I have been leading an immaculate life since being a new act comic. I don’t drink, I don’t take drugs and I don’t get invited to parties.
I also became a non-smoker and until recently, celibate.
I am aware that this introduction makes me sound incredibly square, despite my colourful drug and alcohol fuelled past and rock n’ roll lifestyle.
I am also aware all the sentences introducing the last ‘Laughing Stock’ of the year begin with ‘ I ‘. Yes, it’s all about Me.
To be precise, the last two years have all been about M.E.
I have not written about the M.E. before now as I didn’t see that it had much to do with keeping a comedy journal. However my editor suggested I think about that. So I thought about it and decided it should have everything to do with my comedy journal. As should the sobriety and the lack of drugs. Not sure about the celibacy. That wasn’t by design but I guess it still has a place in this adventure. It is still an adventure despite the lack of stimulants and despite that, at times, I’ve been unable to lift a finger let alone raise a laugh..
I can laugh about it now, but the M.E. has been debilitating and pursuing a career in comedy was ridiculous in the extreme, as the increased stress levels and raised adrenalin brought on a host of symptoms that would sometimes knock me out for two or three days at a time unable to move.
One of the reasons that I haven’t written about the M.E. before now, apart from the fact it’s not funny, is because I’ve been so embarrassed by it. It is not very well understood as an illness. When I was growing up we had all sorts of names for it and not a shred of understanding. It will be very interesting to see how I develop as a comic now that I am at the very tail end of it. I am almost completely better, thankfully.
I’m not religious but I feel I should thank someone or something. There were times when I really didn’t believe I would get well and I didn’t have anyone to spur me on. Cue the violin, what do I sound like? Ok, so I was lonely and I was sick. It was hard. Depression is a big part of the illness and I didn’t get off lightly. On those days when I could move, speak and function at the most basic level, I went to do my gigs, feeling like a fucked up version of my former self. It was madness to keep going. I think I’m a better comic for it now. I had to cancel a hell of a lot of gigs though, and for the most part bookers and promoters have been very patient with me.
I celebrated my 100th gig while up in Edinburgh in August. It was my first Edinburgh Fringe as both audience and performer. I arrived in a torrential downpour of Scottish rain, full of nerves at how I would cope being in a hectic environment without a set of keys to a cosy place should I become ill and collapse. Very soon though an offer I’d had of somewhere to stay was honoured and all I had to do was spend the day wandering around with my rucksack and my map until I could be let into the flat. My rucksack grew heavy and my map disintegrated in the rain. This wasn’t such a big deal but with the M.E. it was quite a task and exactly the sort of thing that would normally send me spiralling into sickness.
I was lucky though. I got away with it. I didn’t have to carry my rucksack too far and I stayed dry in cafes taking off my socks and hanging them on electric radiators that clearly state it is dangerous to do so and I made hot chocolates with marshmallows last a couple of hours at a time. I kept bumping into lots of fellow comics and friends. It was exciting to see so many familiar faces completely out of context- in another city – all here for the festival. I attended the last ten days of the Fringe and did a couple of gigs a day thus I managed to keep the promise I made to myself of reaching my 100th gig while I was up there.
Doing that many gigs in such close proximity, I really felt myself developing. It was almost a physical sensation. Like feeling your bones stretch. No opportunity to go cold between performances. It has got to be the best way forward and it is what made me decide I had to move to London so that I could gig more often and become a better comic. Plans which I have now put into place for the new year. 2008. Bring it on.
In the evenings my friends were all going off drinking and doing that excessive-festival-thing. While ‘I,’ the non-drinker, just sipped my hot chocolate and went back to my pad. Luckily my host was also a reformed drinker, so we watched television and agreed upon the fact that the world was totally fucked.
Stand-up is so confessional that recently I’ve started thinking of my audience as a sort of priest-in-a-booth. Since last chronicling my pursuits on the comedy circuit I have taken a turn down a darker alley and it is one that suits me. I am no longer forcing a persona that belongs to the sort of comic I thought I wanted to be. I think I wanted to be a cartoon. But that’s not real. I’m starting to get a feel for the sort of material that I most enjoy performing. Now I just have to make it as enjoyable for the audience. Yeah Sam, there is always that!
I’m now writing material that is delving into the depths of the darkest side of my personality. Although it’s confessional, it’s exaggerated. It’s like drawing a caricature of yourself. None of it flattering though. A lot of what I am writing is autobiographical but this means that other people from my life are sometimes the butt of my jokes and frankly that’s their fault for being so cruel.
I got asked in a radio interview recently why I had started doing comedy and I replied, ‘Revenge’. I am truly evil. When I started writing comedy it was genderless and observational. Not a scrap of personal stuff in there. So this is a complete turnaround.
A lot of comics that don’t make it to an established professional status tend to be quite brash. It is understandable. It’s a hostile environment and it’s one way to stick up for yourself. It encompasses a certain crudeness as well though, which I would quite like to avoid. Sometimes it is easy to opt for it as a defence mechanism but I think it’s really important for me to stay out of that swamp. I have a filthy mind as it is without getting other people involved. I’d really like to keep it clean. Dark but clean.
Sometimes that mechanism has a place though. Like a well placed swear word. When telling an audience in Edinburgh that I didn’t drink, smoke or take drugs, I got heckled with, “What do you do then you stupid bitch?”
I waited a few beats, shrugged my shoulders and replied,
“I have the occasional frig on a crucifix… …obviously.”
My next Laughing Stock will be written in the New Year, from my new room in South London. Until then, Merry Christmas and don’t forget, it’s all about being born in a manger with some straw and being given some frankincense, gold and myrrh and there was absolutely no exchange of bodily fluids.
It was an immaculate conception. Keep it clean kids.
