So A Comedian Walks Into Church

by Paul Kerensa

  So it was probably apt that an email came in to prick my conscience. It was a charity called Operation Noah, asking if I would write a stand- up set on the subject of climate change awareness. I told them climate change was quite a dry subject matter, and they said there’s joke number one. I said the subject would need a few ice-breakers, and they said there’s joke number two. And so it continued.

  The idea of making jokes about fossil fuels was a little alien to me, but then so was parenthood. Any minute now, the only comfort zone I’d be experiencing would be the tea area in a soft play centre.And what better way to focus your mind on a future for your children’s children than expecting children. So I started reading about the world of climatology, sceptics, deniers and activists, and started writing about it.

  Armed with the clunky ...

  ‘A climate change sceptic walks into a bar, asks for a strong whisky. But 98% proof isn’t enough for him, and there’s isn’t any ice left.’

  ... and ...

  ‘Knock knock.Who’s there? The sea.’

  ... and even ...

  ‘My wife’s gone to the West Indies. Obviously she’s taken a boat because flying long-haul is damaging, even when offsetting carbon emissions.’

  ... I hit the delete key and started again.

  I’ve always liked fairly straightforward jokes. When people ask for my comic heroes, I don’t pick the comedians’ favourites, like maverick satirist Bill Hicks, great as he was. I go for Bob Monkhouse. He had jokes, and yes he had game shows too, but principally he was a walking gagopaedia.

  So in considering my task, I channelled Monkhouse. As a gag-writer for hire, I like the challenge of finding jokes about any given subject matter, with a good amount of time on Wikipedia and a few comedic crowbars. I’ve written for Radio 4’s The Now Show and The News Quiz, where some weeks the news would give us David Blaine sitting in a box above the Thames, but often the news was less helpful. The writers’ room would fill with dread when the producer arrived with the words, ‘So the big story this week is inflation.’

  So I’d attempted satire before, but there’s a world of difference between writing one-liners for radio and delivering a stand-up diatribe. For a start, I’d have to say it myself: no passing the script to Punt, Dennis or Toksvig and saying, ‘Here are twelve jokes on the double-dip recession[54] - good luck with those.’

  My wife Zoë, by now heavy with child, had time on maternity leave to join me on the road. She was rightly sceptical about my task to put the ‘ha’ into ‘climate change’ and the ‘fun’ into ‘fundamental change in sub-Atlantic ecosystems’. I feigned confidence, all along scratching my head as to whether jokes about sustainability were really sustainable.

  We toured from gig to gig, trying out green gags where possible, giving up and falling back on tried and tested material more often than not. At least I was recycling jokes. There just didn’t seem to be a bedding-in ground for experimental jokes about the environment.And quite right too - if you’ve paid money for a comedy night, you want a laugh first and foremost, not my drawn-out opinions on why you should switch off your lights and write to your MP, though not in that order unless you’re confident writing in the dark.

  Wife and bump would sit at the back of the auditorium, normally quite near each other. She was spending the road trip trimming our list of baby names, since apparently Methuselah was more of a middle name, for now. I meanwhile would gauge whether to try out the new stuff, and at one such gig I asked for permission to experiment from the promoter, a stocky chap called Patrick.

  ‘Do what you like, fella,’ he replied over the beer barrels in the room behind the bar. ‘They all try stuff out here. Go on long as you want.’

  I just wish Patrick hadn’t told that to all the acts; after a marathon four hours of show, I was to go on at nearly midnight. My wife was only six months pregnant when we came in, but was starting to be concerned about delivering right here. It was tediously late but the audience had had a great show ... till now. As the MC told them there was one act to go, a heckler cried out, ‘But we’ve peaked!’

  Never was a truer heckle spoken. I bounded on, ploughed on and dropped all the new material. Even then I had a post-show telling-off to endure from Patrick, who half-handed over my cheque but gripped it tightly as he spoke.

  ‘Yeah you started well but I missed a lot of your punchlines cos I was chatting to my mate. You should have paused more to let us do that.You know, a lot of your jokes had words, I mean they were wordy. I can’t chat to my pal and listen to you at the same time.You’ve got to pause more for us to chat if you want to get rebooked here.’

  He finally released his grasp on my cheque and I pocketed it with a mental note to never seek that rebooking. On the journey home, I insisted to my wife that ‘Patrick’ be scratched from the names list.

  I read, researched and tried to approach the issue of climate change from every possible comedic angle. Yet the minutiae of life kept intervening.The more I tried to talk about changing the world, the more the world seemed to wear me down.

  At one provincial theatre in the Midlands, wife, bump and I drove up to the stage door and buzzed for admission to their large car park.

  ‘We have spaces,’ a brusque female voice replied through the metal box. ‘But no disrespect, but you could be anyone.’

  I looked at Zoë to check that this sounded as odd to her as it did to me. It did.

  ‘Okay,’ I replied to the box. ‘I’m not. I’m on tonight. I’m doing the comedy show?’

  ‘Well, you say that. Anyone could come in here and say that.’ Zoë whispered to me, ‘Tell her you’ve got a pregnant wife.’

  ‘I’ve got a wife!’ I said to the box. I’ve never been good at passing on messages. ‘Okay, all right, where else can I park?’

  ‘St James’s car park is best.’

  ‘James, that’s a nice name,’ Zoë noted happily. She didn’t need a nearby space, and we might see more names on road signs.

  I turned back to the metallic jobsworth. ‘Where’s St James’s?’

  ‘You don’t know where St James’s is?’ the box hissed.

  ‘No,’ I said, exasperated. ‘I don’t know if it was clear, but I’m visiting doing a show tonight for your venue. I’m not local. Could you let us park?’

  A white van suddenly appeared on the other side of the gate.

  ‘Hang on,’ said the box. ‘I’ve got to let him out.’

  The gate opened, the van drove out, and we drove in. I was just putting my window back up when I heard faintly behind me: ‘Right, St James’s, go left out of here...’ The window closed and silenced her.

  Once inside, we found the nearest male employee - I didn’t want to stumble upon the petty gatekeeper by mistake. He was cleaning the bar ready for the evening’s audience, and had the rare mix of ponytail, nerdy glasses and nose stud.This guy was all about the facial furniture. Unfortu- nately he was not all about the customer service.

  ‘Hi, I’m one of the comedians for the comedy show? This is my wife, Zoë.’

  ‘Hi,’ Zoë said.We were going to go all out on polite and friendly.

  He carried on cleaning. ‘So?’

  ‘Er ... is there anywhere we can put our things and just ... be?’

  ‘Café upstairs is open.’

  Zoë held out her bump even more. His bespectacled eyes were only for Mr Sheen though, and he was yet to even look up.

  ‘Right,’ I tried again. ‘I just wondered if there was a room for us?’ He looked up. Progress. ‘A room?’

  ‘Yes, for the comedians. Like a dressing room?’

  ‘Of course we have dressing rooms. Big theatre, this. We’ve had a refurbishment, you know. Opened by the Duke of York or someone.’

  ‘Andrew ...’ Zoë muttered, and wrote on a bit of paper.

  ‘S
o can we use one of those?’ I persisted.

  He fixed me with a glare as piercing as his piercing. ‘Our dressing- rooms are for performers only.’ He must be related to the woman who does the gate.

  I wouldn’t normally have felt the need to explain the job title, but the geeky goth in front of me was pushing a few buttons. ‘Comedians are performers.Aren’t they ... we? We do performances, like here tonight in your theatre ...’

  ‘In the studio bar,’ he corrected, with a cocky push of his glasses up his nose. It struck me that his nose stud must prevent his glasses ever sliding completely off his nose, and how these piercings could be marketed with this practical purpose in mind. Maybe once I’ve made climate change funny, I’d put myself to that marketing plan next.

  Zoë threw me a look that said: give up.We’d explore the locality to relax before show time, her thinking of names and me thinking of zingers about greenhouse gases.

  I turned back to the bar cleaner, less Employee of the Month and more Employee of the Sith. ‘Apart from the café upstairs, where could we find a bite to eat round here?’

  He sighed and pointed out of the door we’d come in from. ‘Do you know St James’s?’

  Zoë and I both screamed inside our heads, and left him to his Mr Sheen. He swung his ponytail smugly as we left. Because he’s jobsworth it.

  At this and other venues I managed to work up enough climate change material, and had soon got my act together and got my act together. It had not come naturally to me, but I knew the environ- mental message was a good one to get out there, and hard as it was, green issues at least provided more humour than other causes may have done. I thanked my lucky stars that the call hadn’t been from a charity for orphaned landmine victims. Frankie Boyle probably has an hour on that, but I doubt the charity would like it.

  The show itself ultimately had two incarnations: at a charity supporters’ meeting and at Greenbelt Festival, a hub of social justice and activism. On both occasions the comedy juddered, if not flowed, but it did come. After some gradual thawing, there were rising mirth levels and carefully monitored emissions of hee, ho and hoo.

  Neither may have been a barnstormer, and I’m definitely no Mark Thomas (Mark and Thomas, two more good names for the list). Bill Bailey once said that you can create jokes by starting with the laugh and working backwards, and in writing prescriptive material about the environment, I had done the polar opposite. Usually any jokes of mine that feature causes or politics haven’t started with those, but with the punchline:

  ‘When the Tories and Lib Dems formed a coalition, I liked it - blue and yellow, a bit like Ikea. Then, like Ikea, we had a rubbish cabinet that didn’t last a year.’

  ‘I’ve got a joke about the rising unemployment figures, but it needs work.’

  ‘Say what you like about freedom of speech...’

  In each case they’re reverse-engineered, and that’s generally how I work. Starting with the set-up - putting the cause before the effect - is hard, and so is dedicated activism. I just hope it helped get Operation Noah’s mission of awareness out there, and that by writing this now, that this chapter does the same.

  Social justice has been a burgeoning issue for the church over the last few centuries, from the formation of Methodism and The Salvation Army, to present day campaigns in many churches from the mainstream to the fringes. That’s not to say non-believers don’t do likewise, but these many thousands of good people have campaigned, protested and fought for what’s right, with no real gain for themselves.

  I can’t claim to be among them. I gained on my journey: some new material for my stand-up, and a new addition to our baby names list: Noah.

  ***

  Methodism - A small group of Wesleys...

  John Wesley: Attendee at Oxford University, where in 1729 he formed The Holy Club with his brother Charles. Their methodical approach was mocked, but the name stuck. From there John became co-founder of Methodism, encourager of small groups, horse-riding evangelist, and keen social advocate of prison reform and against the slave trade.

  Charles Wesley: Co-founder of Methodism with his brother John, although Charles preferred to keep the new principles within the Church of England rather than break away. Charles was also a prolific hymn-writer, writing ‘O for a Thousand Tongues’,‘Love Divine, all Loves Excelling’ and a little festive ditty called ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’.

  Samuel Wesley: Charles’s son, John’s nephew, and known as ‘the English Mozart’, which means he was quite good. Not that good, or Mozart would have been known as ‘the Austrian Wesley’.

  George Whitefield (an honorary Wesley): The original open-air preacher, outstanding in his field. He’d minister to farmers and labourers on their way to work, and, fact fans, was probably the first to use the phrase ‘agree to disagree’, showing what a reasonable chap he was.

  Ron Weasley: Not a Wesley. Crucial difference.

  Wesley Snipes: Oh, stop it.

  ‘Oggy oggy oggy!’ I chant as we drive over the Tamar Bridge, leaving Devon and the rest of ‘the mainland’ behind and enter the halcyon land of Cornwall.

  Zoë just stares at me.

  ‘We are not calling the baby ‘Oggy’,’ she insists. Which I suppose rules out the middle names of ‘Oggy’ and ‘Oggy’.

  ‘Come on, join in! You’re Cornish by marriage now.’

  ‘Not for long if you keep this up.’

  Our tour of try-out gigs has brought the three of us - Zoë, Methuselah and myself - to the south Cornish coast. As a Cornishman, by birth if not in accent, it’s a proud trip for me, and I’ve used the trip to throw local names at the list such as Trelawney, Petroc and Proper- Job. None are hitting the mark or pushing the right buttons, and neither’s Mark, or Buttons.

  With a spring Sunday morning comes a hunger for church, so a short wander leads us to a charming seafront Methodist chapel.You can’t move in the West Country for Methodist chapels. All right, you can, but they have more chapels than Greggs bakers. I think.

  It means a host of villages represented by chapels not churches, bonded by a strong tradition of hymn-singing and community spirit. Many Methodists abstain from alcohol, and through small groups encourage each other. It brings church fellowship right down to the bare bones of what’s needed to support a community, and its mutual support is epitomised with its traditional greeting: ‘How goes it with your soul?’

  They don’t ask that on the way in, as they opt for the English variant: ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’

  After a warm greeting we’re ushered straight to the front row. No skulking in the back of this chapel. On looking around and seeing everyone else is going for the second row, we move back and join them. Front row for a first-timer in any church is a risk. For a start, there’s no one to follow, and worse, what if everyone follows you?

  There is a smattering of people here: some women who kindly notice Zoë’s mid-to-large bump and give their congratulations, and some men who pretend not to notice it in case she’s not pregnant and just big-wombed. One woman asks the due date, and we tell her there are two months to go. She looks relieved - mid-service delivery avoided.

  Two women lead the service, and introduce themselves as Jackie and Gaynor, lay ministers. Jackie is a fortysomething Dawn French lookalike, who you can’t help think was inspired to her calling by The Vicar of Dibley. Gaynor towers over her, and most of us, and looks like she must have bashed her head a few times on the beams in this small seaside sanctuary.

  ‘Welcome, especially if you’re a guest here,’ Jackie starts, with a look not only to us but to several others around the room. They must be used to holidaymakers on the Cornish coast, and attendance here must fluctuate with the season.

  There’s a brief introduction by each of them, how long they’ve been here, how long they’ve been here, the names of their husbands, the
pet- names of their husbands, and so on. It creates a friendly atmosphere, and the service seems to reflect this informal nature.There are no dog- collars here, no stained glass, and the cross at the front of the church is simple, wooden, and propped up on a shelf. There is no pomp in this ceremony.

  Gaynor ducks under a beam and steps forward. ‘We’re very much hoping to be joined later by Joseph, who many of you will know.’

  The dozen or so regulars make noises of pleasant surprise, and there’s clearly a very warm feeling towards Joseph, whoever he may be.

  ‘He’s playing the piano up at St Andrew’s on the hill, then with a bit of luck and the wind behind him, he’ll be cycling down to join us to play the organ by the end of the service.’

  ‘Cycling!’ one of the congregants says to her neighbour, among the other impressed sounds we hear in the church. Clearly Joseph was not one for cycling normally.

  ‘So that will be lovely,’ Gaynor concludes.

  Jackie’s turn: ‘So first we’re going to sing a familiar song, we hope you’ll know it, number 68 in your books,“O God our Help in Ages Past”.’ There’s a rustling of books that I’ve not heard for many years in a church. It’s a reassuring sound from my youth, pre-PowerPoint. This trip truly is a homecoming.

  In my younger days though they’d never have had what we see before us now: a CD-playing boom box that Gaynor is struggling with. She skips forward to the correct track (confusingly it’s not track 68, like in our books), and we all guess when to come in for a rendition of Charles Wesley’s classic hymn. While this Joseph fellow plays piano for the Anglicans up the hill, we’re left with a CD, that’s starting to skip.

  The thought occurs to me that I can’t paint a picture of this Joseph. Is he eight or eighty? He’s probably nowhere in between; the good will from the locals and the astonishment that he’s cycling means that he must either be impressively young to play piano and ride a bike between churches, or a spritely old gent. My mind isn’t made up, and I sit on the fence, as I’m sure young Joseph did swinging his feet seventy odd years back, or last Saturday. One or the other.