My Dad Was Nearly James Bond

by Des Bishop

  The Belfast crowd went wild. They loved all this material about death and illness and family. It was a special feeling for me too, to be able to release some of the tension I had been feeling over the last few weeks. The fact that they laughed at the wanking off a dog story was just unbelievable. Turns out it was a common thing to joke about in the days before porn.

  I called my dad immediately after the gig because I was so delighted with how it had gone. I told him I had told the story about wanking off the dog.

  He laughed and said, ‘Oh yeah, Black Bob!’

  I was not expecting him to have a name for the dog.

  Then he said, ‘We used to wank him off all the time; he followed us around everywhere!’

  It was during that Belfast performance that I realized there was some funny stuff to tell people about how amazing my dad was in the face of illness. The ‘My Dad Was Nearly James Bond’ idea hadn’t fully developed yet, but I knew I was going to talk about our life on stage.

  PART THREE

  Storming It

  31

  It’s always hard to fathom that most people are getting on with business as usual when you’re in the middle of a crisis. The crisis becomes so all-encompassing that you forget there was ever a time when you didn’t have one specific thing running through your mind all the time. For me, business as usual meant that, depending on how my dad was holding up, I was going to Australia for nearly three months with a new stand-up show that I had yet to write. I was due to leave at the end of February 2010. Originally I was going to cancel the trip, but my dad was doing so well on the chemo and had strengthened so much by January that we as a family decided it would be silly to cancel it.

  I had been living in New York practically full time for a few months, not really doing a lot of work, and when I did it was just little fifteen-minute spots where I could not try out new material. So I was beginning to panic as February got closer. There was some general stuff that had been floating around in my head that I had not had a chance to try out, and I knew that I wanted to tell the ‘Black Bob’ story and a few other things about life since my dad got sick.

  I had booked to do a week of gigs in an Irish bar in New York just before I went to Australia, and I had to go back to Ireland the week before that for a competition winners’ gig for the ESB. I had decided to try out new material for that show as nobody had actually paid for the tickets, so I did not feel bad about new shit not working. The problem was, I had not tried out one bit of it. I got up on that stage that night with a set list that included:

  – Twitter

  – Facebook chat

  – ESB

  – Erectile dysfunction

  – Black Bob

  – My dad’s sense of humour

  That was pretty much it. There was no mention of either James Bond or my dad’s past. In the energy of all the new stuff going well, something clicked. Right there on stage, as I was about to talk about my dad being sick, I told the crowd that my dad was nearly James Bond. I then told them about my dad’s acting past. I joked about The Day of the Triffids and the Blue Nun ad and showed off that he had been in Zulu. Before I had even begun to say anything from the actual set list, I realized I had been talking about Dad for twenty minutes.

  Suddenly it made sense. For much of his life he had regretted giving up acting for his children. In the end he realized that the compromise had been worth it. Fuck James Bond, Dad is the real hero. That’s what heroes do: they sacrifice opportunities for the benefit of others. We never see James Bond get old. But you know if we did he would be dying alone. That’s the sacrifice he makes. He will never have a child to be with him. He will never find a woman who lives long enough to be with him in the end or who does not deceive him. It’s a lonely thought really, and not that appealing.

  It was payback time now. It was time to turn my dad into a hero. I wanted to tell everyone about what really matters in the end. I wanted to get my dad one final ovation for a life well lived. It was not something every dad would want, but I knew it was something mine would. His life was a performance and I knew he would love the attention. It was his material anyway.

  So I told my dad I was finally going to do My Dad Was Nearly James Bond. We had discussed the story many times and he didn’t care how the show might affect him. He was just worried that people might not think it was funny. As ever, all he was concerned about was my career. He was not sure if cancer was a topic that could bring the crowds in.

  The week after the ESB gig I did some ‘trying out new material’ shows in New York, and my mother and Michael John came to see me one night. It was very early in the process, but they both thought it was great and had no real issues about any of the material.

  I went to Australia, committed to developing the show while I was over there. My dad was really into it. He used to ring me a lot, asking me about how it was going. I was showing clips of Zulu and The Day of the Triffids during the show, so I would tell him about how people were reacting. He was revelling in it, because in some way he knew he was back on stage. Then one day he became directly involved in the writing of it. He asked me on the phone: ‘Are you telling the story about me losing my virginity?’

  Now, recall that my dad had told us that story during the magic time of the bedroom, right after he got out of the hospital in November. He claimed that he lost his virginity with a much older woman. They had snuck into the fitness hall in Bexhill. He said that she was so much older that when they started he said, ‘Is it in yet, Mrs Woodcock?’ and she said, ‘Call me Gladys.’

  I thought it was funny at the time, but I did not think it was true. I may have tried to tell the story one night in the section about my dad telling us things we never needed to know during his elation at getting back home. I know that by the time he asked me if I was including that story, I was not telling it because it hadn’t worked.

  He was not asking me if I was including the virginity story in the hope that I would say, ‘No, I am not telling the story,’ or looking for reassurance that embarrassing stories from his life were not turning up on stage. No, he was asking me because he thought he was hilarious and that his virginity story was a cracker.

  So I was honest. I told him I was not telling the virginity story because it was bullshit.

  ‘What do you mean, it’s bullshit?’ he said.

  ‘You have a punchline in your virginity story. I find it hard to believe it happened that way. Not to mention I think I have heard it before, because I am pretty sure they make that joke in The Graduate!’

  His response to being challenged on the authenticity of his story has been an inspiration to me ever since.

  ‘Well, that’s the way I choose to remember it!’

  I don’t even know why I loved that response so much. In some way I felt he was taking control of his fantasies. It was as if he was saying, ‘I am not as dumb as you think I am.’ He knew it was part of his performance, but it was the way he liked to live. What I really liked was the fact that he was confident about his sense of humour. He knew what made him laugh.

  So from that day on I always told that story. It always gets a laugh because I believed it was funny and the crowd trusted me. I would then tell the story of our phone conversation, because it would put the crowd at ease to know that my dad was a part of all this. My dad was a ham: he never let the truth get in the way of a good story. He was an active participant in turning the final chapter of his life into entertainment.

  In early July 2010 when I got the poster for the Edinburgh run made up, I put my dad on it as a co-writer: ‘My Dad Was Nearly James Bond, written by Des and Mike Bishop’. It was our project together, and he loved that.

  32

  All those years ago when I first thought about doing a show about my father’s history I always thought that he would get up on stage with me at the end as a big surprise. Seeing as part of the plan was always to turn him into a hero, I w
anted him to get the hero’s round of applause.

  I saw that show very differently back then and I thought he would come up and make fun of me as revenge for all the abuse we gave him at the dinner table. I wanted him to liberate himself from his chronic passiveness. I was always under the assumption that the show would be in Edinburgh, so I knew that we would be in a small, crappy venue so he could have just said, ‘It makes me feel so great that my son has followed in my footsteps and had a very unsuccessful career in entertainment.’ I was then going to show my tiny scene in the movie In America and have him make fun of it as we had made fun of The Day of the Triffids.

  While we were in Australia I mentioned to comedian Jason Byrne that I always pictured my dad getting up at the end, and he was adamant that I at least attempt it. I began to tell the audience that I was going to try and get my dad to come out at the end in August if he was able to. They responded great. In fact, a review on the website chortle.co.uk said: ‘By the time it reaches Edinburgh this August, the show could have the tear-jerking conclusion it deserves, should the plans Bishop details bear fruit. That could give it the emotional wallop to make it unforgettable.’

  I eventually asked my dad what he thought about the idea of coming to Edinburgh in August and getting on stage with me. He was very excited at the idea but worried that he might not be fit enough for it. I was unsure if I was pushing it too far by even putting it into his head. My mother seemed to be into the idea as well, so that put my mind at ease. I ran it by my brothers too, and I think possibly they were less sure about it at the start, but it never really became an issue. The momentum began towards making it a reality, but by June my dad suffered a major setback. He began to experience severe pain in his back as a result of the bone metastases. Up until that point we had kept the fact that he had cancer in his bones from him. So this was a double knock for him, finding out that he was in pain and sicker than he had imagined. I was in Ireland at this time, but it was the Thursday night of the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival when I was told because I had to go on stage right after my mother let me know that things had gotten bad. My dad was scheduled for palliative radiation therapy, which offers relief for the pain of bone cancer.

  My mother told me she did not think he was going to be able to go to Edinburgh, and I assured them that there was no pressure on any of them to come. I felt guilty that suddenly this was the thing that my dad was worried about while he was going for radiation. I had a very fun weekend at the festival, but I was hiding from the defeated feeling that was inside of me. On the Monday night, when I was supposed to go on stage, I broke down crying at the side of the stage. I could not go on. I was so naive to think that this was fun anyway. I felt so stupid for turning all this stuff into comedy and I felt the whole world was looking at me and saying, ‘What were you thinking?’ I felt like I had let everybody down by running on this fake energy for the last few months. Now reality had kicked in.

  But, as was his way, my dad bounced back quickly after that setback. The following week he rang me while I was in Kinsale and told me that, more than anything, he wanted to do the show. I told him it was imperative that he was doing the show because he wanted to do it and not because he thought it would be good for my career. He very emphatically said that he wanted to do it and then he said, ‘I want to win a fucking award, man!’ So that was it: we were in it together.

  I should not have been worried anyway about him doing it for my career, because I think part of the joy in the end was that he felt he was doing that. I preferred this help to all his bullshit advice anyway, so it was ideal. In fact it was close to perfect.

  Maybe I was pushing it, but I then asked them if they wanted to make a documentary for RTÉ about Dad getting back on stage after all these years. My parents had a great relationship with Pat Comer, who directed my last series, so I knew they would be into working with Pat. They had been in little bits of my stuff before, and over the years I have had my mother do voiceover for radio ads advertising my tours, so this was not as crazy as it sounds. They readily agreed.

  My dad thrived in front of the camera and he loved being part of the process. I was desperate to find some of his old footage that he had claimed was lost. He was particularly obsessed with an old film-reel of a Condor tobacco ad he did around the time I was born. For some reason he thought Aidan had lost it years ago. To this day we don’t know why he blamed Aidan, but he would always remind Aidan that he’d lost the Condor ad. In reality I don’t think anyone ever really looked for it – because it took myself, Aidan and my mother about ten minutes to find it. It was right on top of the box with all my dad’s old photos from his modelling career: the thing was never lost at all.

  When I showed it to my dad, he was over the moon. He could not believe that we had found it. He did not remember to apologize to Aidan for the years of abuse he received over losing it, however. He was too delighted to even remember that, but he did remember that the Condor ad was a hard gig to get.

  ‘God, I went on eight auditions for this thing. They were so particular. But I got it in the end because I smoked a pipe in those days. Yeah, I used to love smoking a pipe … I loved pipe smoking …’

  He then roared with a smile, ‘That’s how I got this friggin’ cancer in my right lung; that was an expensive thirty seconds!’

  He laughed hard when he said that. I laughed hard, too. I would later tell that story in the show. It never gets a great laugh, but I always leave it in because it’s my dad’s joke, it’s his sense of humour and I find it hilarious. It reminds the audience that it’s a smoker’s cancer my dad had, in case anyone is in denial. So I use that joke to warn them that they should give it up if they are a smoker. Unless, of course, they are a teenage girl and a smoker; then I tell them not to because if they do they will put on weight, and that’s worse. Lung cancer will get you quickly, but fat is forever. It always gets a great laugh and it goes against everything I believe in, joking about in that way; but in a show about lung cancer, you take the laughs wherever they come from.

  The other great moment in getting ready for the show was actually quite a challenge for my dad because I needed to film it and it required him to act for the camera. It also required him to come into Manhattan twice in the one week. The first time was to go to a vintage clothing store to get a cheesy ruffled dress shirt like the one George Lazenby wore in one of his publicity shots for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I was hoping it was fun for my dad, but I was also hoping I was not pushing it too far.

  It was fun going to the vintage clothing store; but I think it was a revelation for my dad to learn how much his health and strength had declined. We were walking up 5th Avenue. This was the avenue he walked every day for years on his way to work, rushing from the train to Burberrys. Now he had to stop every twenty seconds to catch his breath and lean on his cane. We were in the middle of a heat wave at the time too, so it was really hard for him. He told me that he had always seen old people walking slowly across 5th Avenue and never thought that one day he would be that guy. And now here he was, struggling as earlier versions of him sped by in the rat race. It was tough for him, but I was impressed and I think he was enjoying it.

  We found a white ruffled shirt in Cheap Jacks and when he tried it on he laughed hard. He was singing ‘Goldfinger’ and shooting his fingers at the mirror. I knew he was loving it; he was into the performance. I felt like we were on to something.

  A few days later we went downtown to my friend’s bar on Orchard Street to film my dad in Bond mode. My idea was that at the end of the stage show the screen behind me would show my dad walking out as Bond into the gun-barrel, shoot the gun as normal and then, after a brief pause, a black dog would jump up into shot and start licking his hand. This was funny because it would come after the Black Bob story in the show. Unfortunately I miscalculated how short the gun-barrel sequence is, and it wasn’t sufficiently long to get a strong enough effect out of just one walk-through. So Ralph Arend,
who was directing the sketch for me, came up with the idea of doing out-takes. As a result my dad had to improvise, and he was really good at it. Of course, he would never do what I asked him to do, which in itself was funny, but what he did was really good. He looked amazing and you could see on the monitor that, despite his illness, he had never lost that camera presence. He jumped out of the screen.

  Trying to get Michael John’s dog Mugsy to jump up at the right time was not easy either. I went to the kebab shop on the corner of Houston Street and picked up some lamb. My dad was holding it in the same hand as the gun. Eventually we got the timing right and Mugsy got loads of meat as a result of his mistakes. If you look closely at the footage you can see the meat dropping out of my dad’s hand.

  One of my dad’s improvised lines was just as Mugsy was jumping up. He said, ‘Oh, Black Bob, come on, man, you’re upstaging me.’ I could probably say the same about my dad in my show, but I was happy that this was the case. We joked that it was such a traditional way of dealing with cancer; you know, getting together as a family and making documentaries and filming comedy sketches.

  The first time the audience sees Black Bob jump up, it gets one of the best laughs of my entire comedy career. It is one of the most satisfying things I have ever experienced on stage, pretty much every time it happens. It is so important also because it shows the audience that my dad is having fun with all this. He is not an object of ridicule, but the star of the show who can still make people laugh despite everything. The fact that it is the first time people see my dad in the show, clearly suffering from cancer, adds to the effect. It shows a healthy disrespect for the seriousness of the situation to be making sketches about dogs that you once wanked off, while getting chemotherapy.