March of the Lemmings
Page 28
Er, this doesn’t normally get laughs, but I’m happy to take whatever comes … from the Southend accountants’ theatre trip up there at the back. ‘This is the bit I told you about, it’s hilarious. ’Cos presumably he’s self-employed schedule D, but he doesn’t seem to have realised that he could put the initial DVD purchase through as a tax-deductible business expense.’ I do, right. [There is much laughter.] Why is this going better than proper jokes? Just – right, I do know that, but I put the – I put it through at the end of each quarter, not with the balance of each – it doesn’t make any difference as long as – who are you? Who’s come to this? ‘Politics, words, we’re not interested in that. What we like is numbers being added up.’ You’ve got a pound – when I did this tonight, I thought, ‘I hope it’s a really unique night that we’re filming,’ and it fucking is.61
Right. So you’ve got a pound left, right, that’s taxed, isn’t it, at business rates, 22 per cent, so you’ve got 78p left from the ten, er, then there’s other costs, transport, storage. So basically a £3.50 DVD sold for ten quid, I’m normally looking about sixty or seventy pence profit, right? So what I do, OK … I can never sleep after gigs, right, because of the crazed adrenaline rush that is surging … Come on, look at what you’ve seen me dealing with! I’ve got a woman here, right, normally, who says, ‘10p.’ That works, but she said ‘£5’, and that is the highest anyone’s ever said in eighteen months, but it didn’t floor me, did it? No, I’ve rolled with it. I came – I went, ‘No, it’s not …’ I did. You couldn’t do this – if you had to do this, you’d cry. You couldn’t do this, and that’s why I’m up here like a god, right, and you’re down there in the dark, like pigs in an Essex ditch.
So I wait, so what I do, I can’t sleep. I go on the Internet and go on Amazon. I go on eBay, drunk, right, and first of all I buy loads of 1970s Turkish funk albums, right. Yeah, Moğollar, Selda, Erkin Koray – the usual names. ‘Bunalım, Stew?’ ‘No, too metal.’ So, what do you want? So, ‘I love him adding up and the Turkish funk stuff. Other than that …’ It’s getting applause for the Turkish funk stuff. Yeah, I’m bang on the meme. So does that exist, that phrase? Bang on the meme? Have I invented it? What’s going on?62
So then, when I’ve – when I’ve bought all the Turkish funk, right, I start looking around for that 2004 live DVD, and if I see it anywhere, second-hand, for less than £3.50, £3.40, £3.35, I buy it, slip it in with the new ones, I’m looking at an extra ten or fifteen pence profit. I tell you what, tonight – for that bit it’s good to be out of London and to be in Essex, ’cos in London, the sort of people that live there now, I do that bit and they go, ‘Huh, fifteen pence? What a waste of time!’ But all you lot, ex- … ex-patriot cockney market traders, aren’t you? ‘Fifteen pence, that’s a good return on that.’ ‘We’ve left London now.’ I know why.63
Sometimes you get lucky. There’s a company on the Internet called Music Magpie. They had twenty copies of it for £3.40 each, right, and I bought them all, OK.64 And the bloke at Music Magpie – Rick he’s called – he sent me a sarcastic note with the order, he put, ‘How sad,’ he put, ‘How sad, buying your own DVD second-hand on the Internet.’65 But it isn’t sad, is it, ’cos I made two quid on that, clear profit.66
So my DVDs are £3.67. That is 367 times, Annette, more than any other stand-up’s second-hand DVD live, but to be fair, er, there’s a reason for that. I’m like a corrupt banker, aren’t I? I’ve kind of manipulated the market to drive up the perception of my commodity in the marketplace. You know, to be fair to Jimmy Carr, for example, whose DVDs are all 1p second-hand on the Internet, he’s not awake, is he, at two o’clock in the morning, buying his own DVDs second-hand on Amazon to resell off a trestle table in Southend-on-Sea. He’s not doing that.
Imagine if he was, imagine if Jimmy Carr was on Amazon buying something that he never paid the tax on what he got paid for doing it in the first place, from a company that don’t pay any of their tax either. Is it possible to imagine a more tax-avoiding transaction than Jimmy Carr buying a Jimmy Carr DVD on Amazon? Only if he found it using Google on a Vodafone phone, while paying Gary Barlow to spit cold Starbucks coffee into his splayed anus, while the cast of Mrs Brown’s Boys stand around, singing ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. There’s not a single taxable juncture in the entire transaction.
Now if you’ve been looking carefully, you’ll notice the whole of this set tonight is actually made entirely out of other stand-up comedians’ second-hand live DVDs.67 I wasn’t trying to make fun of anyone, what I wanted to do was get all the DVDs and pile them up and then hang hessian sacking over them, so they look like the rocks in cliffs, er, in that painting, but I didn’t do that idea in the end. But I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to make fun of the other comedians by making the set out of their DVDs. I’m not, it’s just that other comedians’ live DVDs are currently the cheapest building material available.68
Of course, what I haven’t factored in is it’s actually quite depressing to – to look at this every night for – well, you know it is, ’cos I am a comedian, right, and you know, I got all of these DVDs for 1p online, or 50p in that, er, CeX exchange place, and of course what is sad is there are actually lots of really good ones here and it’s very depressing to think of them just becoming a sort of pile of worthless landfill. [He tramples on the DVDs with glee and enthusiasm, until he is weak, finally kicking a pile of discount Michael McIntyres sky high, some of which, ideally, rain down on the audience’s heads and upturned laughing faces.]
No. It is sad because – because, well, this was a big deal, wasn’t it? The Christmas comedy DVD market, and that’s over, and everything’s in collapse, you know? The government are trying to close down the BBC. I don’t know how that’ll affect comedy. Actually, after the second series I did for the BBC I got offered more money by Sky to go and do two series for them,69 but I didn’t. I didn’t go to Sky and I stayed at the BBC for less money, and I’ve not talked about this on stage before …70 All right, I’ll tell you why, it’s because I think if you make an ethical choice about something, it’s a private matter, and you shouldn’t go around crying it, crying it from the rooftops to try and engineer the perception of yourself as some kind of national cake-baking treasure.71 Know what I mean?
But I started talking about it on stage last year, and in the summer Sky’s lawyers sent me a very threatening cease-and-desist letter, saying I wasn’t to say Sky had offered me more money than the BBC, ’cos they hadn’t.72 And I went through the paper-work, and I went, ‘There’s the offer, there’s the minutes of the meeting,’ so they – they backed off, but that gives you an indication of the extent to which I’m a pariah in the comedy business. A broadcaster would take legal action to deny ever having wanted to work with me.
But there’s all sorts of reasons not to appear on Rupert Murdoch’s evil Sky, and one of them, of course, is that I know it’s not really me they want. They don’t want me. They want you. They want you to watch Sky ’cos I’m on it.73 They want you, the ABC1, going-to-the-theatre, reading sort of people, to start watching Sky so they can advertise the sorts of things that you buy. Like cappuccinos and spiralisers and courgettes.74 If you watch Sky at the moment, all the advertising is for knives, masking tape and bin bags.75
You know, I wish – I wish I had gone to Sky for the money, right, but I can’t. ’Cos if you’re a sort of broadly liberal comedian and you appear on Rupert Murdoch’s evil Sky, my concern is you’re gonna lose your core audience, which tonight is about seven people down there, in Southend.76 Alan Partridge, the fictional character, he can appear on Rupert Murdoch’s evil Sky because that is exactly the kind of channel Alan Partridge would appear on if he was real, isn’t it? In fact, if you were watching Sky News and Eamonn Holmes came on and then Kay Burley and then Alan Partridge, you’d go, ‘Oh, Sky have raised the quality of their journalism.’
And I wish I could appear on Sky for the money, I wish I could, right. But I can’t. B
ecause the character of Stewart Lee that I’ve created would have smug liberal moral objections to appearing on Sky.77 And I’m coming to hate the character of Stewart Lee. I’m coming to despise the character of Stewart Lee in the same way as Rod Hull came to hate Emu. I even hate this, what I’m saying now. Pretentious metatextual self-aware shit. What’s wrong with proper jokes? That’s what I say to me. You know, Russell Howard’s not involved in an ongoing interrogation of the divided self, is he? No, he’s going … [performs an interminably long sequence of wordless pelvic thrusts, of the type used by young male stand-up comedians to punctuate their acts] ‘We’ve all done it. You run out of toilet roll, you use a sock.’78 His own clothing. For excrement. What is that? Observational comedy from a Victorian mental hospital? ‘We’ve all done it, you wake up probably about six in the morning, get up, then about eleven o’clock, then gentry come around, don’t they, in their top hats, smashing you in the face with canes. Then in the afternoon you’re chained to a bed and spat at. You’re trying to escape, we’ve all done it.’ I’d go and see that.
All the young twenty-something comedians in their twenties, they all complain to me about me doing a joke about Russell Howard, all the twenty-somethings. They go, ‘Oh, mate, mate, oh, mate, oh, mate, oh. Oh, mate. Oh. Oh, mate. Mate, no. Oh. Oh, mate, no. No. No, mate. Oh. Mate, no. Oh, mate. Oh, mate. Mate. Mate, mate. Mate. Mate. Mate. Mate, what – why, er … Mate, why are you having a go at Russell Howard for? Mate. Mate, why – why [unclear], uh. ‘Mate, what you, mate, what, what, mate, what you, what you, mate, what. Mate, mate. Mate, what – urr …! Ur! Mate. Mate. Mate. Maaaaaaate. Maaaate. Whatyouhavingagoatrussellhowardformate? Whatyouhavinga goatrussellhowardformate? Mate. Mate. Mate. Whatyouhaving-agoatrussellhowardformate?’79 They all stick up for him. It’s not even fair. I did one joke about Russell Howard, about ten years ago, and that’s all, one joke. Admittedly, it was fifty-eight minutes long.80
It wasn’t even about him, it was about a press release about him which was stupid, right. I liked him, to be honest. I hate him now, though. It’s not even his fault, it’s my fault entirely, right, and why I hate Russell Howard is this, OK, now this is – right this – OK, this is the last sort of seven-, eight-minute bit of the first half, this, er, this ends on a sentence that normally gets such a big laugh that I don’t even have to wrap up the show, I just walk off while people are still going, ‘Ha-ha-ha.’81
That won’t happen tonight, and I think we know why, it’s because … God bless ’em, loads of people have come along tonight, they thought, ‘Oh, something’s come to Southend, let’s go and see it.’ And this joke relies on people having seen me before or knowing something about me. I’d like to drop this bit, to be honest, but I can’t, but it’s … erm, it looks very relaxed but actually it’s a very tightly structured show and I can’t drop this bit ’cos there’s stuff in it that sets up things in the second half, so I have to do it, so we’ll just get through it and then …
Right, OK, the reason I hate Russell Howard is this, OK. It’s because my family, right, they’re very nice, OK, but they don’t – I love them, but they don’t read the sort of papers where I get good reviews.82 They don’t know the sort of people that would – that would like me.83 They’re like a lot of people that have come tonight. And, er, and if they ever see a bit of film of me on YouTube or something like that, they – they think it’s so bad, right, what I do that they can’t believe I can actually make a living out of this, and in fact they don’t believe it.84
And so when they talk to me about stand-up, they talk to me about it in a sort of sympathetic tone of voice, as if they think I’m a delusional madman who imagines that he’s a stand-up comedian. And if I was to find out that I wasn’t, I would have a mental breakdown. So they sort of ring me up and they go, ‘Hello, and how is your stand-up comedy going? ’Cos that’s your job, isn’t it, and you … and you do that, don’t you, for your work in your actual life?’ I’m going, ‘Yeah, it’s fine, I’m just coming to the end of an eighteen-month tour actually.’ ‘I’m sure you are, son, you’ve been going all round, haven’t you, and people are all laughing and no one’s walking out …’85
The worst one is – is my brother-in-law,86 right, he’s a really nice bloke, he’s fifty-seven, I really like him, I’m very lucky to – to have him, but we’re different sort of people, he – he’s the kind of bloke who – he’ll ring me up and he’ll go, ‘Yeah, I saw you on TV last night having a go at Farage, quite badly misjudged, I thought.’87 But he’s really great, and … no, he is, I really – no, I do, I really like him, but he came to see me once about three years ago in London and it was a proper normal – Right, this is a five-star show, right, I’m just letting you know. This has had across-the-board five-star reviews, right, so I’m just letting you know that if there’s a problem in this room tonight, it’s not on this side of the stage, that’s all I’m saying, all right? OK. A five-star show, all right. Doesn’t feel like it tonight, does it? It feels like a four, with occasional lurches down towards a three, but it is a five.88
Anyway, my brother-in-law came to see me in London, a proper normal five-star night, not like tonight, full of wilful obstruction, indifference and people wandering out. It was a normal five-star – but he just didn’t like it, you know, and he – you know, afterwards, he looked so ashamed and embarrassed he couldn’t meet my eye, I thought he was gonna be sick in the – in the foyer. But to be fair to him, my brother-in-law, he has no frame of reference whatsoever for this, right, ’cos he’s only ever seen one other thing live in his whole life, and that was in 1986 at Lancaster Polytechnic, he saw Deacon Blue.89 I can see him with his mate in the room, he’s going, ‘What is this? It’s nothing like Deacon Blue, what is it? What’s going on?’
Anyway, he rings me up. ‘Hello, how’s your comedy, that’s your work, isn’t it?’ I’m going, ‘Yeah, it’s fine.’ I said to him, ‘You sound in a good mood’. He said, ‘I am in a good mood.’ I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve been very lucky,’ he said, ‘we’ve managed to secure two tickets, eighteen months in advance, to the sold-out Royal Albert Hall run of our favourite TV stand-up comedian of all time, Russell Howard.’90 And I went, ‘Oh.’ And he said, ‘You sound surprised.’ And I went, ‘Well, it’s just I never met an adult, you know, that was going …’91
And, but, er, and he said to me, ‘Don’t you think he’s any good?’ I went, ‘Yeah, he’s great,’ you know, and then he said to me in a sarcastic voice, my own brother-in-law, he said to me, ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Not like you then,’ he said, ‘the most critically acclaimed stand-up in Britain.’92 [a small laugh] Well, that’s where the big laugh is normally at. [a big laugh] Nothing was there. [a big laugh] Yeah, well, I said that … [applause] OK, right, why that normally gets a laugh, right, honestly that’s normally such a big laugh, I just – people are going, ‘Ah, genius,’ and I just walk off, OK.93
OK, they – it’s doesn’t matter, it’s nice actually that so many people have come that didn’t really know me and have … OK, what – what it is, why that’s – OK, you don’t know, right, but why it’s funny, right, he said to me, ‘Of course you’re the most critically acclaimed stand-up in Britain.’ Like I’m not, but I am. Right? So that’s why – and they know that, that’s why they’re laughing, while the rest of you are going, ‘Well, he can’t be, can he?’ Well, I am, I am. I’m not – no, that’s why it normally – don’t fucking shake your head at me, right, this – it’s not up for debate, right. I am, I’m the most critically acclaimed stand-up in Britain this century, so it’s funny that your own family member wouldn’t – would not – I’m not – I’m not saying I’m the best, right, I’m the most critically acc— … I’m not saying I’m the best, there’s loads of stand-ups better than me, I mean, there’s – there’s Daniel Kitson.94 There’s loads.95
But there’s – no, I am, I know, so people are going – I can see them going, ‘He can’t be, can he?’ What? People are walking out.96 You
’ve made this seem arrogant, but it’s actually a very humble joke ’cos it’s about how – fuck … I – look, I have got – I have got – I’ve got a – two – I’ve got three British Comedy Awards, I think. I might have two, I can’t remember, I’ve got so many, I’ve got … I’ve got a BAFTA, I’ve got an Olivier Award, I’ve got – none of these people have got that, have they, an Olivier Award? I’ve got six Chortle Awards, which is the industry … so, yes, I’ve got six consecutive ones for best touring show. What d’you want me to do?
I can … I – you know, listen, this isn’t an end to a half, is it, a man pleading the case for his own genius while people file out? For Christ’s sake, let’s sort this out, right, let’s – right, OK, I appreciate so many people coming, taking a punt on this, not knowing what it is, I know it’s hard to get babysitters, all that sort of thing, let’s sort this out, let’s kick the second half up – up to a five. Right? We can fix this.97
What I’m gonna do … Don’t go! Stop hanging around the doorway, give me two minutes, right, I’m gonna fix this. What I’m gonna do just quickly, right, I’m gonna go over some of the jokes that are coming up in the second half, no, because then they can ask people about the – the when – I can’t afford to lose any more of you. Right, in the second half, right, there’s gonna be – this’ll take a minute, right – there’s gonna be two more jokes about Deacon Blue, the ’80s Scottish – right, they’re not hilarious jokes, right, but what they are, they’re what we call call-backs and they tie back to the earlier mention of Deacon Blue and they give the show the illusion of – of structure. Right? Which is what raised us above the apes, I think. Or visiting American standups, as I call them.98