by Jo Brand
There have been many occasions when my strategy hasn’t worked. I remember being in a hotel in Birmingham once with probably the most pissed group of people I have ever met, outside of the Comedy Store Friday-night late show, and I had been placed right in the middle of them with a slightly crap mic on a very low raised platform. There then followed half an hour of drunken abuse, which I attempted to parry as best I could with a few well-aimed put-downs, picking on the troublemakers like a teacher and using only the jokes which I knew normally stormed it. Eventually the whole affair just descended into mayhem, with people throwing bits of bread roll, shouting at me to get off and turning to chat to their mates. Oh, the humiliation.
Eventually I got off, roughly five minutes before my allotted time-slot, and escaped to my dressing room —which was akin to a broom cupboard halfway down a corridor — and contemplated the cheery three-hour drive home examining my failure.
Other very difficult corporate gigs tend to happen when you find yourself not only doing the stand-up bit at the beginning, but hosting the awards as well. This means that you are on stage for about two hours on average, and the more awards there are, the more likely it is that at some point the audience will lose the will to live. However much you throw at it, eventually they just want you to shut up — and I have every sympathy with that.
I once did an international TV awards ceremony at the Hammersmith Palais with Ruby Wax. There were 100 awards and we tried to steel ourselves for a long night. We thought at least we would be able to banter a bit with each other to keep it going. Rather disastrously we discovered our mics had been set miles apart and the way the sound was organised meant that we couldn’t hear what the other was saying. So we spent an excruciating three hours going ‘Pardon?’ a lot to each other and looking miserably at our scripts as the audience descended into a coma. Nightmare.
Perhaps one of the hardest awards I ever did was an advertising bonanza. It was on at the huge cavern-like room in the Grosvenor House Hotel, which used to be an ice-rink, and there were over 1,000 guests who, shall we say all had a diploma in getting very drunk, very quickly I found myself taking the piss out of one particular company that just kept winning everything. It was very good-natured, there was a lot of banter and the audience seemed to be enjoying themselves. Finally we came to the last award of the evening, which was for Company of the Year — and sure enough, this company won again. Mayhem ensued.
I’m making all these corporate gigs sound like nightmares, but obviously the ones that went wrong are more interesting. On the whole they can be really enjoyable and give you a huge sense of satisfaction that you have fought and won a battle against a group of people who often seem determined not to like you.
Awards Ceremonies
I tend not to go to awards ceremonies myself because I find them hard work. As someone who’s pretty crap at looking smart, the red carpet’s always a bit of an ordeal. I’m making it sound like I get invited to loads. I don’t. I do get asked to the British Comedy Awards, but that always looks like such a bunfight I’d rather watch it on the telly.
Awards ceremonies are, in short, a huge ordeal. First of all you have to run the gauntlet of paps on the way in, and there are the usual concerns such as, ‘Have I got a bogey on show?’ ‘Are my pants going to fall down?’ ‘How am I going to stop myself hitting them?’
I went to the BAFTAs with Trinny and Susannah, and that was enough for me. Just the atmosphere of barely controlled hysteria on that one occasion was enough to last me a lifetime. And I didn’t even have to sit through the bloody thing either. I was back stage having a laugh and still it seemed to drag on interminably.
I also think it’s really hard for the judges to make a decision about who is the best because there are wildly different programmes and personalities in each category. How can you compare Harry Hill with QI with Ant and Dec? I wouldn’t have a clue.
Of course, the main awards which come up for me are the comedy bits of telly awards and stand-up awards. I managed to get out of my first awards ceremony at the Glasgow Comedy Festival simply by not being there. Hattie Hayridge and I had done a stand-up show together and then gone back to London and so we weren’t actually there when they announced the winners. We each received a little boat-shaped award in the post, and I gave mine to my mum. I was very pleased, but in a lot of ways I wonder what the awards really mean. I won’t get all philosophical here; suffice to say I don’t immediately reach for the bread-knife if I don’t win things.
The Comedy Awards, which are held every year, are normally hosted by Jonathan Ross, and ever since some ‘inappropriate’ contributions by some of the performers in the past, the event now seems to be pre-recorded most of the time. Each one is subject to the moods, aided and abetted by a fair old sloshing of alcohol, of the comics present.
I won the award for Best Newcomer one year and an award for Best Stand-up another year. The awards are heavy glass-type things containing a joker from a pack of cards and would be perfect for knocking out a burglar, should the need ever arise. Because I didn’t go to any of the ceremonies I was asked to record a little acceptance speech earlier so I knew I’d won something, but I have heard recently that some awards organisers, if they hear a performer isn’t coming, give the award to someone else. So, at least I can convince myself that I have actually won and they’ve given it to someone else if I haven’t turned up.
My highlights from the Comedy Awards over the years have been:
1. Sean Lock, who on receiving a Best Newcomer Award, gave a little speech which included the words … ‘and I’d like to say hello to all my new friends.’ Hugely cynical maybe, but very funny.
2. In 1993, Julian Clary declaring to Jonathan Ross that ‘I’ve just been fisting Norman Lamont’ back stage. Norman Lamont was a Tory politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. The punch line that followed was drowned out somewhat by the guffaws of laughter: ‘Talk about a red box.’
The best thing was the shock and outrage of the right-wing tabloids the next day who reported that there was shocked silence. That’s strange, because everyone I spoke to who was there said the entire audience pissed themselves laughing.
Charity is big business these days and charities all seem to feel that they need a high-profile face attached to them in order to garner support and more importantly dosh. Over the years, as my profile has risen, so have the requests for benefits, patronage, auction items, cartoons (can’t draw to save my life), poems and TV appearances for big fundraisers such as Comic Relief. I do try to do as much as I can in terms of benefits because I think if you are in as fortunate a position as I am, you should do what you can for others who aren’t.
There is, of course, the argument put forward by cynics that comedians only do big benefits to advance their careers — but then again, you wouldn’t be asked to do big benefits unless you were fairly high-profile anyway.
On the comedy circuit in the eighties, many charities started to run benefits to publicise themselves and raise money I did several benefits for Amnesty International, including one to raise money to fight against the imprisonment of two comedians in Myanmar (once Burma), just for making jokes about the military government. God, if you were thrown into prison in this country for taking the piss out of the government, we’d all be in there.
I think comics do have a part to play in raising awareness, and giving their time for these sorts of events.
Performing live at benefits is an odd thing. On many occasions, audiences have been slightly strange, giving the impression that they’ve paid their money and now they want to be entertained. It’s hard to describe, but there is a slightly critical feeling in the air. Hence a lot of benefits have been rather subdued affairs. This is not to say loads of them haven’t been great, but on a number of occasions I have found myself thinking, Bloody hell, I’ve come all the way up here and they don’t even seem that pleased — but that is the childish resentful side of my personality that wants people to be grateful, and I
apologise for that.
One charity I’m a patron of and of which I’m very fond is the Alzheimer’s Society I try to support charities which are slightly unfashionable, non-cuddly and not particularly attractive, a bit like me. The elderly in this country are a forgotten generation and let’s face it, we’re all going to get there at some point — me probably before most of you.
The elderly seem ever more vulnerable these days too, to what is called ‘elder abuse’, and so I have done the odd benefit, radio appeals and had my gob plastered over mail-outs. It takes such a relatively short amount of time so I can’t understand why all performers and comics don’t do it, although to be fair to them, the vast majority do.
The Donna Louise Trust runs a hospice for children outside Stoke. I have visited on a couple of occasions and three times have done a benefit at the Victoria Hall in Stoke. On these occasions, Nick Hancock, David Baddiel, Andy Robinson and I have done a show in which Andy compered, Nick interviewed Dave, and I finished the night off with stand-up. God, am I sounding ‘holier than thou’ enough yet? I don’t mean to, but it is a risk even talking about charity coming across like you think you’re Mother Blinking Teresa. So I’ll keep the altruistic trumpet-blowing to a minimum.
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is a charity I’ve been involved with over the years. My initial contact with them was when I made a brief appearance on Comic Relief night in the early nineties, in a queue of people lining up to kiss Dawn French.
One fateful year when I must have been slightly pissed I agreed that I would run the London Marathon to raise money for Comic Relief. It wasn’t as though I had decided that from a starting-point of no exercise at all, and would suddenly rise up off the settee and leg it for twenty-six miles. I had already been running for a bit, having been emotionally blackmailed into it by a couple of friends. We went to a group run by another friend who is a personal trainer. Having done no running whatsoever before and not exactly being in the tip-top bracket of fitness, I was a little worried that I’d run a few steps and drop dead. We started by running round some school playing-fields, and in order to kick it off without fatalities we were advised to walk twenty steps, run twenty walk twenty etc. Even that was a shock to my system and after a couple of minutes of doing that, I honestly thought my lungs were bleeding. For some reason though, I stuck at it and I did notice after several weeks that it was getting easier.
Finally I was able to run without stopping which was a bit of an advance. As the weeks went on, we upped our running distances so that on occasion I did four or five miles at a time. And it was at this point that I was called by Comic Relief to ask if I could do the London Marathon. Foolishly I agreed. There then ensued six months of training, which was bloody hard work. Each month I added on a few extra miles. The main problem was it took so bloody long. I’m sure you can imagine I’m not the fastest runner in the country, so each Sunday morning was allocated for a progressively longer run.
Eventually with the Marathon looming, I managed to persuade my friend Sam to come and do a couple of long runs with me … round the perimeter of Richmond Park twice (a mere fifteen miles). God, it was fucking awful. We arrived on two occasions at seven o’clock in the morning in March (yes, bloody freezing) and parked the car in a car park from which we set off ‘running’ which was more, in my case, of a wheezing shuffle. Rather demoralisingly the first mile or so was uphill and I felt ready to cave in after that. But run it we did after a fashion, even though it took about four hours. At the end of the first run I couldn’t even feel my legs, which morphed into pillars of concrete. Also, on the way a few people stopped me to say hello and have a chat. Those who stopped me during the last three miles or so probably got short shrift as I was fairly convinced by then that I would never walk again.
Anyway having done the crippling fifteen miles twice, I was pretty sure that adding an extra eleven miles would, at the very least, result in my legs dropping off and wondered if I was ever going to make it. I was never to be tested, however, because about a week before the London Marathon I began to feel really grim in a sorethroaty, headachy hurty-legs kind of way I thought it would pass in a couple of days, but it didn’t, so I shuffled along to the doc who told me I would be mad to try and run the Marathon. Secretly I was relieved because I couldn’t envisage making it round the whole course and it’s SO public. I may have another bash in the future, but who knows?
Other Comic Relief projects have been slightly easier on my heart and lungs. When my second daughter was a few months old, I was asked to do Fame Academy for Comic Relief. This was a programme in which various celebs had a singing competition and each day one of us was voted out by the public. It involved going and staying in a huge posh house in Highgate for the duration of the contest. I did not want to stay away from home so said I couldn’t do it, but eventually was given a special dispensation to go home every day, which suited me as I’m not very good at that dormitory thing with people I don’t know.
On the show were nine of us: Fearne Cotton, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Ulrika Jonsson, John Thomson, Paul Ross, Doon Mackichan, Ruby Wax, Will Mellor and me.
Before the show started we were asked which songs we wanted to do. I think we had to do about ten. Well, I thought to myself, it’s a comedy show so let’s go for it. I thought I’d do ‘Psychokiller’ by Talking Heads for starters and maybe a song from a kids’ programme called Bear in the Big Blue House which my daughters loved. Sadly I was prevented because there was a song-list we had to choose from, with a fair bit of middle-of-the-road stuff on it. So I picked Dusty Springfield among other things, although I knew I would cock it up big time. I think David and Carrie Grant, who were the singing teachers on the show, probably thought this too, but very kindly never mentioned it. I can hold a tune, but this is the limit of my performance skills as far as singing goes. I knew I’d get chucked out pretty sharpish.
I managed to get through the first and second night as Paul Ross and Fearne Cotton got flung out. On the third day we were talked through the procedure of booting someone out, the killer blow being that the celebs were narrowed down to two by a public vote and the other celebs had to decide which one went, by individually voting for them. We practised this and John Thomson and I were randomly allotted the parts of the guinea-pig chuckees. People filed up to vote and voted me out.
That night, it all went hideously wrong for me singing ‘Build Me Up, Buttercup’. I couldn’t hear the intro music over the noise of the crowd and put in a shockingly bad performance as well as being two bars of music behind. Predictably I was in the bottom two, and weirdly so was John Thomson too. As the celebs filed up to choose between us I knew I would go, and when my name was announced I pretended to faint to give the others a laugh. John Thomson’s face was a picture. I think he thought I’d really fainted.
Anyway, it was a bloody great relief to get back home. Also, I needed to be booted out that night as I had another job, which I had to start the next day, so it all worked out well.
A couple of years later, I did The Apprentice You’re Fired for Comic Relief too. We were an interesting combo. The women’s team consisted of Cheryl Cole, Trinny Woodall, Maureen Lipman, Karren Brady and I. The men’s team was Rupert Everett, Danny Baker, Piers Morgan, Alastair Campbell and Ross Kemp.
We were shown into Sir Alan’s ‘boardroom’ and in came the famous old grump himself and instructed us to raise as much money as possible; whoever did so would be the winner. I attempted to bribe the old curmudgeon with some chocolate, and although there was the ghost of a smile on his face, he played the part of old git to perfection.
Our task was to run an urban funfair with attractions and food in Central London. We had to bid against the men’s team for certain stalls that we thought would raise the most money and this farce was filmed as we didn’t get the stalls we wanted, following a bit of Machiavellian manoeuvring by Piers and Alastair. Trinny pretty much took charge and started scaring people into giving her money right away under the guise o
f ‘buying a ticket for the event’, while Karren and Cheryl stayed in the hotel phoning people, either to get them to offer something as a raffle prize, or to make a guest appearance on the night, and offer some sort of service to someone who paid them loads of money Not sex obviously although I met a few dodgy, wealthy guys who I think would have been quite happy to pay for a quickie with a famous person.
We also needed to provide food stalls on the night so Maureen and I were despatched to a kitchen in Bermondsey to prepare the food. (Yes, the glamour of this didn’t go unremarked by us, the older contingent.) We were faced with a mountain of preparation, but we had a right good laugh doing obscene things with squid and forgetting to put a big container of chicken away in the fridge, so it went off overnight.
On the night of the funfair things were looking good, the food was ready stars were booked to wander round, and a load of rich people had bought tickets to attend. Maureen and I were dressed as clowns and stayed serving on the food stall. Many times, characters from the boys ‘team would run over and take the piss and inform us for the zillionth time that they were going to win. But I knew that our secret weapon — Trinny — had cornered a few, very wealthy old ladies and felt fairly confident.
During the filming we came into contact with some of the country’s richest people and ended up at a party at Matthew Freud’s house where I saw David Cameron, Jerry Hall, Claudia Schiffer and lots of other, very well-heeled guests. I’m afraid I have a natural antipathy towards wealthy people, I just can’t help it. I met Philip Green and Stuart Rose, both of whom run huge businesses, and I couldn’t get away fast enough. They both seemed to have the attitude that because they were so wealthy people would fall at their feet. I have nothing to say to such businessmen and I’m sure they have nothing to say to short fat middle-aged female comics either.