I Used to Say My Mother Was Shirley Bassey

by Stephen K Amos

  It’s not so nice when people decide that they can get away with something that would be considered a hate crime outside of a comedy scenario. I once was playing a gig in the East End of London and someone shouted out, ‘Oi, darky! I never knew, I never fucking knew, that black people were funny!’ That took me back, but I wasn’t going to get defensive. I just said, ‘Some of us ride bikes. Have been known to ski. Work with rudimentary tools.’ All I got in return was ‘Ay? Wassat?’ He didn’t know what I meant. So I won that one.

  When an audience is sitting in the palm of your hands it is a fantastic experience because you are making a connection with them. It’s intimate and you interact with them and they interact with you. It’s like a table-tennis match and the audience is on your side because after all they want to laugh and play with you too. Just don’t forget that you can rehearse a set until it’s perfect but you need to be able to chuck the whole thing away if something happens in the room that you weren’t expecting. And when that thing happens and the gig gets spontaneous, that’s worth a million one-liners.

  A lot of unusual characters make the decision to become stand-up comedians and often people who are extroverts onstage are introverts off-stage. They can be quite deep, often very intelligent. I was travelling with a well-known comic recently and a fan came up to him and, after talking to us for a minute, he said to the comic, ‘You’re not very funny in real life.’ This comic just turned to him and said, ‘Mate! Get a grip! IT’S AN ACT!’ Maybe the fan thought he was being cute, but he got the whole concept of stand-up comedy wrong. As I said before, it’s only meant to look easy.

  For the most part my onstage comedy persona is very similar to my off-stage persona, but every performer lives a bit of a double life. Comics’ lives are the opposite to other peoples’ lives. We go to clubs and bars to work. Our busiest times are in the evenings, at weekends and at Christmas. In fact, when I was first starting out in comedy, my dad was the first to notice that I was keeping very strange work patterns. I knew he’d hate the idea of me doing comedy, so I actually started out by telling him that I was a minicab driver. However since he noticed that I would always dress up in smart suits before leaving, plus I didn’t have a car at the time, I knew this fiction wouldn’t last for ever.

  ‘Stephen. What is going on in your life? Where are you going dressed like that night after night? Do you really drive a taxi?’

  Eventually, I sat him down, took a deep breath and said, ‘Dad. You’re right. I’ve been living a double life … I’m a stand-up comedian.’

  He said, ‘Phew! I thought you were gay!’

  20

  IN MY OPINION, LONDON is the best city in the world. The old buildings that crowd the centre are a reminder of its glorious past. The nightlife is good enough to give you a hangover for a week and it was on the arts scene that I first performed as a comedian. If you come to London then you’ve got to spend some time exploring it, but to me the best thing about the capital is the diversity of the people. Nowhere else in the UK or maybe even the world can you find so many different nationalities and cultures all living pretty much in peace and side by side. New York in the USA has a similar mixture of peoples, but over there people seem confined to specific areas. So you’ve got Latin barrios, black neighbourhoods, white enclaves, Middle Eastern districts, gay villages and Chinese quarters. Here in the UK it’s a mash-up of cultures.

  Today my local chippy is owned by a Chinese couple who just shout at each other all day long in Cantonese as they fish pickled eggs out of the jar. The local Chinese takeaway is run by an Indian who plays loud Bhangra in the kitchen. My local Indian serves omelette and chips! Maybe Londoners have an identity problem. They don’t know quite who they are supposed to be. I was walking down the high street the other day and I heard a voice shout out: ‘Yo! Steve! My bredren! I saw you on Live at the Apollo last night! You was bad, yo!’ And that was a white kid talking.

  These days, on the surface, London can be a pretty tolerant place. You can hear a dozen or more languages being spoken and there are shops and restaurants that cater to every race colour and creed. I was once ordering a kebab from a Kurdish restaurant in North London and they had ‘sheep’s member’ on the menu. I’m guessing it had something to do with getting into some kind of secret society and nothing to do with eating the cock of a sheep (an animal with questionable hygiene that gave us the word ‘dingleberry’).

  If you really want to get a taste of the melting pot that is London then the best place to look is the world-famous London Underground, where you can see all these different people running around getting to work in the morning or going home at night. The Tube is very deep but don’t be afraid of the morlocks; we call them ‘buskers’ and although a lot of them look like they haven’t seen natural light for years they don’t live in the tunnels and they don’t eat people. In fact, the buskers are a highlight, so if you want to catch a fully grown man playing the ukulele half a mile underground then come to London!

  They even considered getting stand-ups to entertain people on the Underground just like the buskers. But this would never work out because there is a Golden Rule that no one is allowed to talk once they’ve paid their fares and gone through the turnstiles on ground level. If you talk, no matter what you are saying, then everyone immediately thinks that you are a madman. Even if an Underground employee says that the train is delayed or that you have to evacuate because of a fire, you look at him askance thinking, What mental hospital have you escaped from with your bright orange high-vis jacket and walkie-talkie?’

  This doesn’t mean that people don’t do other wildly inappropriate things on the Underground. Many women seem to think that a hot stuffy underground train whizzing around at thirty miles an hour is the perfect, most sanitary place in the world to apply make-up. I recall watching in complete amazement as one woman managed to put on lipstick, eyeliner, mascara and also brush her long flowing locks on a particularly bumpy Northern Line train. She was completely oblivious to the fact that she was moulting like a rabid dog all over anyone within a mile of her and that she resembled an evil clown by the time she got off. Of course, no one said anything to her because of the Golden Rule.

  This tradition of total silence means you can have a moment to yourself, can read a good book or play my favourite game, which is trying to guess the life story of the people standing next to you. Or, if you get bored of that, then you can try to figure out who would eat who first in the event of an accident and everyone getting stuck on the train. Or you can try to guess who would hook up with whom in case of the same event. Or if that’s not your cup of tea, then you can play another good game which is trying to read the free newspaper of the person sitting next to you.

  There was one time when I broke the Golden Rule of not talking to people on the Underground and sure enough I met a mad person. It was when I was just starting out doing stand-up and I was travelling to a gig and trying to read the newspaper of the person next to me. It’s a challenge because although the papers are completely free and are thrust into your face as you’re entering the Underground, passengers, once they’ve got them, treat them like their last will and testament. However, I’ve built up many years of practice and have it down to a fine art. You have to keep your face forward and totally expressionless. Don’t move any of your arms and legs and try not to breathe too hard. Basically, act like someone’s injected Botox into your brain. Then you have to imagine that your eyes are on stalks and slant them over as far as you can to get a glimpse of the headline story.

  I only managed a sly glance before the man next to me grunted and shuffled awkwardly, as he tilted his free paper further away from me. It must have been my psychic presence alone trespassing on his front page that he was disturbed by. With so many people squashed together on the Underground there is a lot of psychic energy flying around. You share air, elbow room and sometimes it even seems like you are sharing thoughts with your fellow passengers. It was then that I heard a laugh opposite me. I look
ed up and caught the eye of a very attractive black girl. She looked down as our eyes met, but was still grinning broadly.

  How long had she been watching me? Why didn’t I spot her earlier and did she now think I was the worst newspaper rubber-necker in history? I kept her gaze, while trying not to appear like a weirdo (not an easy task). She was smartly dressed and had a closed book on her lap. I wanted to see if this lovely early-twenties beauty had a sense of humour and I saw the opportunity for a joke. I opened my eyes as wide as I could and stretched my neck in an exaggerated way, pretending I was trying to read the cover of her book. Bingo!

  Tossing her head backwards, she laughed again, this time using her hand to cover her mouth to try and stifle the sound. Good manners, I thought – so unlike the heathens who think nothing of sneezing, coughing, yawning or eating on the Tube without covering their mouths. I liked her dress sense too. Normally, everyone on the Tube is sweaty and irritable because they’re still wearing their overcoats, hats and scarves from outside. The cute red hat and matching red gloves she was wearing made me think she was style conscious. In hindsight, it should have made me suspicious that this stunner seemed to be dressed for the hot Tube and not the freezing weather of the street.

  I was trying to keep her laughing and so my moves got a bit more jerky and exaggerated. Rarely has this sort of thing happened to me. A random encounter that grows into something more just like that? It was like something out of a silent movie and I was getting a bit carried away by the attention she was giving me. I hadn’t felt this way about a woman in ages. People often ask me if I’m attracted to women or to men. I think that’s a stupid question. A better question would be – are men or are women attracted to me? Secretly, I hope both are, but when I find someone sexy who is giving me the eye then I’m going with them (if they’ll let me).

  I’ve had relationships with women and with men, but if I have to choose one or the other, these days, I have to say I’m gay. There’s no two ways about it. All my brothers and sisters know, but I didn’t come out to my parents for years. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve exactly come out to my mum even now. Her attitude to sex and sexuality is just to ignore it completely. If my mum were to walk in on me having sex with a bloke, I’m sure that she’d say something like, ‘Stephen isn’t gay! That boy he is having sex with. He is the gay one!’

  Nevertheless, I was completely mesmerized by this girl and I’d completely forgotten about my neighbour until, with a sharp huff, he flicked his newspaper straight. Maybe he thought with all of my jerking movements I was in fact having a seizure. By now he wasn’t reading the paper any more and was also giving my lady the eye. This is a ruse used by many Tube riders. Have a book or newspaper handy, pretend to read it while trying to look up a skirt, down a blouse or in any other direction to catch a glimpse of the people in front of you. Failing that, try looking at the glass reflection opposite to check out the people next to you! It works every time.

  The lady in red was still smiling and my grin was wider than the platform at Tooting Broadway. Eye contact is one thing, but if we’d been closer together then I could have made foot contact. Our chemistry was unmistakeable but I was too embarrassed to make a move on the packed Tube. Irrational anxiety set in. The kind that only rears its head when you fancy someone and don’t have the guts to do anything about it. What if she gets off next stop? Then I’d have blown it for sure. Then more panic. What if we get to my stop? I may have had a gig to get to but at this point I was willing to sack it off. I thought to myself, I’ll stay on the Tube and get off when she does. I’ll make it natural looking, if that’s possible. Only a strong infatuation can make you look at a total stranger and think, Yes, I’ll definitely follow you home.

  The Tube slowly juddered to a halt when we pulled into the next station. I was wound so tight that when newspaper man stood up to leave, my body reacted instinctively and I began to rise too. My mistake made for a weird musical chairs moment and I sat down again sheepishly, feeling pretty foolish. However, right on cue, my new girlfriend laughed. Yes, she must’ve thought I was playing another joke. Get in there, Stephen. Saved from the jaws of disaster.

  With newspaper man off the Tube there was a seat free next to me. Now, here we are at a crossroad. I like girl, girl like me, there’s a spare seat next to me. Sometimes I wish that girls would just take the initiative. No sooner had I finished my lust-crazed reasoning when the stunning girl moved across and sat next to me. I got a lump in my throat.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Marcia.’

  I opened my mouth and broke the Golden Rule – ‘Stephen, nice to meet you. Erm, are you off out somewhere?’ What a stupid question. Did I really think that she just went round and round the Circle Line all day? But I was thinking on my feet and figured that at this stage I ought to be polite to make up for the neck jerking and mad facial expressions that had been my method of communication so far. From a distance, our silent love mime had been quite endearing; continuing it close up could indicate mental health issues. As it turned out my mental health wasn’t the problem.

  Then Marcia dropped the bombshell. Taking her hand off the cover of the book, she continued, ‘Can I interest you in the Lord?’

  It was then I noticed the book’s title: The Bible. Growing up, my parents used to discipline us the old-fashioned way: by using religion. By which I mean they used to beat us with a copy of the Gideon Bible. Plus, I’d had to endure endless evangelical church services in Nigeria, so I really don’t like organized religion much at all. With one simple sentence she’d let me know that the whole sorry charade so far had just been an attempt to coerce me into being converted to the bloody Good Book.

  I looked her up and down again and suddenly her beautiful outfit made sense! What a temptress! My previous question turned out to be surprisingly apt as it looked like she must indeed just ride the Tube lines looking for people to preach to about God. What a manipulative, poisonous, Venus mantrap. Plus she’d lured me in and distracted me from the fun of reading a perfectly good free newspaper.

  ‘I, er, I haven’t really given it much thought,’ I replied, feeling deflated in the extreme and studying the Tube map intently, counting the stops until I could get off. If anyone had witnessed our sweet exchange a few moments before – boy, they must be laughing now.

  ‘Well, maybe now is the time for you to give your life to Christ.’ I couldn’t ignore her because she was now sat next to me. I looked longingly for another seat to move to but now, predictably, the whole carriage was full. ‘We have many Bible classes in this area, can I invite you along?’ That was about as far away from my idea of a dream date as it was possible to get.

  ‘How did you find the Lord?’ I asked. That question shook her right off balance. Good.

  ‘Erm. A bit like this really, someone stopped me on the Tube and I was hooked.’

  I saw an opportunity to quiz her and I went for it. ‘Well, what if that person was a Muslim, or Hindu or Jewish?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her face had now visibly changed. The pretty smile was gone.

  ‘I’m just saying, maybe that person caught you at a bad time. You could have been a Hare Krishna or an atheist.’ (And going back to my flat with me right now, I silently added.) ‘What if that person had been a ticket inspector? You could have been a convert to working on the London Underground by now if you’d met the right person at the right time.’

  She sat back further in her seat and her hand once again covered the Bible. ‘There is only one God. Through Jesus Christ I will be saved from the many temptations I meet on the way.’ She retaliated in that painfully rehearsed way that you get from people who have found religion and are now using it as a shield against all argument or sensible discussion. ‘I know what you’re doing.’

  ‘I’m just asking a simple question,’ I protested.

  ‘No, the devil works in mysterious ways. You have come to challenge me, to test me.’

  ‘Isn’t it God who works in mysterious ways?’r />
  Before I could finish she interrupted abruptly, ‘You are the devil. I suggest you mend your ways and find the Lord.’

  The Tube arrived at the next stop and, with precision timing, she was up and heading for the door. I expect she was just going to catch another train and find someone else to convert. As the doors opened, she turned and gave me a look that could have removed paint from a toilet wall. I had been unceremoniously dumped and condemned as the devil within minutes. This city is full of surprises, some good and some bad. On the surface, London is a tolerant and permissive place. But watch out when you get on the Underground. Here there be morlocks.

  21

  THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT London’s West End that’s just fucking cool and I’m very lucky to have spent six months of my life playing there. And playing is just the right word. Live theatre is like live comedy and nobody’s in it for the money because almost nobody makes any. But people keep turning up to work because the community of actors, producers, directors and technicians are so full of affection for each other. It’s a surreal night-time world consisting of dilapidated dressing rooms, painted scenery made of plywood and late-night bars. The whole strange backdrop takes place under hot bulbs and heavy foundation.

  When they asked me to take a role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 2004, I initially said no. Why would a stand-up comedian like me, getting by very well using my own words onstage, want to surrender half a year to performing a script written by some American? I’m pleased to say that I am easily led and I took up a residency at the Gielgud Theatre with a bunch of my best friends for a season.

  The play is about a mad house and the director had decided that they would cast all the crazies from London’s red-hot stand-up comedy circuit to play the inmates. To add some star power to the production, Christian Slater and Frances Barber were cast in the lead roles and the result was very successful. Being battle-hardened comedians we wouldn’t have cared if John Gielgud himself had been resurrected to play the lead and I think perhaps our anti-star-struck attitude allowed the Hollywood and West End glitterati to let their hair down.