by Paul Kerensa
‘So what you writing on at the moment?’ Rob asked, as we finally joined the M6.
‘This and that,’ I replied. I told him about ‘this’ and I told him about ‘that’, and how the same joke featured in both.
The shows had names, but I won’t mention them here, to minimise trouble. I did give the names to Rob.
‘Not heard of them,’ came his honest answer. ‘And you didn’t realise at the time?’
‘Honestly, no. I wrote it for the first show, and just sent it off into the joke mill.’ You always hope it’ll be kneaded into comic goodness, but you know that more likely they’ll just dispose of it as industrial waste.
‘Weeks later I pitched it again to a roomful of writers. My brain never told me I’d already sold it to someone else.’
It was so rare that a gag could be used in two different shows. Sitcoms aren’t just a collection of random jokes, and most lines in a script are going to be so tightly relevant to the show that you can’t conceive of it working elsewhere. A line from Del Boy wouldn’t sound right coming out of Joey Tribbiani’s mouth.Yet in this instance, Shows A and B had somehow ended up with similar plotlines, both vaguely involving small children, football and hospitalisation. It was the perfect storm. It meant that what we’ll call ‘Gag Zero’ could have found a home in either show, and unfortunately it was now squatting in both.
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Rob tried to placate me. ‘So what if they are the same? I’m sure I heard a line from The Office on some American sitcom recently. What was it now ... ?’
I sensed his joke. ‘Was it the American version of The Office?’
‘Yeah, something like that,’ he replied with a laugh, and retuned the radio to Radio 1. I knew on his own he was a Capital Gold man, but he had a car-sharer to impress.
Rob turned up the dance track playing and shouted over it.‘My point is, you’re not going to get the same audience for both shows. Even if it makes the cut, twice, they’ll be broadcast far apart, different channels ...’
‘No, same channel.’
‘Is it E4? No one watches E4. I was in a pilot on E4. No one watched it. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘When was that on?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t watch it.’
‘Well one’s on tonight, 8.30, BBC1. And the other one by contrast is on tonight, 9.30, BBC1.’
‘Ah,’ Rob concluded. ‘You’re in trouble.’
This was why it had been laying in my stomach for weeks like a bad vindaloo.There was nothing I could do about it. Not at this late stage.
‘You worried?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been bricking it for weeks. I should have said something. Instead I’ve been tearing my hair out at home. We’ve been trying to plan a wedding and I’ve not been able to focus on it.’
Radio 1 cut to the news and Rob turned it off.After a minute’s quiet, he asked: ‘Hey, what was the joke?’
I’m not going to tell it here, in print. I’ve no idea of the repercussions of even mentioning that this happened. By the time you read this, I could be locked up in the tower.
When I first found out about my mistake, I merely predicted a stern talking to. As I spoke to Rob, several hours before my gag could be broadcast to the nation, twice, I was predicting government-led inquiries and an overhaul of the licence fee. I won’t add to the risk of a major Newsnight investigation by being too specific here.
I told Rob the joke and silence filled the car. For the first time, I wished Radio 1 was still on so I could at least kid myself that the phat beats were hiding his laughter.
‘Don’t worry, they won’t use that,’ he said seriously.
He was right. It wasn’t exactly a world-beater. The joke’s quality alone would probably see it edited out, plus each script had numerous hurdles before it hit the screens. All I knew though was that when I last saw both scripts, Gag Zero was still staring out at me, like your mate in a shop window display doing a silly dance.You know you have to get him out of there before too many people see, but you have no idea how.
We parked at the Baptist church beneath a banner declaring ‘Comedy Night!’, and Rob and I both stretched as we left the car from the long drive.
Rob yawned. ‘Well, if no one shows up, we can go and watch TV somewhere, see if your jokes made it. Although it does mean hearing that joke again.Twice.’
We opened the centre doors to find an eager audience awaiting us. TV would wait. At least with this lot here, there’d be a couple of hundred less witnesses to the televisual mayhem.
Rob nudged me and whispered, ‘Here, what if a royal dies? Then they’ll cancel all the telly.’
‘Ssh, Rob.We’re in a church.’
A fifty-year-old man jogged over to us and said, ‘Welcome! Now remember, you’re not in a church ... ’
I was confused. I thought we were in a church.
‘Ah, no, no, well, we are in a “church”, but we’re not in a “church”. I’m Pete the pastor, by the way.’
I looked around, and Pastor Pete had a point. The venue was full of audience, with stage and lights and sound-desk, but no cross, no altar, and no paraphernalia. No banners from the Mothers’ Union, no church organ and no collection of instruments in the corner.
‘We do film nights, fish and chip suppers, and now we thought we’d have you guys.’ He nodded to some twenty-somethings giggling in the corner. ‘They want poker nights. I tell them to dream on.’
Rob was looking around just as I was, trying to get the measure of the place. ‘So is this a Baptist church ... centre ... thing?’
‘Yeah, on a Sunday,’ Pete replied. ‘Tonight it’s just another venue.’
Rob looked crestfallen. ‘But I’ve written some Bible jokes. I’ve even read up on Baptists ... ’
John, the other Baptist
John Smyth was an English priest who left the Church of England and led a small congregation in Holland. In 1609, he stood atop one of Holland’s highest points, a good three centimetres off the ground, and read all the Bible verses that refer to infant baptism:
‘ ’
‘ ’
and most importantly
‘ ’
There aren’t any, and that was the basis of the Baptist movement. Apart from that, they are autonomous and so very different.They can do what they like, and convert their church building into a comedy night, without so much as a form to fill in. Just don’t fall in the pool ...
‘Have you got sharks?’ asked Rob.
Pete gave a chuckle. ‘That’s Bond villains! You watch out. You’ll be standing right over the pool, and I’ve got the button right here.’
Rob looked genuinely fearful.
I tried to put my sitcom-writing worries to one side, but it was still gnawing away at me.This, and showtime due any minute, sent me to the Gents.
There I found various posters of community info - you could read about a film night or an art sale while washing your hands. In the cubicles, they’d hidden the faith-based posters. Behind my toilet door was an A4 poster giving a modern approach to prayer. It read,‘If you know someone in need of it, use your phone to take a photo of this prayer, and text it to them’. Then followed three lines of hope, thanksgiving and general niceness, plus a note about washing your hands that probably wasn’t part of the prayer.
I liked it. It was a neat technological twist, even if it was found in an unusual place, but I suppose they had got a captive audience here in the cubicle. It certainly worked for me anyway, and I obeyed its instructions. My wife-to-be had put up with my anxious nonsense for weeks, ever since Gag-gate. She deserved to know I was thinking about her, and if I took the photo close enough she’d never know this was actually a toilet.
I lined it up and clicked, and my phone gave its old-fashioned camera- noise.
Emerging from the cubicle, I saw Pastor Pete washing his hands. His calm and jokey demeanour from earlier had faded a little, and he looked alarmed.
‘What were you doing in there?’ he enquired, gesturing to the cubicle. ‘What was that noise?’
‘Oh, that. It’s the camera on my phone. Does it when I take a photo.’ And I thought this was meant to be a modern church.
I washed and dried my hands under the posters, deciding, if I were local, which art print I’d buy, and whether I’d watch Chicken Run on Saturday at 3.30 p.m. with popcorn or Twiglets. Zoë would choose popcorn. Rob would have Opal Fruits, although I don’t know how he managed to join our hypothetical house-share.
I started to message Zoë the prayer-photo as I left the Gents.
‘What are you doing now?’ Pastor Pete continued.
‘Oh, I’m just texting the photo.’
‘What, from the cubicle?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I’m sending it to my fiancée. I want to say sorry for being a misery guts.Thought it’d be nice.’
And I left the loos, and Pastor Pete’s worried expression.
I found Rob pacing the floor near the auditorium, ready to take the stage.
‘You good?’ I asked him.
‘Yeah.You?’
‘Mmm. Nervous.’
‘About the gig or your jokes on telly? Half eight now. Your first show’s on.’
The gig wasn’t occupying my mind at all. I told Rob he had been right on the drive up - I should have told someone about the doubling up. Now it was too late.
‘Might ease your conscience if you just tell someone. Can you confess to Pete? He’s a priest.’
‘He’s a pastor. They don’t do confession via church leaders here.’
‘Well just tell him anyway. Might help you have a good gig.’
Rob talked sense. I decided I needed to get my writing woes off my chest to someone other than a Starburst-chewing Capital Gold fan, so I sought out Pete, who still looked gravely concerned about something.
‘Pete,’ I said. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I know it’s not a confessional moment or anything, but I just wanted to run something past you. I don’t think it’s a ‘sin’, as such. But I messed up. See, I sent something I really shouldn’t have sent ...’
‘Oh I know you did!’ Pete said accusingly.
‘... It’s only a joke, but ...’
‘Didn’t look like a joke to me!’
Eh? Had Rob explained? Had Pastor Pete nipped to a side room and watched my joke on TV?
‘Oh you’ve seen it? What did you think of it?’
‘No I haven’t seen it and what you do in there ...’ He pointed to the Gents. Ohhhhhhh ...
‘No! Not in there ...You know about the prayer poster in the toilets? I wasn’t ... No! I wasn’t texting anything else ...’
‘Your fiancée? Look, this is my church!’
I thought this wasn’t a church, but it wasn’t the time to correct him. After a lot of explaining about prayer posters and camera phones and sitcom-writing, Pastor Pete and I made up, and Rob and I had a fine evening with the two hundred comedygoers - which were indeed 95% locals.
On the drive home I resolved to do several things:
Confess to producers of both shows what happened, regardless of whether the line is doubled up or not.
Be extra vigilant in future to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Buy more Starburst.
Once home, I couldn’t wait any longer. I watched a recording of the pre- watershed family sitcom first.Ten minutes in, there it was: Gag Zero. Oh no, no, no! Broadcast at the same time as I was floundering to a Baptist minister. I didn’t even watch the rest of the episode; I skipped straight to the 9.30 p.m. show to see if Gag Zero made a second unwelcome appearance.
I knew it belonged in the first five minutes, and when the scene it belonged in didn’t appear, I high-fived myself. They cut it out! I would live! Admittedly they might have cut it out because some editor-in-chief spotted Gag Zero at zero hour, in which case I might still be for the high jump, but for now I was jumping for joy.
I texted Zoë the good news. She replied instantly saying she was delighted, and thanks for the prayer message asking her to please wash her hands. She’d be more than happy to wash her hands of my doubling up worries, and could we now get back to this wedding table-plan.
Later that week, I spoke to the producer of the other sitcom nonchalantly in passing, for no reason or anything, just saying hi, and by the way were there many last-minute cuts in that episode?
Yes, he said. That scene involving the football, the children and the kitchen implement sadly had to go, just because of time, and the plot made equal sense without it. Sorry, he said.
‘Oh no need to apologise ...’ I replied.And that would have been the perfect time to make good on my wish to confess all.
I did not make good on that. I’m not meant to confess to a Baptist minister, and I couldn’t bring myself to confess to the producers. So I’m going to confess here. Well I mean I have. I’m not now going to write the chapter out again.That would be doubling up.
45 They’re not Opal Fruits, and he’s lying to himself.
9
Lost at Sea
iCebergs and iChurch
So we wedded. I often doubted I’d ever marry, thinking weddings for me were like planes - I’m more often pressed up against the window than anywhere near the aisle. But the big day was excellent and the bride looked amazing.We danced down the aisle as husband and wife, and onto a fine reception where wine was drunk and relatives were drunk.
I learnt that being both groom and comedian was a tricky balance to manage. I had to be quite clear in my head that, pre-wedding, no jokes were allowed. Nothing about the wedding was funny. I found out to my cost that it’s bad form to suggest ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ as a first dance.
Oh, and don’t go telling your wife-to-be the night before that you’ve got Cold Feet, before presenting her with a DVD of the same name. It’s. Never. Funny.
Soon after my own wedding, I was asked to play a gig at someone else’s.They’re not easy gigs, which surprises some people.‘But everyone’s in a good mood,’ you might say. ‘Laughter will surely flow like water off England’s highest waterfall.’
In theory yes, but inevitably the comedian is squeezed in between the speeches and the disco. The assembled mass have already laughed and just want a boogie. Plus everyone wants to know who are you and why you have infiltrated their get-together.
Some days when the call comes in though, you forget all this. Besides, the happy couple were friends of friends, so what could possibly go wrong? Let’s find out ...
The wedding was at Britain’s only surfers’ church, called Tubestation. Despite its name it was a long way from the London Underground, based in Polzeath on Cornwall’s north coast.The idea appealed: a church aimed at a very specific group of people, there for its community as well as visiting holidaymakers.
They’d had a great ceremony, a grand meal and uproarious speeches, which meant it was time for me to come along and ride that wave of good will. I followed the first dance - a tall order. No wonder those Abba-esque dancefloors can look a bit bleak after the first dance. How do you follow that? With thirty minutes of a ginger man talking, that’s how.
Bless them, the bride and groom and a few others stuck around for my attempt to follow one of the most magical moments of their lives. There were no chairs, as I was performing to the dancefloor. I went down like ... well, like a stranger at a wedding. The buffet was being served as I started, so a good deal of my potential audience quite rightly ran off towards that. I know that if I was faced with the option of standing listening to me, or eating a plate of goujons, it would be breaded chicken every ti
me.
The new Mr and Mrs were magnificent hosts, and like a great comedian once told me of wedding gigs,‘You have a bad show in a club, you get over it at the next gig. You have a bad gig at a wedding, you’ll always be the guy who ruined their big day.’
So if they ever read this, I hope I wasn’t the guy who ruined your big day. I’m hoping that was some other guy, or even better, that your day wasn’t ruined.
Danger! Tough gig ahead
Warning signs to watch out for:
Is something else on offer mid-performance?
A lot of performances rise and fall based around what else is on offer, whether it’s a buffet, the bar being open, or a naked man out of the window. All of these have happened while I’ve been onstage.
The naked man was at a student gig in Newcastle where large windows flanked the venue. Mid-performance, a wandering eye in the audience noticed the fellow, clotheless and clueless in his dorm room kitchen. He overlooked the students’ union, and was also overlooking basic health and safety by cooking bacon with not a stitch on. Pretty soon we had to stop the gig mid-joke, as the entire audience could not resist a peek.The fascination was not so much with the fact that he was naked, but the scary uncertainty of what would happen when the fat reached a high temperature and started to spatter. The audience cries of, ‘Get some curtains!’ were replaced by,‘Get an apron!’ as we began to understand the ticking time bomb of bacon grease.
After two electrifying minutes, we visibly saw the fat jump out of the pan, followed by Student Naked Guy jumping back with a horribly pained expression on his face.[46] We heard his yelp, he heard ours, he screamed back at us, reached for a curtain that wasn’t there, which gave us all an even clearer view of his mixed grill, then leapt back to turn off the light. The kitchen was plunged into darkness, and the audience groaned at the loss of their entertainment. I reluctantly returned to the stage to try and follow that little show, as we heard the clatter of dropping pans in the pitch-black kitchen over the path, and more yelping.