by Alan Davies
Twenty minutes seemed an eternity. Just preparing the few minutes I had was hard enough.
A few other nervous newcomers were also in need of kind words or possibly just oxygen. Fortunately the atmosphere, as created by Piers, was entirely supportive. Eventually it was my turn. From the low stage in the corner I could see the door at the back that Piers had pointed out in describing the worst-case scenario earlier.
It’s important to know where the emergency exits are in planes and hotels, but there are two pastimes where the exit is really your friend, where an unobstructed route out could become more important than anything. One is shoplifting, the other is stand-up comedy.
The small crowd were in good spirits. They hadn’t paid much to come in, some of them knew some of the other acts, and they knew it was an ‘allcomers talent quest’ so were prepared to cut some slack. I rattled through my act at breakneck speed and they liked it enough to pick me as one of the acts to go through to the final to be held at the Hackney Empire the following week. I was delighted and Piers was delighted for me. He said he’d book me for a proper gig at his club.
Going home afterwards I was euphoric. The adrenaline rush after a day of anticipation was such that I didn’t recover for hours. It was exciting to have found something I wanted to do. I loved the atmosphere in the comedy club, the people, the attitude to life, the laughing. If I managed to pick up enough bookings, then I would be able to apply for an Equity card and maybe find some acting work too.
That weekend, I went to the Red Rose Club on Seven Sisters Road. Housed in a Labour Club, the Rose was packed with around 200 people and was altogether more intimidating than the little Black Cat. I was only there to watch though, and found a seat at one of the front tables, with their candles and red and white gingham paper tablecloths. The stage was in the middle of the long side of a rectangular room. At one end of the room was the exit, at the other end a raised area, which had once been used as a stage but was now filled with punters.
The Red Rose was just up the road from the Rainbow, where I’d come to see bands years before. Ivor Dembina, the genial host, went up and started proceedings before bringing on Andy Greenhalgh to open. Andy’s gentle humour was a good solid start. Then Ivor introduced a newcomer who was going to try a ten-minute half-spot as he wasn’t yet up to the full twenty minutes. A young man in his mid-twenties, with floppy blond hair, ambled on and began an off-the-wall monologue which left an audience, keyed up for political material, a little unsure. He hadn’t quite sorted out his approach but he was different. He said, ‘My dad served in Vietnam,’ and the ears on a few of the older Red Rose lefties pricked up, until he said, ‘He was a waiter there.’ He was quite funny but ten minutes was enough; there was little sign of the boundless potential that Eddie Izzard was later to fulfil so spectacularly.
The next act really kicked things off though. A pair of monkey boots thudded up on to the stage. A hand grabbed the microphone stand as the comedienne opened with: ‘I’d better move this or you won’t be able to see me, will you?’
Twenty minutes later and a huge ovation was ringing around Finsbury Park as Jo Brand rejoined her friends in the audience and immediately sparked up a cigarette. It seemed so effortless for her, the audience eating out of her hand. She was droll, she was assured, she was saying things that no comic had ever said before, female or otherwise, she was cheeky, sharp, hilarious and a one-off.
Ivor kept the ‘cornucopia of comedy’ going and introduced Mark Thomas, whose punchy left-wing material, about the London everyone lived in, and the government everyone hated, was every bit as well received as Jo’s act had been. He derided the muzak in supermarkets and wished they’d play The Clash instead. The laughter was cacophonous. Ivor called an interval. This had already been the best night out I’d had anywhere, anytime, ever, and there was still another act to go. How could the closing turn top the brilliant stand-ups that had gone before?
When Chris Lynam was standing a few feet away from me, stark naked, with his genitals out of sight between his thighs, those people in the audience who weren’t laughing were sitting open-mouthed. This was an act you could not take your eyes off. He produced a roman candle, stuffed it between his buttocks and clenched it tightly, he was a strong-looking man, slight and lean but wiry with wild eyes and a mountain of black hair. He threatened to light the firework, but I didn’t think he would, until the shower of sparks was landing all around us in the front row, burning tiny holes in the paper table cloth. The response for him was rapturous too.
It had been an amazing night. The London comedy circuit was the place to be and the Red Rose Club was at the heart of it all. I went up to Ivor and told him I’d love to go on there. He asked me about my stand-up experience and when I told him he advised me to go away for six months, play all the little rooms over pubs and the smaller clubs, and then come back to him, since it wasn’t as easy as it looked up there. It was sound advice.
The next Monday I went to the Hackney Empire for my third ever stand-up gig. The theatre was, and remains, as beautiful and perfect an environment for performance as has ever been built. Designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1901, it had become a bingo hall in the 1960s before eventually closing down altogether. Now Roland and Clare Muldoon had taken over and were determined to reestablish the theatre as the home of variety in London, as it had been when Marie Lloyd was the Queen of the Halls. Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel had performed at the Empire so to tread those boards was very exciting. At least it was until I arrived there and saw seventy-odd people scattered around the stalls. The theatre can hold 1500.
John Hegley was hosting with Otiz Cannelloni and I thought they were terrible. The atmosphere was flat, they weren’t being funny, the acts were struggling and it was hopeless.
I went on, did my bit, and was declared the runner-up, receiving a trophy and two tickets to see John Hegley at the Hackney Empire the following Friday. I couldn’t believe it, what a rubbish prize. I had nothing better to do so I went anyway; it was free after all.
That Friday the Empire was packed and the atmosphere was crackling. The bar was busy, the noise of expectation filled the auditorium. John Hegley came on and in no time had improved the mood of the audience immeasurably. He was to bring huge pleasure and joy over the next two hours as he and his band, The Popticians, played a set of hilarious poppy comedy songs, interspersed with beautiful comic poems from John, some of which I recognized from the previous Monday when the verse had reverberated around an empty theatre and died a death against hundreds of tipped-up seats. Monday had been an impossible gig and should really have been staged in the bar at the back of the stalls. Otiz Cannelloni, it turned out, was also a very funny comedian and a superb foil for Hegley as part of their double act, the Brown Paper Bag Brothers.
I saw many shows at the Empire after that and will never forget some of those nights. Lee Cornes and Steve Frost, as Dickie Valentino and Reg Prince, in particular brought the house down. Hegley himself proved to be an inspired and inspiring comic genius whose world view, through his favoured glasses, of dogs and passers-by, of unrequited love, belligerent in-laws, scoutmasters and furniture, is uniquely framed and heart-warmingly delivered. He was the most popular comedian in London by a mile in 1988 and he’s still the best.
I went up to the Edinburgh Festival in August, travelling by coach and staying at a youth hostel, to try my act at the Fringe Club. The folk singer on before me had caused unease after one song, unrest after two, and unruliness after three. After her fourth song the entire audience was imploring her to eff off in unison. She did a fifth song, announced where and when she would be performing that night, and left the stage to riotous disapproval.
Then I was introduced. There was never any doubt that I would go on: I wanted to be a comedian now, nothing else, and I was going to take any gig I could. The audience talked all the way though my act but at least they weren’t booing or demanding I leave forthwith.
Back in London, I booked myself in
for open spots everywhere I could, and went along to the Black Cat Cabaret for my first paid gig in December. Piers divided up the takings and we all received £9. They were the rules, equal door spilt. Had Hegley been on, and the place packed out, we’d all have received more.
The main thing was, I was on the circuit now, and very happy times lay ahead.
1978. Mucking about in a photo booth. The bottom picture is me trying an alluring half-smile which I’d decided to adopt, probably in an effort to be like David Starsky.
1978. On holiday aged twelve. I framed this photo and cut the word ‘SUPERSTAR’ from a newspaper to stick underneath it.
1978. I’m second from the left at the front. The tallest kid at the back became my stepbrother, Tony, four years later. They never built a skate park.
1978. Barry Sheene. Look at that smile, he was irresistible, everyone loved him.
1979. Liam Brady, like Bjorn Borg, had eyes that were close together, which some people in the 70s believed was a boon to sportsmen. He was my idol and was regarded as Arsenal’s greatest ever player.
1981. A campaigning postcard from Chickens’ Lib.
1980. John McEnroe flies in to another volley with his headband straining against the force of his frizz.
1981. On holiday at Universal Studios. She’s not with me.
1981. Blondie’s lead singer strikes a pose which featured in my treasured 1981 Debbie Harry calendar.
1981. The late great John Belushi. I watched his films endlessly.
1982. A gig I have no memory of. One of the six times I saw The Jam, though I only remember three of them.
1982. Paul Weller sporting the CND badge so many of us wore and a belt that no one did.
1982. Rik Mayall and co were the funniest thing on television for teenagers in 1982.
1983. Charlie Nicholas makes his debut v. Luton, August 1983. I went to the front with a camera. This, unbelievably, is the best photo I took.
1983. Four of us went to Devon in Danny McCarthy’s Herald. Much scrumpy is being loaded in the background.
1983. Another gig I have no memory of attending. I loved the Fun Boy Three, though. They had noticed that the lunatics had taken over the asylum.
1983. Back in the Gazette. I’m at the top right of our ‘placard’. We wanted a common room. They didn’t give us one.
1983. Open day at Loughton College as reported in the free Yellow Advertiser. Me and Claire James act out a scene of domestic drudgery. They spelled my name Allan Davis, which was a disappointment.
1983. Loughton College Media Studies group decamp to Thaxted for a study of ‘Culture’. The prat in the middle thinks that’s a funny face. It means he’s happy. Gill Bucknall is on the left at the front and Jamie the squat finder is on the far left.
1983. My drama teacher, Piers Gladhill, and me at Greenham Common.
1984. Champagne Charlie Nicholas, realizing my fifteen-year-old sister is too young, reaches out to cop a feel of my seventeen-year-old girlfriend instead. This was in the crowd at Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium.
1984. In France with my beloved Mini 1275GT. I have never had a clue about clothes.
1984. My eighteenth birthday party at Epping Forest Country Club with school friend Jeremy (aka Ji). I had been given five blue amphetamine pills by a friend from college. They had a powerful effect on me but fortunately it didn’t show.
1985. Me and Steve about to play rounders at the kids’ camp. Shorts like those were normal in the 80s. This picture has been described by my wife as: ‘The gayest photo I’ve ever seen’, which I consider to be an exaggeration.
1985. I ordered this copy of Neil Kinnock’s brilliant speech. It cost 35p.
1986. The cast of The Empire Builders, 1986. In the background is the set I knocked over during the play.
1986. On the terraces for Sweden 1, England 0. That is my ‘James Dean’ jacket. There was hooliganism in Stockholm that night.
1986. Ian Botham shows his true colours: red, gold and green.
1988. Me and my mum’s mum, Dolly Price, in Adelaide.
Thank You
To Michael Foster for reading each chapter as I finished it and encouraging me throughout.
To Rowland White at Penguin for sound advice and discreet nudging towards a deadline.
To my wife, Katie, for giving me helpful notes on many of the chapters, for putting up with several one-sided conversations about my life long before we met, and for her support and kindness.
Sources
Websites
www.youtube.com
www.bbc.co.uk
www.cricinfo.com
www.motorcyclenews.com
www.motogp.com
www.football-england.com
www.newagebd.com
www.sportsillustrated.com
www.essentials99.com
www.suite101.com
www.unionhistory.info
www.strike84.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk
www.comcast.net
www.aswa.org.uk
www.pure80spop.co.uk
www.answers.com
www.urbanimage.tv
www.comedy.org.uk
www.bfi.org.uk
www.wikipedia.org
www.geocities.com/paulwellerlive
www.1980sflashback.com
www.onlineweb.com/theones
www.all80s.co.uk
www.80scinema.com
www.football-england.com
www.newagebd.com
www.orangeamps.com/artists
www.thejam.org.uk
www.imdb.com
Film and Television
Together We Can Stop the Bomb (ACT Films for CND)
The Singing Detective (BBC Video)
Citizen Smith, series 1 & 2 (Universal)
Starsky & Hutch, the Complete Second Season (Sony)
Playscripts by Faber and Faber
Comedians – Trevor Griffiths
The Singing Detective – Dennis Potter
Playscripts by Methuen
The Empire Builders – Boris Vian
Fear and Misery of the Third Reich – Bertolt Brecht
The Mother – Bertolt Brecht
Peer Gynt – Henrik Ibsen
Barbarians – Barrie Keeffe
The Room and The Dumb Waiter – Harold Pinter
The Normal Heart – Larry Kramer (Methuen/Royal Court)
Plays in Penguin Classics
Plays – Anton Chekhov
Electra and Other Plays – Sophocles
Lysistrata and Other Plays – Aristophanes
Books
Collected Works, volume 4 – Antonin Artaud (Calder & Boyars)
The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–1990 – Tony Benn (Arrow)
The Making of Neil Kinnock – Robert Harris (Faber and Faber)
The Theory of the Modern Stage – Edited by Eric Bentley (Pelican)
Brecht on Theatre – Edited by John Willett (Eyre Methuen)
Brecht in Perspective – Edited by Graham Bartram & Anthony Waine (Longman)
Drama from Ibsen to Brecht – Raymond Williams (Pelican)
The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov (Picador Classics)
The Theatre of Revolt – Robert Brustein
Chekhov: The Hidden Ground – Philip Callow (Constable)
On Being John McEnroe – Tim Adams (Yellow Jersey Press)
Serious – John McEnroe (Little, Brown)
Herzog – Saul Bellow (Penguin)
The Story So Far – Barry Sheene (Star)
Behind the White Ball – Jimmy White (Arrow)
News of the World Football Annual 1987–88 (Invincible Press)
Rothmans Football Year Book 1986–87 (Rothmans/Queen Anne Press)
James Dean: The Mutant King – David Dalton (Plexus)
British Hit Singles and Albums (Guinness World Records Ltd)
Records and CDs
Too many to mention, but in particular:
Snap! – The Jam (Polydor)
C
afé Bleu – The Style Council (Polydor)
Smile Jamaica – NME (Island Records)
John Peel (Fabriclive, 07, Fabric Records Ltd)
Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (GO! Discs)
Life in the European Theatre (WEA Records)
Live in Trouble (Part 1) – The Barron Knights (Epic)
Appendix
* From The Theatre of Revolt, by Robert Brustein
* From the Introduction to Chekhov Plays, by Elisaveta Fen
* From The Theory of the Modern Stage, edited by Eric Bentley