairly empty pub and that they'd be buying drinks and food beforehand. He told me that was nothing to do with me and that the club always sold out, so it wasn't down to my presence. Again, surely a reason for him to be more respectful to them. But he was obviously trying to antagonise now, perhaps because I had sworn at him, but to be fair to me I had been provoked.
As it turns out he was wrong also as this wasn't a club night, but an extra added show that was sold on my name which wouldn't have happened without me. Not really the point.
I did feel properly disrespected now though and it was not ideal to be being wound up like this before a show. I had left his office so he had no real reason to hang around now, but he wasn't going to let this go. Nor was I. I got Mark and Karen who run the club to discuss this pissy attitude. They run such a brilliant night and none of this was their fault, but I felt they need ed to know how much they were unappreciated by this prick.
Mark was trying to be a peacemaker and accepting the eviction from the office, whilst Karen was rightly embarrassed that I was being treated in this way. I can honestly say in the 35 years I've been playing venues tiny and medium and occasionally large I have never experienced anything like this. And the argument continued, with the manager threatening to tell his boss about all this and me very much wanting that to happen. He called Karen "aggy" when she had been entirely reasonable, which was a mistake and carried on trying to insist that I had taken this personally when it wasn't, even when presented with the evidence that this had never been an issue before. Mark told him just to leave, as I had complied with his wishes and the conversation was getting us nowhere, but he was upset saying I'd sworn at him, so I said, "Yes I did and here's another one - fuck off!" He wouldn't go though, clearly enjoying the chaos he'd created, trying to make out it was nothing to do with him, carrying on with the whole passive-aggressive, smirking nonsense.
It went on so long even I ducked out from it, though there was nowhere for me to go so I was there, but just not joining in. The manager wanted to take all our names for his report, but I wouldn't give him mine saying, "It's like me not being able to sit in your office, I have a policy that I don't give my name out. If only there was some way to find out."
It went on so long that I worried I might be arguing with someone who had a compunction to do this kind of thing and asked him politely if he was on the spectrum, because if he was I'd stop talking back. He got nicely upset about that, even though it's a reasonable question (ha ha). And finally he went away and I had to go more or less straight on stage.
I thought it might ruin the gig but luckily the audience was lovely and in spite of a few tech issues it was a strong run through of the material, with the best chat with my own testicle yet.
I did feel bad though. Had I been an arsehole? Was this my fault? I was (and still am) shaken up by it all. It was a horrible way to be treated, even if I had done something to deserve it. But all I had done to deserve it was come to this pub to do my show. I walked past him as I went but didn't say anything.
I drove home and worried that the miles left in the tank were going down faster than the miles I had completed, but that worked out OK.
The next day I got texts from the comedy club to say that the guy's boss wanted to apologise for the treatment and that the lad did this kind of thing a lot and was meant to be leaving next week. So I suspect the whole thing might have been a bit of a fuck you to the pub rather than anything much to do with me. I think they've let him go a week early, so he'll be off elsewhere to spread his mischief elsewhere. I was worried that I might have fucked things up for the comedy club, but luckily the boss sided with them on this, so all was good. And at least I have now found the level at which I am not prepared to be disrespected. It's quite low. Not sure I'll ever experience that again.
Funny though. I almost admire his persistence. And maybe dealing with a right bollock helped me do a better job with Right Bollock tonight.
