So A Comedian Walks Into Church

by Paul Kerensa

  ‘There’s plenty here for you,’ Janet encourages with a twinkle in her eyes.

  ‘Oh no,’ I hasten to add. ‘I’m not local.’

  She’s not put off. ‘Oh, well come back anyway. We need young men. And we’re starting Bhangra soon.’

  A jovial gentleman joins her, a junior at this church at about sixty. ‘I’ve come to meet the new recruit!’

  ‘I’m just passing through,’ I say with a smile, before adding,‘but thanks for having me.’ The generation gap means I feel like I’m over playing at a friend’s house, and the illusion is completed when Janet hands me a piece of cake on a paper plate.

  As I thank her, she turns to Mr Jovial. ‘We were saying he’s going to come back.’

  ‘Was I?’ I quickly add through a mouthful of lemon drizzle.

  ‘Good!’ says Mr Jovial. ‘Has he met Alice?’

  ‘Ooh no, I must get her!’

  Janet scurries off to a huddle of people near the front. I edge doorwards, but Mr Jovial is slightly blocking my exit.

  ‘You’ll like Alice. She’s about your age.’

  I see where this is going, so try and change the subject. ‘Lovely service. I must come back here with my wife if we’re up this way.’ I don’t have a wife but I do have a girlfriend, who’s great and doesn’t live four hundred miles away. I could have mentioned her rather than a ‘wife’, but I panicked - a shame as it’s bound to be a sin to fib in church, but after my earlier heresy, all bets are off.

  ‘Yes, you should bring your wife,’ says Mr Jovial with a squint, or it could be a wink. ‘Only you haven’t met her yet.’

  That didn’t work then. I like to think the lack of wedding ring gave me away, but I fear it’s the Red Dwarf T-shirt and smell of Lynx. Janet’s now back in view, dragging by the arm a woman who’s clearly reluctant, fifteen years my senior, and Alice. Janet didn’t mention speed dating among their church activities.

  ‘Well, it’s been lovely to come and visit,’ I say to Mr Jovial, finishing my cake and edging doorwards. ‘Thanks.’

  Janet sees me making a beeline and is really yanking at Alice’s arm now. She’s not quick enough though. Despite Janet’s stealth moves and Mr Jovial’s last-ditch attempt to block the door, I’m out and down those steps quicker than you can say ‘whittled toothbrush’.

  Looking at the church from the safety of my car, I notice again its vast size. Such a big building for a congregation of barely the number of disciples, for today at least.Yet my friend of a friend told me of at least three local churches who are building-less. They meet in disused halls, pub function suites or university lecture rooms. Should this dwindling church ‘give up’ their considerable space, so that the overflowing congre- gations down the road can have a place of their own? I don’t know even if the younger, funkier gatherings would want a building like this - I love the traditional architecture of it and the fact that the spire is a beacon in the community (it called me in), but does everyone?

  I think the answer is in what Janet told me a few minutes ago. Her list of groups who use the church was strikingly all-encompassing. You may rattle around in this building on a Sunday morning, but come back tomorrow and you’ll find toddlers making way for dance classes, and dance classes making way for Narcotics Anonymous. Maybe, if you’re lucky, Narcotics Anonymous might join in with Zumba and we’d all feel part of something amazing.

  First impressions can be deceptive. Is this a thriving or dying church? Or is it missing the point to judge it by its Sunday service? I’ve heard Christians talk about the ‘broken world’, as if it’s distant. It’s not - it’s on our doorstep. The AA, the playgroup, the antenatal classes - they’re in a sanctuary within these walls. The sheer number of events for the non- churched in this venue shows that church in a community does work. What other building can offer so much?

  As if to answer my question, I head to the local pub for a roast dinner and a read of the papers.

  I enter and expect glares and for the piano to stop playing, but I feel surprisingly at home here now. Having spent a good deal of time in the north-east - most of it trapped in a toilet - I feel like one of the locals. Not too much though: it’s only a few degrees outside, so they’re all in vests, while I reach for my coat ...

  My coat. I took it off to feel the benefit, and it’s still in the pew. It’s Sunday afternoon and I expect the church to be locked, but I’m not here often and the coat is by a fancy designer called George.The locals may not even have seen a coat before - it could be in a museum by now.

  The church door is unlocked when I reach it, so I tentatively push it open. It looks like no one’s in.

  ‘Ssh.’

  It’s Alice, the woman that Janet, Mr Jovial and the great URC prophecy of 1740 had hoped would pair off with me.[21] She gestures through the entrance lobby into the main church, where I now see three adults and a child.

  ‘Access visit,’ she whispers to me.

  I nod and ask quietly about my coat. As Alice becomes a garment- fetching ninja, I glance at the family and see who this church is really here for. Its people aren’t just those on a Sunday who take communion together (or on their own); there are also others who need it, whether to learn Indian dancing or to spend time with their child following a separation.They need neutral ground, and what better ground than this?

  Alice returns with my coat. I thank her and judge that, despite Janet’s matchmaking, she’s not that keen anyway. I don’t think she likes Red Dwarf or Lynx, which is just as well.

  I’m about to head for home, then think I’d better use the facilities before crossing the country.

  Down the corridor and up the stairs, I find the Gents and lock the door.Yesterday’s handle incident jolts back to me, and I decide to unlock the door quickly just to check.

  It doesn’t budge.

  ‘Alice!!!!!!’

  7 I had the gift of time, and sadly not the gift of a phone to calculate the seconds. Or call for help, which would have been more useful.

  8 You may remember my bad memory from chapter one. If you’ve forgotten already, congratulations: your memory is as bad as mine.

  9 It hadn’t gone to me, though the kind promoter tipped me an extra thirty quid for doing three times as long as originally booked for.

  10 Let this be a lesson - always take a book to the bathroom.

  11 Madness was already kicking in.

  12 More toothpaste! I shall dine well tonight...

  13 Well, I’m not.

  14 It makes you wonder why they market other toothbrushes. ‘Reaches 80% of all teeth’ just doesn’t cut it.

  15 Bear in mind I actually did this.

  16 It turns out toothpaste isn’t that satisfying.

  17 ‘Four stars, a sermon not to miss.’

  18 I’ve once been to such a beyond-fashionable club, in New York. It was owned by a family friend - the only way I’d ever get on the guest list - and the taxi driver was convinced there was nothing on this street but bins. When we were dropped off, it was just door after door of nothing: no signs, no noise spilling into the street. The only clue was after five minutes when Brad Pitt pulled up in a car and rang a bell, so we followed him. It was a good night, eventually.

  19 Unlike the trendy New York nightclub, the man I follow in isn’t Brad Pitt, unless it’s Brad Pitt in the early scenes of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

  20 I’ve read too many Choose Your Own Adventure Books.

  21 If you remember the earlier information box, you may be thinking there was no URC in 1740. Five points to you.

  3

  The Show Must Mynd Ymlaen

  Worshipping with the Welsh

  I broke for the border, pursued by polic
e cars.

  Then the police cars overtook me and I trundled on to the Severn Bridge tollbooth.The long drives get boring, so you have to add a bit of glamour where you can. Thankfully I was soon to be picking up a couple of comics to help while away the rest of the journey to far-west Wales, but first I had the bridge’s troll to pass.

  ‘Afternoon,’ I offered from my billy goat’s car. The troll - a bearded hulk of a man with bags for life under his eyes - didn’t reply, and just carried on chewing. He held out a sugary hand, with no need to say anything to the umpteenth customer in a row, thanks to the fixed price.

  I handed over coin after coin for admission to the giant theme park of Welshland, wondering what I’d get for my cash. Maybe a smile? No. What about a receipt?

  My question made him swallow his pastille whole, so he could reply for the first time in hours. ‘We don’t give receipts. Oh, and we don’t accept two pence pieces either.’

  I’d only handed over five of them, but it seemed they’d ceased to be legal tender. ‘Oh.Well, I haven’t got anything else.’

  ‘Haven’t you got 10p?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘In 2ps. Aren’t they real money?’

  ‘Well, barely,’ came the terse reply as he reached for another sweet.

  I looked at the coppers in my hand, confused. They looked like real coins.

  ‘Do you take cards?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, chewing on the next one. ‘Come on, you must have a ten pence piece.’

  I wanted to do a dozen things. I wanted to stare his beardy face down till he cracked and let me into Wales for ten pence cheaper. I wanted to see if he’d call his boss to okay a two pence-based transaction. I wanted to mutter something about him being racist for not taking brown coins.

  Unfortunately, his eyesight was better than mine.

  ‘What’s that in your change drawer? By the sweet wrappers?’

  He may have looked weary but he was sharp as a lemon pastille. A dirty ten pence piece stared up at me. With a heavy heart I handed it over and the barrier lifted.

  Next time I’d plan ahead my monetary stand-off. It may be petty but this, like all good protests, was about change.

  I stopped in Cardiff to pick up two of the other three comics for that night’s show. I was both compère and designated driver for two Welsh acts: musical comic Katie, who was opening, and lanky student Dennis who was travelling for five minutes of stage time and no money. Andy, the headliner, was driving from Birmingham, or so we thought till Katie received a text from him.

  ‘What’s the gig postcode?’ Katie asked from the passenger seat.

  ‘Er, SA61 something,’ I replied, pulling away into Cardiff traffic.‘Why?’

  ‘Andy put the wrong postcode in his satnav. He’s halfway to S61.’

  ‘Where’s that then?’ asked Dennis from the back.

  I tried it on my satnav. ‘Rotherham,’ I reported.

  Both postcodes were coincidentally for ‘High Street’, so it was an easy enough mistake to make, but one that had sent Andy several hours north- east from his Midlands home, rather than south-west to where we were.

  We headed west on the motorway into the setting sun, and chuckled impishly at Andy’s misfortune. Because that’s what comedians in cars do.

  Comedy car-shares: a bluffer’s guide

  Great for sharing petrol costs and gig stories, most comedy car-shares go roughly the same way ...

  1. ‘Been busy?’ (i.e. Are you playing the same gigs as I am?) Always be humble about how you did at these gigs - no one likes a boaster. Your co-travellers would much rather hear you say:

  ‘Tough gig, that.’

  than:

  ‘You know what, everyone else suffered, but they needed to call a tiler after my set cos I took the roof off.’

  2. ‘Been to this one before?’ (i.e. Anticipation of the gig to come.)

  Honesty counts here.

  ‘Last time I was here we only had seven in. It was awful,’

  ... is fine.

  As is ... ‘This guy never pays on time.’

  3. ‘Did you hear about ...?’ (i.e.Tales of suffering.)

  Expect to hear of unpopular comedians doing badly at gigs, of comics refusing to pay petrol money so being abandoned at petrol stations, and of just how much money each act lost at Edinburgh Festival last year. Most comedians’ cars are powered by Schadenfreude alone.

  4. ‘You know what happened to me today...’ (i.e. Suspiciously convenient ‘true stories’.)

  If any topic comes up that is not directly related to the comedy industry, there’s every chance you’ll hear the story/opinion/turn of phrase again later that evening as part of the comic’s act.You’ll recognise it and feel affronted, that what you thought was a light chat between you earlier, was actually a performer trying out some new material. Never trust a comedian with a pen in his hand.

  Just shy of the coast, we reached our destination.We hadn’t needed the satnav: directions like, ‘Take the M4 west and don’t drown,’ would have sufficed. This was the Welsh Land’s End. This was Lland’s End.

  I fed the parking meter, even after 6 p.m. and Katie and Dennis threw money in, which was helpful because it was yet another automaton that didn’t accept two pence pieces.

  ‘I hate paying to park,’ sniffed Katie. ‘The way they go on about carbon emissions, they should be paying us to stop the car.’

  We strolled into the social club - a tired function room in need of a lick of paint and an audience - and the promoter bounded over with an outstretched hand. Comedians prefer the promoter’s hand to have a stuffed envelope in it, but that would hopefully come later.

  ‘So, this is it!’ exclaimed promoter Darren, an excitable Londoner who seemed a long way from home.

  Right, where’s the audience, the three of us thought. He could tell, as our eyes scanned the empty seats.

  ‘Don’t worry, doors only opened twenty minutes ago. If we build it, they will come!’

  Not necessarily. I’ve been at dozens of gigs where they didn’t come, where the motto might have been better off as,‘If we advertise it, they’ve got a chance of showing up’. A lot of comics have an unwritten rule that ten’s the magic number for audience numbers. Less than that and maybe it’s best to cancel. A show with four in the audience is likely to be improved by us all just parting company and thinking of something funny for a couple of hours.

  ‘What’s your cut-off?’ asked Katie. ‘Less than ten and we pull it?’

  ‘Pull what?’ babbled Darren. ‘You’re all a bit wild, after a ‘pull’ here! Seriously though ... what? We’ve never pulled the night.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll get more if we wait?’ I asked. By ‘more’ I meant ‘some’.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Darren. ‘Show must go on and all that!’

  No, it mustn’t. We’d all driven four-plus hours for this. A nine hour round trip. Yes, we’d like a show at the end of it, but a function room that can fit two hundred but actually houses anyone we can pull in off the streets does not a show make.

  A non-comedy person[22] might wonder what made us all take this gig, presuming it must be particularly well-paid, or a favour for a mate. Nope. This is normal. Only normally at least one person shows up.

  Katie took charge. ‘Darren, I think maybe we should pick a figure. If we get just an old man and his dog, best not do the show, yeah?’

  Darren’s jolly grin melted into a bouncer’s glare, which he fixed on me.‘You want to get paid, you do the show.’ The grin returned.‘You can cancel, but you all go home empty-handed. I’ve got a living to make.’

  So did we, but we also had dignity to keep. I was sure the hypothet- ical old man and his dog wouldn’t contribute enough to pay all our wages.

  ‘Trust me, this happens every
month. Friday night round here, they’re all in the pub next door.’ Darren spoke as if this was meant to reassure us. ‘When the show starts, they all start coming in then. You get it started, they’ll hear you through the wall and come running like Pavlov’s dogs or whatever.’

  I realised he was looking straight at me; I’d forgotten that I was compère. It would be my job to be Pied Piper and lure in next door’s supposed revellers.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ I protested. ‘I’ve done gigs to two people. I think I’ve done one to one. But I’m not going on to literally no one.’

  Darren produced some envelopes from his donkey jacket. ‘I’ve got your money here. For the end of the show.’ He replaced it in his pocket and looked at us knowingly.

  This was awful. In years on the comedy circuit, I’d never known of a promoter on such a completely different page as the comedians. He was in a different book. Ours was The Complete Guide to Saving Face and his was Getting a Bad Name for Yourself: A Bluffer’s Guide.

  ‘I’ll start marshalling them,’ Darren said, exiting into the street. And then there were three.

  ‘Are a lot of gigs like this?’ asked newbie Dennis.

  ‘No,’ Katie and I answered in unison.

  We discussed, dissected and thought up some interesting names for promoter Darren, as well as questioning if any channels were making prank shows and where they were hiding the cameras if so. We concluded that, after coming this far, we wanted our cash. Dennis wasn’t being paid, but for some reason he still wanted the stage time, even though it could potentially be to zero people. He could do that at home.

  ‘So we’re doing it,’ concluded Katie. ‘In which case, shall we get a move on? We could wait for the audience, but I think they’re waiting for us ...’