by Paul Kerensa
Is someone better performing within earshot?
Mid-joke in a tent at Guildford’s ‘GuilFest’ festival, I heard the muffled announcement across the site:‘... Please welcome to the stage, Rolf Harris!’ The large audience upped and left quicker than you could say ‘didgeridoo’, let alone anything about the ladies of the harem of the court of King Caractacus. Five minutes later it started raining and new punters, who were just passing by, ran in for cover.That’s when you realise that sometimes your show is nothing more than a big umbrella, or a waiting room for a bigger act on a few stages down.
Is there a dress code?
If you’re told by the person booking you that you simply have to wear a suit for the show, then that’s a very strong indication that laughs may be trickier to come by. Weddings, corporate gigs, funerals - all can go marvellously, but all have a much higher death-rate, especially the funerals.
I don’t mean gigs where suits are optional. I’ve worn many a two-piece[47] at regular comedy clubs. No, it’s when you are absolutely required to dig out your Tesco Value jacket and trouser set. That’s when to start sweating, and not just because it’s too tight and made of 100% polyester.
At one such event I endured a forty-minute sponsored silence to a group of masons. ‘Pull out the bankers,’ I thought to myself, meaning ‘do my best jokes’ but also ‘those chatty bankers at the table near the back - someone pull them out’. Which brings me to...
Is the entire audience made up of wealthy, elderly, white males?...
In my experience, this is the hardest group of people to make laugh, which is a shame because one day I was really hoping to become one. The odds of me ending my days as a young, poor, black woman are highly unlikely - a pity, as I’d at least laugh now and then.
The wealthier the audience, the less laughter you can hope to get from them, perhaps because they’re happy enough in their lives. This theory was explored at a strange gig in Monaco. We were instructed before taking to the stage at the noted tax haven not to ask what anyone does for a living ... which is a red rag to a bull. Asking a comedian not to mention something onstage is like saying don’t think of a purple elephant: you simply have to, especially when faced with an audience who could have a red rag, a bull and a purple elephant airlifted here within the hour, just because they felt like it.
Thankfully I was the closing act that night, so by the time I went onstage, all the awkward questions had been asked ...‘What do you do for a living?’ ‘Which yacht in the harbour is yours?’ ‘Only a twelve-berth, three-storey yacht? Could you not have tried a little bit harder in school?’
Each question, like their tax, was mostly avoided.The laughs, like the ages of the billionaires and their female partners, had very large gaps.
Soon after our wedding, another odd gig was on the horizon - my first cruise.
I relished the opportunity: I’d get to do a one-man show and I always fancied myself as a man of the sea. Plus, as long as the act was the only thing going down terribly and not the ship, it could never be that bad. I knew too that the cruise ship pros were flown all around the world: Panama, Siberia and Great Yarmouth awaited me.
My cruise was to depart from Southampton and dock in Lisbon, from where I’d be flown home. The ship would then sail on to the Canary Islands, and some lucky comedian would take over from me. I’d get the rocky Bay of Biscay, and he’d get the sun-kissed islands, but hey, a cruise is a cruise.
The night before setting sail, or rrmmming the motors, or whatever they call it on big ships, I had a standard circuit gig in Nottingham. Post- show, as is customary when I’m in the locale, I swung by Tipoo Kebab House on Alfreton Road for the best kebab I’ve yet found on these shores. Since I was a student in Nottingham, the doner in naan bread, all the salad, mild chilli sauce, a dash of lemon and a splat of mint sauce, has been my takeaway of choice.
I knew the Tipoo guys well, and we even exchanged Christmas cards. Multi-faith dialogue in action, if ever I saw it, with a Muslim and a Christian exchanging greetings of a Christian festival while eating halal meat.
Sadly on this occasion, there was to be no Christmas card, and not just because it was summer; they were closed for refurbishment. I was loyal but hungry, so I took my slavering elsewhere and indulged in a sub- par doner wrap (No mint sauce? A scandal) from a roadside van. I ate, felt bad about my betrayal, felt bad because I’d eaten a dodgy kebab, then headed home to sleep before braving the ocean.
On the morning of the cruise my wife bade me goodbye, waving me off with a handkerchief. Well, she actually threw it at me, with the bidding, ‘Chilli sauce on your shirt.’
I arrived at the behemoth of a ship with a bad gut feeling, and not just because I was carrying a suit bag and therefore the ‘Tough Gig Rule’ was in play. My kebab weighed heavily on me.This must be what it feels like to smuggle drugs, I thought as I lolled over to the check-in desk, hoping my passport photo would resemble the green face I sported today.
Anti-norovirus signs warned that any passenger with a gurgling stomach should turn back now. These good people had not spent thousands of pounds - or a tenner on Groupon - to have their head down a toilet for the next eleven days, so all dodgy tummies were to be left in Blighty.
Should I declare it? I decided not to. I knew the origins of my ill- feeling, and this was no infectious sickness virus - just a kebab van lacking a mild version of their chilli, or anywhere to wash their hands. They’re off my Christmas card list. So I boarded and lay low.A short rest would solve my tummy-based problems.
I felt no change till an hour later, when I suddenly felt a heck of a lot worse. By chance it was when we left Southampton docks with a jolt. I was surprised. This ship was huge - nineteen floors, several thousand rooms, a casino, a cinema, a shopping mall. Boats rocked. Floating metropolises surely don’t rock.
It turns out they do, and so we lurched right to left, or port to starboard, or mint side of tummy to lemon side of tummy, for the next four days, with no let-up and no recovery for my poor tum.The kebab was not a bad idea.The cruise was not a bad idea.The combination was a bad idea.
Thankfully my one and only performance wasn’t for a good day and a half, so when entertainment director Vinod introduced me to all the ship’s distractions, I told him that I would enjoy them the following night. In truth, I barely left my cabin. For thirty-six hours, I slept, or tried to.
Bad nightmare gave way to bad daydream, all of them taking place on rocking things. I dreamt of the magic carpet ride at Thorpe Park, and of crossing a dodgily swaying suspension bridge. I even had the familiar running-in-treacle frustration dream, only this time I was in a boat on the treacle, and again we just rocked.
In my times of waking, I’d try the ol’ ‘Keep your eyes on the horizon’ trick, but my porthole view just made things worse. Flotsam and jetsam raced past the window. There was not so much as a seagull to distract from the rolling water, which just looked like a magnified version of what was in my stomach. I should have declared at check-in, I thought. Or not had the kebab, but I can never regret a kebab, donerphile that I am. If the afterlife is individually designed with handpicked delights, my heaven will be a kebabylon.
My cabin phone rang with a reminder of my call-time, and as I donned my suit and my show time face, I peered at my reflection in the tiny cabin mirror. The suit was a good fit, but the show time face wasn’t. Staring back at me was a shell of a man - not Mr Saturday Night but Mr Still Getting Over Thursday Night.
The commute from my cabin to the theatre was surprisingly long. This ship was big. It took a solid fifteen minutes, without even allowing for me steadying myself against walls. None of the couples I passed were joining me in clinging to the swaying ship. All were sixty-plus, and most were eighty-plus. Yet the spritely thirty-something was the one acting like he was in the latter half of The Poseidon Adventure, while they glided with the grace of the toffs
from the first half of Titanic, or even any non- nautical standard film where people just walked. I heard one couple talk of this as their fifteenth cruise - I imagined you got used to the swaying feeling after that many trips, let alone, guessing their age, the time possibly spent at Dunkirk or Trafalgar.
For the first time I realised that this was my potential audience, and it was a much higher average age than I was used to. Jokes are jokes of course, but I thought I may have to drop some of the gags about Facebook, Duran Duran and the post-Armada era. I convinced myself that other younger passengers would fill the audience too, when a mobility scooter ran over my feet.
Without so much as an apology or an exchange of insurance details, the scooter was off into the distance.That struck me as a great way to get around this ship. Forget the fifteen-minute commute - I needed a shuttle service.The next mobility scooter I saw, I’d hitch a lift.
Unfortunately none came, so I arrived at the theatre tired, with run- over feet and a reeling stomach.
‘You enjoy the buffet?’ asked entertainment director Vinod from the stage.
‘Mmm!’ I shouted from forty rows back, the thought of it making me gag.
After a quick mic test, the doors were opened.The couple on their fifteenth cruise made a beeline for the back row, and three mobility scooters entered from different doors and narrowly avoided a collision.
‘They’re not exactly flooding in,’ I said to Vinod backstage. ‘More of a trickle.’
‘We don’t use those words at sea,’ Vinod warned. He had a point. I made a mental note not to say later that I’d ‘stormed’ it, nor that I’d ‘cracked the hull open of this gig’. ‘Right, showtime,’ he continued.
‘What? Really?’ I said. ‘Should we wait for a few others?’
‘Well, it’s already gone eleven at night. They’ll be wanting their beds soon.’
I looked out at the enormous theatre - a thousand seats with thirty or so filled. Granted it was past the bedtime of many passengers, but with everyone I’d seen of free bus pass age, none of them would have to worry about getting back for the kids.
Vinod bounded onstage with his cheesiest smile and channelled his inner Yellowcoat. I never heard a ‘Hi-de-hi!’ but it was there in the subtext. He dealt with some jolly admin, told the gathered few dozen about upcoming tribute shows, salsa spectaculars and quiz nights, then ended his patter with a solemn gearshift:
‘... And hey, if any of you are taken ill or are in any way queasy, don’t forget to hop on down to Medical Bay! Especially if you’re experiencing any symptoms of diarrhoea or vomiting. So without further ado ...’
Wow. My big intro. Not only that, but peeking through the curtains I saw that one couple promptly left. Either they’d only come to hear the latest social, cultural and medical info, or one of them was definitely suffering those symptoms, and they thought best get to Medical Bay pronto.They couldn’t risk what thirty minutes of Kerensic hilarity might do to them in such a fragile gastric condition.
In hindsight, they’d probably have coped fine, and in fact by scarpering to the nurse they dodged a bullet, show-wise. It wasn’t my finest hour, it’s fair to say. From the moment I first saw the drapes at the back of the auditorium sway to the ship’s movement, to the final desperate pleas of ‘Anyone here on Facebook?’, I knew that this wasn’t my night.
I could blame the low numbers, or the late hour, or the average age, or the large room, but I won’t. I’ll blame the doner kebab in pitta bread with chilli sauce from a certain van near junction 24 of the M1.
***
Sunday morning, 9.45 a.m., I think.We’re on the nautical clock, so while it’s definitely Sunday and I’m fairly sure it’s morning, the time is probably four knots past Neptune or something.
I think we’re off the coast of Portgual. Wherever we are, it’s rocky, and we’ve been at sea for what seems like years, but is actually three days. I’ve eaten mostly oranges since we left Southampton, because of something I read about scurvy in History GCSE, or it might have been Biology, or that Blackadder II episode with Tom Baker in it. I’m still feeling queasy.
The only saving grace is that my work here is done, even if it went a little unlaughed-at. I tell myself that it wasn’t my fault: it was under- attended, over-aged, and I was not over my takeaway.
I’m still not, but God willing I must feel better soon, if only because in another day I’ll set foot on dry land. I want to take Spike Milligan’s advice, and solve my seasickness by just sitting under a tree.That nearest tree will be Lisbon.
I’ve made a few ventures out of the cabin - I’ve tried the buffet, and it was an incredible feast.You could tell that most passengers had booked their holiday just for this. I’ve browsed the shopping mall, but don’t fancy a ship in a bottle nor a diamond brooch for the pensioner in my life. I’ve walked around the pool deck, although refrained from a dip thanks to it being a bit gusty. I’ve even found that above the pool deck, there’s a chapel.
So I’ve returned on Sunday morning for whatever service they provide, presumably featuring ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’ and the Gospel reading of Jesus calming the stormy waters.
It’s 9.55 a.m. and there’s no one here. I know there is a religious service scheduled - the daily pamphlet told me so, along with the expected conditions of the day: the temperature would be low and the sea would be choppy, thanks for that. I’ve deduced it must be in the chapel, but I realise I’ve taken a punt on the time, so I wait it out. It’s me, a roomful of twenty chairs, a cross on a table, and a view over the ocean waves. It’s as calm as it’s felt for three days, although I’m willing to put some of that down to being in the dead centre of the nineteenth and highest deck, which is perhaps a better place for balance than a cabin on the starboard side in the bowels of the ship.
At ten o’clock and with not so much as a lost holidaymaker, I abandon chapel, which is like abandoning ship but safer. I make for the information desk twelve decks down, and the glass lift reveals floor after floor of passengers reading, shopping and passing the time between breakfast and lunch. None headed for chapel but me, it seems.
‘Bonjour, monsieur.’
I don’t know why the concierge is adopting this accent.We were off the coast of France yesterday - he’s a day behind. Unless he is actually French, which is more likely. Maybe all the concierges are French because ‘concierge’ is a French word.That would be nice: the maître d’s - French; the matadors - Spanish; the sommeliers - Somalian.
‘Hi, your chapel, is there a church service today?’
‘Erm ... let me check, monsieur.’
The concierge vanishes and after a conversation in Polish,[48] reappears to tell me the chapel is not used for church services.
‘So why is there a chapel then?’ I ask.
He pauses awkwardly and glances around. It’s a tad tactless but I understand his less than subtle answer. Near us are two breathless ninety-year-olds, a man stooping so low that he’s a walking right angle, and enough mobility scooters for it to look like the set of mid-nineties TV show Robot Wars. I root for all these people, but clearly the concierge’s raise of the eyebrows indicates that sometimes passengers don’t make it home. There are thousands of people on board this ship, and statistics alone mean that the chapel must be home to at least one or two impromptu funerals a year. I’m not saying they pick the instant ‘burial at sea’ option (although some might, to save on return luggage), but clearly a thanksgiving service is in order, or at least somewhere to pray for souls departed.
‘We do have a Sunday morning Christian service, if you would like.’
‘Ooh, yes please,’ I reply.
‘It’s in the cinema, at half past ten.’
Of course, with a chapel on board, why wouldn’t it be in the cinema?
I saunter slowly to the cinema to ensure a half-ten arrival, then quicken
my speed when I realise that without a shuttle scooter, it’s a long walk.
Once there, again I find myself alone. No co-worshippers, not even any cinema-goers, although eventually a twelve-year-old - the youngest person I’ve seen in days - comes in to ask if Madagascar 2 is showing yet. A poster tells him it starts at noon, and he leaves to go scrumping for apples, or whatever the scampish equivalent is at sea.
I take the ten-minute walk back to the information desk.This time I even ring the desk bell. I feel like Bernard Cribbins in that Fawlty Towers episode. I explain my woes, and the words sound odd: Christians aren’t complainers, and basically I’m telling a waiter, ‘Er, I ordered the church ...’
‘Ah, the cinema manager may not have turned the projector on,’ the concierge explains.
The projector? I assumed it was to be an in-person event, although I suppose yes, the ship is unlikely to employ a chaplain just for a Sunday service. The concierge explains to me that they have a non-denomina- tional service pre-recorded on DVD. It gets repetitive if you’re a worshipper on a cruise for several weeks, but it’s better than nothing. Plus you can stay in your seats and watch animated lions at midday.
The concierge is yapped at in French and/or Polish, before finally telling me,‘If he is not there, we always show the service on channel 50 on your in-cabin TV.’
I retreat to my cabin for the last stop of my wild church chase. I recline on my unmade bed for the most laid-back church service I’ve ever ‘attended’. I turn on the television and select channel 50. It’s Madagascar 2.
I turn it off and consider my options.The chapel is empty.The cinema is empty. The Sunday service TV channel is showing a cartoon zebra. Catholics might for a second have heard the Gloria, before realising it’s Gloria the Hippo.
There’s no point troubling the concierge again, but I do have my iPod with me, and I’ve got a few sermons on there as podcasts, plus a browseable Bible on my phone. I’ve also got the odd worship song hidden among the Bananarama and Roxette (all eleven albums), so I search for ‘God’ and scroll through the Godspell soundtrack, The Godfather theme, and Kiss’s ‘God Gave Rock ’N’ Roll To You’ before finding an appropriate song to listen to. I start to wish I’d done the same with ‘Heaven’, as there’s never a wrong time to listen to Heaven 17 and Belinda Carlisle.