I didn’t realise until the other day that more people read this blog than I thought. While that’s really nice on one level (ie my ego), the downside of it is that I am slowly running out of conversations with some of the readers as they already know everything I’m going to say. This has already happened to me twice this week where the person I was speaking to finished off both my stories and I was reduced to only chatting about the very uninteresting aspects of my life such as what socks I was wearing and different ways to say ‘moussaka’. As my life is so full of highlights I found this excessively difficult and ultimately they became bored of my chat after about 2 minutes which is a whole 3 minutes less than normal. So I need to find a solution either I put only some of the day’s highlights in this blog, or (my preferred option) I will never speak to anyone I know ever again just in case. I have already cut the phone line in two.
I would have liked not to speak to anyone at yesterday’s Comedy 4 Kids gig, but sadly as the job requires, it wasn’t to be. The West End Centre in Aldershot is a great venue with staff who are brilliantly lovely and hospitable, and previous C4K gigs there have always been great. It was a packed room of about 120 kids and their parents and there was a nice buzz around the room giving us all the feeling it would be a nice show. What none of us accounted for was the Omen child sitting at the back of the room. I didn’t think it that possible that you would want to punch an 8 year old repeatedly in the face, but this child proved me wrong. He started off with a few simple heckles while Adrian Poynton was MCing. Adrian had whisked up a lovely atmosphere with the audience but every now and then we would hear this shout from the back of a kid who insisted on saying the subject Adrian was talking about, then adding ‘revolution’ to it. There was only one or two of these, starting with ‘dog revolution’ and then ‘plane revolution’, all in this slightly too old voice. Most of the other kids were a bit chatty, but in a nice way, and so it didnt seem too odd. There was a boy called Jasper who was far too well spoken for a 6 year old and a little girl called Lucy who told us all she had 3 pet pigs. Nothing seemed too off kilter yet, and the show carried on.
During Paul Kerensa’s set, the devil child started doing the same again. Adrian and I were trying to work out if he was special needs, a teenager at the back or just a little shit. Its a difficult thing at a C4K gig because you can’t just heckle a child till they cry and you especially can’t do that if he suffers from behavioral problems or mental health issues, even if you really want to. We decided that he might have problems and that we could deal with it so all would be ok. Finally I went on stage, and this is where it all went wrong. Firstly there was a girl in the front who told us her teacher was scared of bananas. I riffed some on this while wanker boy insisted on shouting ‘banana revolution’, then ‘monkey revolution’. I stupidly spoke to him about revolutions and he just shouted ‘revolution revolution’. Then after what had been a rather fun 10 minutes, the other children got excited by mini-Che and started shouting revolution after everything I said. Eventually there was this wall of unbearable shouting noise that had it gone on for any longer would probably have resulted in the building being surrounded by riot police. Then, no matter what I did, I could not defeat the sound of children who have been roused into a sugar fuelled shout fest, and so I cut my set short and gave in. I know thats extremely defeatist, but apart from sacrificing all the actors from High School Musical on the stage (which, trust me, I would happily do, kids or no kids) there was nothing I could do.
On exit several parents and kids said how much they enjoyed it and, in nicer words, what a dickhead that child was. Turns out he wasn’t special needs at all, and had just turned up with no parents and a desire for disruption. Of course everyone that knew this hadn’t tried to silence him during the show, but it was nice they could tell us all how annoyed they were after. They struck me as the sort of people that would watch someone being kicked to death, but instead of calling the ambulance or helping would just tell everyone how wrong and appalling it was the next day. Adrian contemplated telling the kid off, but it appeared 3 or 4 parents had already done it. We vowed on the way home that if he ever appeared at a C4K gig again we would just turn on him and make him cry.
The evening was spent shouting at the Brit Awards. Horne and Corden really need to stop being on TV ever again. Their presenting just made them look like even bigger cocks than they already are. Luckily Kylie was there looking all small and Australian and lovely which helped, but every time fatty and the Butlins rep said a quip it made me want to hit my head with a sharpened paper weight. A wonderful combination of shit writing and the delivery ability of a paralysed UPS man. I later heard about 5 stories from different people recalling how nasty Corden actually is. I like hearing these things. Not only is he unfunny, but he’s also an arsehole. Amazing how those qualities land you lots of Beeb work. I’m going to scrap all my punchlines and then go and find that child and punch him. Within no time I should be big. Or in jail.
Got another afternoon gig today, at a Come and Go day for clients of a certain sheltered housing association. I’m not really sure to expect. It could be far more crazy than yesterday or far less. Either way, if any of them shout ‘revolution’ I will throw a chair at them. Fact. Although I could just not speak to any of them at all. You never know, they might all read this blog.
