Here Comes the Clown

by Dom Joly

  As usual I nearly screwed everything up. On the morning that the first show aired on Channel 4, I broke into The Big Breakfast garden and launched a full-frontal attack on the window behind which Johnny Vaughan and Denise van Outen were presenting the live show. I was dressed as a sausage and being chased by a carrot. Viewers saw the presenters jump before a burly security man sent me flying out of shot. This was part of a further Peperami guerrilla marketing campaign Sam and I had agreed to without much forethought. I was arrested and marched out of The Big Breakfast, and put in a cell in Limehouse police station, still dressed as an angry sausage. For the second time in less than a year, I had to share a small cell with a criminal who looked very worried about his strangely dressed cellmate. I was eventually released, only to enter a shit-storm as the powers-that-be at Channel 4 wanted to know why they were broadcasting the show of a moron who spent his time attacking their flagship breakfast show? It was a good question, and one that I should possibly have asked myself before embarking on the stunt.

  There was no immediate realisation that things were going well – we had some amazing reviews including one from Victor Lewis-Smith, who said that I had ‘turned the practical joke into an art form’. Which was nice . . . He also called us the ‘greatest comedy of this century so far’, which was flattering but, as we were only fourteen days into it, not quite as good as it sounded. Nevertheless, I used the quote for years afterwards.

  My two strongest memories of things changing were with the public. Firstly, there was the time I was on a train and THAT ringtone (originally ‘Grande Valse’, but then changed to the default Nokia ringtone) went off and three separate people shouted, ‘HELLO, I’M ON THE TRAIN . . .’ They didn’t know I was on board. Two days later, I was in a restaurant on Westbourne Grove and a guy came up to my table to ask for my autograph. I’d imagined what this moment might be like for years, but tried to act all cool, like it was no big deal. Stacey, who – being Canadian – is both nice and overly chatty to strangers, ruined my silly act. ‘Oh you have just made his day – this is his first autograph request ever. He is so excited.’

  Stacey smiled at the guy, who smiled back. I tried to remain looking cool, but it was impossible – the guy now knew that, like everyone else, I was a gibbering idiot. Stacey was very good for me in that way.

  Invitations started arriving for me – to premieres, events, parties – it was all a bit overwhelming. I wasn’t really interested in any of them except for the music-related ones. I got an invite to come and be on The Brits, not just attend The Brits (which would have been exciting enough), but to actually be on the show. They wanted me to interrupt the host, Davina McCall, halfway through one of her monologues. This seemed easy enough. I got my Artist Access All Areas laminate and duly turned up at the side entrance to find myself in a queue and standing in front of Lou Reed. I was a massive Lou Reed fan, and tried to appear unruffled and not bring too much attention to the big mobile in my large black duffel bag. Sadly, I was searched at the door while Lou Reed waited. He observed proceedings with a withering mixture of pity and confusion as the security guy brought out my big mobile. I wasn’t assigned a dressing room, so I sat on the floor between the Spice Girls and Macy Gray and pretended to be busy. When my time came, I wandered onto the stage and bellowed something into the phone while Davina tried to look puzzled. I felt a bit uncomfortable doing it as an act as opposed to for real. As I walked off, there was a noisy commotion that I didn’t understand. It turned out that a drunk DJ called Brandon Block had thought his name had been called out and he had stormed the stage before being evicted by security. I walked into the backstage area – Robbie Williams high-fived me, and Baby Spice winked at me. My life was now officially very weird.

  Chapter 3

  Trigger Happy TV (Purple & Green)

  We worried that things might be harder with the second series, as I’d now be recognised more and people might be savvier. As it turned out, it worked to our advantage, as members of the public seemed far happier to sign consent forms when they found out that it was for Trigger Happy TV. The only problem was that the success of the first series kept throwing up exciting temptations that were serious distractions. For instance, we got a call out of the blue from Ian Brown’s manager.

  Mr Brown, it turned out, was a big fan of the show and wondered whether we would be interested in directing his next video? Ian Brown, King Monkey, the ex-lead singer of the Stone Roses? We would have paid him to make the thing but, as usual, we tried to play it cool and agreed in a nonchalant manner. We’d never made a pop video before so we had an emergency think about what we wanted to do. Everyone always went on about that Massive Attack video of ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, in which the singer was filmed wandering around LA. The whole video was one single uninterrupted take and this appeared to be quite a big deal. We decided to do our own one-take video – in the end we had one cut – as:

  a) This didn’t seem too tricky.

  b) We were quite lazy.

  We did a storyboard. Ian Brown would leave our offices, wander through Leicester Square, be attacked by a gorilla, frogmen and a bunch of ninjas before disappearing into the Prince Charles Theatre, where he’d watch a film with a motley bunch of Trigger Happy TV characters. We were slightly nervous to meet the great man, as we’d heard things about his temper and he had recently been released from Her Majesty’s Pleasure for an air-rage incident in which he’d threatened to cut an airhostess’s hands off. When he turned up, however, he was delightful. I’m not sure if he’d been badly represented in the press or just that this was the first example of prison changing a man for the better, but he was then and remains now the single nicest man I’ve met in show business. Many years later, when the Stone Roses got back together, he sent me a text telling me that there were tickets ready for any show I wanted to go to – a total dude.

  After some (but not much) pre-production, Series Two went into production and we found ourselves back on the hidden camera treadmill. I’d had three giant squirrel costumes made, and we turned them into a weird street gang who beat up actors playing the parts of cyclists, fishermen, picnickers, while bemused onlookers stared on in confusion. In my favourite scene, they raided a local corner shop, keeping appalled shoppers at bay while shouting:

  ‘Everybody relax, we’re only here for the nuts . . .’

  Years later, I was living in the Cotswolds and my home got flooded. The loss adjuster turned up to assess the damage, only to find three sodden and slowly rotting squirrel costumes in the courtyard alongside several other curious costumes, including a six-foot turd. The loss adjuster was American and unaware of my profession, but showed impressive nonchalance in her dealing with the matter.

  We used to use a particular phone box outside Sam’s flat in Ladbroke Grove, as you could see it from his side window. We had the number of the phone and we’d installed radio mikes in the box. We’d ring the phone until a passer-by answered and then warn them that there was a dangerous gang of squirrels about. As we did this, the squirrels would turn up, pull an actor out of the next-door box and beat him up. This eventually worked, but not before some serious complications. We’d just set up and started filming from Sam’s flat when a Rasta walked into the box and picked up the phone before we could ring it. We could hear the whole conversation and it turned out to be related to a very serious drug deal. Sam was terrified that the guy might spot the cameras and assume that he was some kind of undercover cop. He had paranoid visions of his house being burnt down or him being stabbed in the streets. We all had to lie on the floor and gingerly take the cameras away from the windows until the deal was done. In hindsight we should probably have sent in the squirrels, but something terrible would undoubtedly have happened.

  Another costume we had made was the giant snail. This was for what turned out to be, to my mind, the best-ever Trigger Happy TV sketch: the snail crossing the road. I had the idea in the Cock and Bottle, the last pub in Notting Hill Gate not to have been turned into some trus
tafarian gastro nonsense. Most people have silly, funny ideas when they are drunk in a pub. We had now got to the wonderful stage where, instead of ordering another pint and forgetting about it, we’d get up the next day and go do it. The snail wasn’t exactly the next day, as we had to get the costume made, but it was pretty soon after.

  When it arrived, it was magnificent: an enormous shell, a set of horns with a chinstrap for my head and a tight brown body stocking to finish off the look. It was one of those jokes that I knew would work before we did it. We filmed it on a zebra crossing on Redcliffe Gardens in Chelsea. When I was younger, as a confused Goth, I used to cross the very same zebra crossing to get to a nightclub called Café des Artistes, where I would unsuccessfully try to snog Sloanes. Now I was back dressed as a snail, and once again ready for action.

  Sam hid himself in a garden and I approached the zebra crossing. This being Britain, the traffic acquiesced for the seven-foot brown snail waiting to cross the road. I’d approached the crossing standing up but the moment the traffic stopped I got down onto my belly and started inching my way across the road reeeeaaaalllllyyyy slowly. As I approached the middle of the road I did speed up a tad as there was a gap between the two front cars and I envisioned a motorbike, unaware of my presence, speeding through and ending my short comedy career in another of my fantasy headlines:

  Comedian Dressed As Snail Crushed To Death In Bizarre Road Accident . . .

  Once safely past the gap I slowed down again and continued my slow progress across the road. Rather wonderfully, all the traffic just waited patiently until I’d got to the other side, stood up and walked off normally. Had this been the States a couple of rednecks would have hopped out of a large monster truck, sauntered up to me and announced, ‘Weeell, looks like we’ve got us a Mexican snail . . .’, before beating me to a pulp with a baseball bat. Sam came over laughing, and we both knew we’d got something special. That should have been that. We’d got it on the first take. We were both so adrenalised, though, that we wanted another go. Sam went back into his garden hide and I prepared to cross the road again.

  It all went to plan. The cars stopped and I started to inch across the road. This time, however, I noticed two pairs of feet hit the tarmac as the occupants of the lead car disembarked and started approaching me. I wondered whether they might be rednecks on vacation and braced myself for violence. I couldn’t really look up because of the snail horns but I could see that both pairs of feet had now stopped right by me. There was a pregnant pause, a Mexican snail standoff. The feet belonged to two plain-clothed policemen who were understandably perplexed by the situation they had encountered. It reminded me of the great Paul Merton sketch about a policeman who had taken acid:

  I observed the suspect, dressed as a large gastropod, inch his way across the public highway . . .

  Finally one of them spoke as he politely lowered his badge almost to street level for me to peruse.

  ‘Morning, sir, would you mind explaining just what it is you are up to?’

  I tried to sound as dignified as I could under the circumstances.

  ‘Certainly, officer. I am filming a sketch for a television comedy series. If you have a word with my cameraman over there in the garden, I’m sure he will clarify everything for you.’

  The officer looked over to where Sam had been hidden. There was nobody there. Sam had finally got his own back and scarpered. I was on my own.

  ‘There doesn’t appear to be a camera crew there, sir. Maybe you were mistaken?’

  The copper’s tone was laced with sarcasm.

  I tried to explain further but realised that, to these officers, I just looked like someone who had taken a cupboard full of mushrooms and was having a full-blown meltdown. Any explanation was futile.

  The other officer, who had said very little up until now, chipped in.

  ‘Listen, mate. I don’t know what the fuck it is you’re up to. And I don’t give a fuck. But if you don’t fucking get up and fuck off in the next five seconds, you’re fucking nicked.’

  All thoughts of dignity now abandoned, I stood up awkwardly and sprinted over the road, away from the sweary policeman and off down the Fulham Road. Unable to take the costume off myself, I was forced to wander around as a snail for a good three-quarters of an hour as cars hooted before I found Sam, who had retreated to a nearby pub.

  I have a vivid memory of visiting Longleat Safari Park as a kid. Opened by the Marquess of Bath in the grounds of Longleat House, it was the first stately home to try and pay its way by stuffing the grounds full of exotic creatures and allowing the public to pay money to come and see them. To say that the current Marquess of Bath was odd would not be an exaggeration. He liked to paint erotic murals in the house and has a series of ‘wifelets’ to whom he gave cottages on the estate. We eventually ended up doing three separate shoots there. We started off by driving a car out of the monkey enclosure with two people dressed as gorillas sitting on the roof, hammering at the vehicle with baseball bats. Cars exiting the enclosure went straight past the long line of vehicles waiting to go in. Despite the gorillas obviously being fake there were some very anxious looks from drivers who suddenly wondered whether they’d misunderstood what they’d signed up for. They were mentally prepared to lose a car aerial but this was way over the top . . .

  Longleat were so accommodating that we decided to chance our arm and get an interview with the Marquess for the part of the show when I interviewed a ‘celeb’ and then did something weird. The Marquess was duly booked and he seemed to have no idea that we’d already filmed a comedy sketch on his premises. We pretended to be a serious show interested in his arboretum. As I interviewed him about his trees, I made out that I was having major bowel problems which eventually led to me running into the bushes and ‘emptying my bottom’ while shouting, ‘I’m sorry, Your Majesty . . .’ The Marquess looked most bemused by events. A year later, we would return to Longleat to film a scene in the maze where two mobile sections of green hedge would slowly block in a confused visitor. Thank you, Your Holiness . . .

  I went to SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) as a student. This was a place full of strange people learning strange languages. Unsurprisingly, it was also a major spot for recruitment by the intelligence services. Everyone was told that someone would approach you at the bar, buy you a drink and ask you whether you’d thought about what you might do when you finished university. A strange-looking man finally approached me in my last term. I was a full-blown Goth, and so possibly an unlikely spy, and I very much got the feeling that this was a sympathy fuck.

  ‘Hello, can I buy you a drink?’ asked the intelligence services man.

  ‘Yes, please, a pint of cider and black?’ I replied, sweeping my crimped fringe out of my guy-linered face.

  ‘So . . . Have you considered what you might do when you leave university?’ asked the man upon his return with my cider and black.

  ‘No,’ I replied truthfully.

  ‘Right . . . Well . . . Nice talking to you.’ The man got up and wandered off. I think he’d made a decision that I was not the right stuff. It’s possible, of course, that he was just a man chatting me up. I like to think it was the former.

  I decided to revisit my old university and do a bit of recruiting myself.

  Sam had cut a hole in a ‘man bag’ and shoved a camera into it. This way he could stand around trying to look inconspicuous and film me. I was dressed in a pink shirt and blazer with slicked-back hair, and stood in the corridor leading from the bar to the entrance hall of SOAS. I spotted a pretty-looking Asian girl approaching. I asked her whether she’d thought about what she’d do when she left uni? She said something about the diplomatic corps. I told her that I worked for the intelligence services and was looking for recruits. She informed me that she had already thought about this area. I told her that she might have to sleep with people for information and even sometimes . . . (I pulled my hand across my throat in an indication that murder would be part of the job). Not
only did she not baulk at the thought, but she informed me that she was very ‘sporty’ and very up for that sort of thing. I gave her a number to ring with the instruction that she leave the password ‘Mugwuffin’. Over the next week she left no fewer than nine messages. God only knows what she’s doing now, but be careful out there . . .

  Sam’s parents lived in Coggeshall in Essex, and we decided to use their house for one particular set-up. The idea was that we would call a series of chimney sweeps to come to the house as we had a ‘blockage’. Once they started poking around the chimney, Sam, dressed as Father Christmas and perched on a little ledge inside, would fall down into the hearth and then leg it. I can’t remember the exact logic for the Father Christmas costume. It was either that he’d got stuck there at Christmas or that he was a drunken burglar. Both were funny, and we were pretty sure that this would be a slam-dunk. The only worry I had was that, being in Essex, we might come across a have-a-go hero with a criminal past, who might assault Sam instead of looking scared. As a precaution we removed all potential weapons, like pokers and brushes. It was best to be careful – this was Crim Central after all. We made the calls and waited for the chimney sweeps.

  The first guy to turn up was not quite what we expected. I’d assumed that chimney sweeps were tiny little men, not unlike jockeys – tough, strong and lithe. The first guy was about eighty and looked pretty close to death. As he slowly got out of his van and started inching his way unsteadily towards the front door we had to make an executive decision. Either we came out and stopped him, paid him for his time and sent him on his way, or we let things unfold and crossed our fingers that the shock of Sam falling out of the chimney would not provoke a terminal heart attack. In the end, we intervened and sent him on his way. Afterwards we decided that, had we allowed him to continue and he’d suffered the feared heart attack, we would have had to wipe the tapes clean, carry him out to his van, drive it about two miles away and dump it before claiming that he’d never arrived. Essex criminal culture was starting to rub off on us.