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David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus

I

n our third and final year a small group of us with an interest in comedy banded together to form the recurring line-up for a weekly comedy club in Clifton, Bristol. We called ourselves David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus, after the BBC sportscaster who publicly unravelled, pronouncing himself the Son of God, extolling the virtues of wearing turquoise clothing and expounding conspiracy theories concerning a global cabal of shape-shifting lizards representing the true axis of world power. He made these proclamations with such equable rationale, it was hard to dispel the creeping dread that he might know something we didn’t.

Whatever the truth of the matter, six Bristol University students took his name and the name of another much loved historical crackpot in vain and created a weekly showcase at the Dome restaurant in Clifton, which lasted for four weeks and much to our surprise drew in fire-officer-worrying crowds to every show. Dominik Diamond was the brains behind the enterprise, characteristically seeing it as a way to earn a few quid.

The six of us operated on a door split, with Dominik taking the lion’s share of the ‘box office’ because he was the compere and it was his idea and he was a rampant capitalist. Joining Dominik and myself were Myfanwy Moore, Barnaby (Carrier Pigeons) Power, David Williams and Jason Bradbury. We mixed up the running order every week, working from the socialist standpoint that we were all equal and should share the burden of opening and the luxury of closing the show (a standpoint Dominik was never comfortable with, what with him being a money mad maniac).

I had developed my act a little by this stage; I was in my third year and had performed at a number of cabarets in the drama department and the student union. I had started using the somewhat impractical gimmick of having a real live goldfish onstage with me. Rover, a fish I bought for my student house, became the central theme of the act. The idea being that he was a Marxist poet, using me as a proxy to deliver his blistering political invectives.

Luckily for you, gentle reader, I can’t remember or find any of these works - I presume that they have been either lost or more likely destroyed by the government - but the premise worked well in a surreal way and enabled me to open my silly poems up to include daft anthropomorphic love songs and protest rants.

I was so committed to the idea that I would actually take the trouble of bringing the fish tank to gigs and placing it on a stool next to me so that the audience could witness the fish swimming around during the show. When I performed my Edinburgh show in 1995, I was unable to transport him up to Scotland and so opted for a plastic facsimile rather than buy a stand-in. Poor Rover died while I was away. He was five and, although he denies it, I’m sure it was Nick’s fault. We will now observe five lines of silence in his honour.

I had also worked as a lifeguard at the Gloucester Leisure Centre by this time and channelled much of my poolside experience into my act, often performing actually wearing my lifeguarding uniform. My unrequited love shtick had developed specifically into a series of poems and jokes about being obsessed with the actress Diane Keaton. There was an agenda at work here. I had always felt that Eggy Helen (cast your minds back a few chapters - I punched a window - keep up) resembled the actress and my comic proclamations of love were a way of publicly expressing my affections for her in the face of her apparent indifference in the real world.



I Love You

I love you I love you because I cannot have you Because I don’t want to Because you hurt me Because I drown profound In every thing that you do In everything that you say In everything (?) that you are In every single way And because you look a bit like Diane Keaton

By the time the David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus shows started, Eggy Helen and I had finally got together, but I persisted with the Keaton routines because they were whimsical and effective and wound inextricably into my material, which had begun to expand, edging out the poetry into more anecdotal stand-up and silly stories. I only once strayed away from my obsession with Diane Keaton, with an ode to another gorgeous Hollywood actress, Sigourney Weaver.

Sigourney Weaver

Sigourney You make me feel...

Like countless innuendo You drive me round the bend Oh Sig!

What will I tell Diane?

At the time of David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus, I had become obsessed with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s surreal variety show Big Night Out, which I had accidentally taped when my VCR continued recording after Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam (starring Allen and Diane Keaton, naturally). The show was a joyously surreal, wilfully obscure cabaret that somehow made you feel like part of an exclusive club made up of people who ‘got it’. Endlessly quotable and always essential viewing (I eschewed live images of Thatcher finally leaving Number Ten to watch it), Big Night Out seemed brilliantly subversive proof that the minutiae of your own personal, very specific and silly sense of humour could translate into a performance that would appeal to a large audience, not just friends.

Encouraged by their lunacy, I began to introduce more absurdist concepts into my act, which sat well with the goldfish and the lifeguarding uniform. My stage persona took the form of a lovestruck, congenital liar who worked in a swimming pool, claiming that films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and RoboCop as well as comic-book characters such as Batman and Spider-Man had been ripped off from events in his own life, Spider-Man eventually becoming the basis of a later audition for Six Pairs of Pants and the sketch that won Jessica Hynes a place on the show.

The success rate of the erstwhile members of David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus has been fairly impressive. Dominik Diamond went on to become an accomplished broadcaster, Myfanwy Moore moved behind the camera and became a highly influential producer at the BBC and was instrumental in bringing me and another member of the group to the attention of the Paramount Comedy Channel in the mid-nineties, Barnaby Power continues to work in theatre as an actor, Jason Bradbury is now host of the hugely popular Gadget Showon Channel Five, and David Williams changed his name to Walliams and joined forces with a young graduate called Matt the year after I left. Sadly, I have no idea what happened to them.

Somewhere amid the cotton-wool fog that was Pegg’s consciousness, he became sensible of voices raised in confrontation around him.

One of the voices, a deep reptilian drawl, seemed to resonate in the pit of his stomach, as though he had swallowed a bee or a dildo.

Another gave him a different sensation that he couldn’t quite decipher in the mists of his addled perception. As things became clearer, he realised the voice was that of Murielle Burdot and the sensation he felt was the sickening sting of betrayal. He tried to utter an expletive but discovered his mouth had been taped up.

He was, in some measure, relieved, as the words he was about to utter were a bit sexist. The first voice, he realised, was that of Lord Black.

Pegg opened his eyes. The tall masked figure of his arch-enemy stood directly across the room from him, next to a drinks cabinet, the doors of which, Pegg ruminated, were shaped like boobs.

‘Aaahhh,’ said Black, like a twat. ‘Look who’s decided to join us. I was beginning to worry you might remain unconscious forever and that would have been a distinct shame.’

Pegg flashed his eyes at Black, unable to deliver the devastating retort his now fully functioning mind had taken milliseconds to formulate. Instead, he tried to give Black the finger but found his hands were tied.

‘Please,’ implored Murielle, ‘you said åå was not to be ’armed.’

‘Silence!’ shouted Lord Black, raising a hand to the deceitful French beauty.

Pegg similarly gesticulated but, being bound hand and foot, communicated his feelings with a convulsive jerk and a wiggle of his eyebrows. Murielle understood what Pegg had meant bythis; the meaning was obvious.

‘Don’t pretend you care about me, you treacherous harpy. I trusted you, loved you even, and what do I get in return for giving myself to someone? Screwed, that’s what. Is it any wonder I’m such a recluse? There’s no going back from this, Murielle, you’re nothing to me now, nothing at all. Any vestige of love I felt for you drained from my body with my consciousness after that dart stuck in my neck. You’re not Murielle any more, Murielle, you’re just the Scarlet Panther, and panthers get hunted down and put on display and I won’t be happy until you’ve been stuffed and mounted and hung on the wall of my study or maybe the games room.’

She hung her head in shame.

‘May I interest you in something to drink?’ Black offered cordially, gesturing towards the boob cupboard.

Pegg’s eyes flicked across to the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It was nine o’clock in the morning. This man was out of his mind. It was insanity to start drinking at this time of the day unless you were an alcoholic ora shiftworker. Pegg shook his head, the fire of disapproval flashing in his eyes.

‘You don’t have to have a ‘drink’ drink. You could always have a Coke Zero,’ said Black with a knowing sneer. Pegg’s eyes communicated an unmistakable ‘Fuck you, smarty-pants’.

‘Suit yourself,’ said Black, uncorking a bottle of 800-year-old Famous Grouse and pouring a generous measure into a crystal tumbler. ‘I suppose you must be wondering what this is all about,’ Black continued, taking a sip and nodding appreciatively.

Pegg looked around the room, assessing the situation, looking for opportunities, weighing up his chances of escape, should he find a way to shed his bonds. The room had four doors, each one guarded by a goon in dark glasses, with an H&K machine gun slung across his chest. Even if Pegg could shake off his shackles, there was no way he’d be able to take on four heavily armed henchmen and Lord Black. The odds were definitely against him and a sense of defeat enveloped him as he slumped back into his chair. Just then, he noticed the inert figure of Canterbury sat in a Parker Knoll armchair to his right. He looked at his cybernetic friend and softened for a split second. Of course, Canterbury hadn’t malfunctioned on the jet, he had somehow seen through Muri— the Scarlet Panther’s duplicity, picking up on micro-fluctuations in body temperature and behavioural tells, which identified her as an enemy, even before Canterbury’s amiable conscious mind had followed suit. Poor Canterbury, he had been loyal to his master on the deepest level and Pegg had repaid him by enforcing program restrictions, sanctioning his directives and being a cunt.

Terribly sweet really,’ sneered Black. ‘He carried you in here and sat down, good as gold, without a hint of resistance. I think he was protecting you, you know. I think he knew I’d kill you if he put up a fight. He picked you up, brought you in here and switched himself off. He hasn’t made a peep for hours.’

Pegg looked at his beloved metal compadre, searching his rigid metal endoskeleton for signs of life. If only he could get Canterbury to reactivate, he might stand a chance of putting a plan into action.

Then...

He saw it. The glimmer of hope he had been searching for. Blinking at a steady pulse, just beneath his left aural receptor, was Canterbury’s earring. The jammy bastard had been awake all along. Pegg’s body filled with elation.

‘Are you sure I can’t get you anything?’ persisted Black. ‘I’m about to tell you why I set you up and it’s going to take a while so you might as well be comfortable.’

Pegg nodded enthusiastically.

‘Splendid,’ brayed Black. ‘Some freshjuice perhaps, ora glass of Volvic?’

Pegg shook his head.

‘Evian?’ suggested Black.

Pegg shook his head even more fervently and nodded down at his stomach, widening his eyes to ensure Black knew he was indicating to something specific, which is technically illegal in charades.

‘Are you hungry?’ smiled Black.

Pegg wished he could touch his nose and point at Black to officially confirm he had guessed right, but the enthusiasm of his response to Black’s suggestion was enough.

‘Ah, breakfast, you would like some breakfast wouldn’t you?’ declared Black.

Pegg nodded with childish vigour, making his eyes smile as much as he could.

‘Some Weetabix perhaps?’ Black suggested.

Pegg shook his head, frowning, as if Weetabix tasted like Satan’s wang.

‘A full English?’ Black said triumphantly, convinced that Pegg would relish a plate of sausage, egg, bacon, beans and/or a fried slice.

Pegg was tempted, but rejected the idea with a furious shake of his head.

Black frowned, considering what else he had to offer. Pegg’s eyes burrowed into him, willing his arch-enemy to offer the specific item he craved so very much.

‘I’ve got it,’ said Black with a triumphant flourish. ‘Toast.’

It happened in an instant and was over before Black realised what was happening. Canterbury stood up, his body shell unfolding like an origami swan dropped into a bowl of warm water. His shoulder-mounted rockets flipped out of his epaulettes. The calculations took less than a second, far less time than for the goons to shoulder and aim their automatic weapons. Four rockets deployed with a searing fizz; an instant later, four obliterated bodies slumped against four doors. A thin, blinding laser beam shot from Canterbury’s ocular sensors and with breathtaking precision melted the locks on every door, sealing them shut against the shouts of concern erupting without.

With the reflexes of her feline jungle namesake, Murielle dived to the floor as Lord Black pulled a long silver revolver from inside his coat, levelling it at Pegg. With all his strength, Pegg kicked the coffee table across the room, sending it crashing into Black’s shins; he squealed in a way that brought a smile to Pegg’s face. By the time Black had rallied, Canterbury was upon him, his metal fingers closing around his throat, lifting him three feet off the ground.

Pegg gave a muffled shout. Canterbury’s head swivelled like an owl’s, looking back at his prone master. Something passed between them. A look of uncertainty from Canterbury and nod of assurance from Pegg, whose eyes said it all: ‘You can do it.’ With three short bursts of his face laser, Canterbury freed his master of his restraints and gag with staggering pinpoint accuracy.

‘Impressive,’ smiled Pegg. ‘Most impressive.’

‘You’ll find I’m full of surprises,’ replied Canterbury, and in this simple nod to The Empire Strikes Back, the second and best of the Star Wars films, all was right between them. They were friends again, perhaps stronger than they had ever been. Pegg could have kissed his robotic friend but he wasn’t gay or into robots (not since he’d met Murielle at least).

‘Now let us finally find out what Lord Black looks like, shall we?’ said Pegg, hoping he was all deformed and gross because he needed a laugh.

Murielle had managed to get to her feet. She looked at Pegg half impressed, half bereft. She made to speak but Pegg cut her off.

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ he said angrily with a hint of sadness and regret and resignation and sadness.

Canterbury pulled Black’s head round and clasped the corner of the mask in his titanium fingers. He took one look at Pegg, who nodded back at him. The mask came away easily. Pegg staggered back, momentarily thrown.

‘You!’

 

In-betweening

A

fter graduating from one of Britain’s most august educational establishments with a highly respectable degree, I went to work in Debenhams, Broadmead, as a toy demonstrator, trying to persuade people to purchase those irritating battery-operated dogs thatyipped and performed a backwards somersault every 15.7 seconds until the AAs ran out or your soul farted out of your arse.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do with my life. Towards the end of my academic career, I had become involved in experimental theatre and performed several shows with a company called Bodies in Flight, which included David Icke and Carrier Pigeons alumnus, Barney Power, and Eggy Helen, my now serious girlfriend (whose affections I had finally won on the morning the Gulf War started, although I don’t think the incidences were connected).

I continued to work with the company, even as I began to get more gigs as a stand-up comic. A few doors down from my beloved Forever People comic shop, on Park Street in Bristol, a pub called the Mauretania began running a weekly comedy club called the Tongue in Cheek. A compere would introduce two local acts, with an act from the London circuit closing the show. After the second interval, a few minutes would be set aside for an ‘open spot’, which despite sounding like a suppurating sore was actually an unpaid opportunity for untested acts to prove their worth before a live crowd.

I had already cut my teeth with the Orphans of Jesus at the Dome, when I took a fairly assured five minutes to the Mauretania one Thursday night, having taken the plunge and approached the organisers for the gig. The spot went well and I was invited back to perform a paid ten-minute half spot, subsequently becoming a regular performing full twenty-minute sets, working my way up from opening act to the middle of the show, which was pretty much the best a local performer could hope for.

The Tongue in Cheek’s London acts were organised through a chain of South London comedy clubs called the Screaming Blue Murder, booked and run by an entrepreneurial young woman by the name of Dawn Sedgwick. Dawn provided a steady flow of established acts to close the Bristol shows, whilst booking and running London clubs and fulfilling her duties as an agent. The organisers at the Tongue in Cheek, a hugely supportive and amiable young couple (Melanie and David) and an enthusiastic young DJ and comedy fan called Gary Smith, had mentioned to Dawn that I was currently doing very well at the club and suggested that I call her to discuss the possibility of performing a few gigs in London.

And so it was that in May 1992 I travelled to the big city and performed two open spots, one at the Comedy Store in Leicester Square and the other at Dawn’s Screaming Blue Murder club in Hampton Wick. I slept on the floor of Andy Thompson’s pad in Islington and, he having proved an admirable axeman on ‘My Fair Goldfish’, I made use of his talents again for the shows. The song had killed at the Dome and there was no reason to doubt its effectiveness in the Big Smoke.

The spots went reasonably well, although at the Comedy Store the other comics were a little dismissive and wore their disdain for newcomers on their sleeves even when they were being nice, and the song felt a little out of place in front of the Thursday-night central London crowd. Nevertheless, booker Don Ward gave me some sage advice and invited me back for another open spot at a later date.

The Screaming Blue Murder was much better. It was more experimental and laid-back than the more meat-and-potatoes Comedy Store, and my quirky, unconventional material played well among the easy-going south London crowd. I met Dawn after the show and on the strength of that performance alone she offered to manage me, if I ever made the move to London. I look back on this moment as an extraordinary leap of faith on Dawn’s part, which I appreciated immeasurably. I now had a focus and a goal to get me moving along the path, which felt more and more like the correct one. Bristol had somewhat put me off the notion of becoming a jobbing actor. The course had highlighted the shortcomings of the profession as much as it had equipped me for it and I baulked at the prospect of navigating an ever-struggling arts scene, waiting for the phone to ring. Ironically, after all those years in the education system, I decided to give myself some autonomy and to do the very thing I had done in front of the amassed ranks of the Salvation Army in 1977. Tell jokes.

Living in a one-bedroom flat with Eggy Helen, I continued to perform in Bristol and Bath, saving money from my work on stage and in retail, hoping to earn enough to make the move to London. As my reputation grew, I was booked for larger gigs in the area, opening for Kevin Eldon and Frank Skinner at the Watershed on the Bristol Docks, both of whom I would eventually get to know, particularly Kevin who I have worked with many times and who has become a good friend.

However, the gigs were nowhere near as frequent as they potentially were in London, and selling battery-operated toys hardly generated enough cash to survive, let alone uproot and move to the most expensive city in the country. On one occasion, while moving the furniture round the living room, Eggy Helen and I heard change rattling round inside the plush armchairs and spent several hours retrieving it. By the end of our extensive search, we had recovered thirteen pounds and triumphantly consigned it to a special fund for the hiring of videos and the purchase of wine. The fact that we got so excited about discovering such a small amount of money is a clear indication of our financial status at the time and the utter hopelessness of our desire to move to London.

Helen had aspirations of becoming an actress and there was no doubt that we both stood more chance of realising our dreams in the capital than we did in the sleepy South-West. Life seemed to be uneventfully dripping by and we were both somehow powerless to stop it.

The highlight of our week was generally watching the latest episode of Channel 4’s newly imported show Northern Exposure,n to which we became utterly addicted. Eventually, a sad event provided us with the momentum we needed to escape. Eggy Helen’s grandfather passed away, leaving her enough money to make the move, which she did, taking me along with her. Whatever the rules of quantum attraction would throw at us in the next few years, even if it ended in a small amount of blood and broken glass, I would forever be in her and indeed her family’s debt.

 

Nick

L

ondon was an unknown quantity for Eggy Helen and me. We had stayed with friends in Clapham in the south and I had spent those few days in Islington; otherwise neither of us had any real knowledge of the city. I knew where the BBC and the Natural History Museum were, possibly Madame Tussaud’s at a push, but in terms of where to live, we didn’t have a clue.

Acting on a few recommendations from friends who had already made the leap, we bought a copy of Loot and spent an intensive week flat-hunting across the capital. On the fourth day we happened upon an ad for a reasonably priced one-bedroom rental in Cricklewood, north London.

Cricklewood was immediately recognisable to me as the home of seventies comedy threesome, the Goodies, and this tiny sliver of familiarity made the journey up to NW2 feel promising. I had been a huge fan of the Goodies as a kid, totally buying into their zany, junior Monty Python vibe. I had even purchased one of their albums and listened to it repeatedly in the front room at my nan’s house along with The Wombles and The Story of Star Wars.

Situated at the quieter end of the bustling high street, the flat was perfect. Clean, modern and totally within our budget, the living room was small but airy, as was the bedroom, and a dark corridor was ingeniously lit by a fortified glass partition window, which allowed light to flow right through the flat to a small but functional kitchen space. The landlord, a roly-poly Irish man, seemed amiable if slightly dodgy and we nodded wide-eyed and hopeful at his request that we present him with five hundred pounds in cash every month without fail or face his jolly Irish wrath.

We took the plunge, signed the contracts and moved in, travelling to London in the back of the removal truck we used to transport our possessions, Rover (still alive at this point) sloshing around on my lap in his bowl. As soon as we arrived, I phoned Dawn and, true to her word, she put me on her books. By this time, Dawn had separated from Screaming Blue Murder and the agency she had worked for and founded an agency of her own, thus Dawn Sedgwick Management was born and as a testament to her tireless work ethic thrives on a much larger scale to this day, with me as her longest standing client. Actors often thank their agents during awards show acceptance speeches and it always sounds somewhat token. I can, however, honestly say that I love Dawn more than the combined ocean of love reserved for my mother, wife, daughter and dog and that is the absolute truth. {Ben, can you make sure this bit only features in Dam’s personal copy, not the final version? Cheers. S.)

I began travelling all round London performing open spots in the hope of getting paid bookings and slowly but surely they began to trickle in. For the first time in my life, I was earning a regular if erratic wage from performance.

Without the head start of an agent and the prospect of paid work, Eggy Helen had to find a job outside her vocational flight path in order to help pay the rent, eventually securing a waitressing gig at Chiquito’s Mexican restaurant at Staples Corner, a few minutes’ drive from our flat.

One evening she returned home from work and informed me that one of the waiters at the restaurant seemed to be quite funny and had a hankering to become a stand-up comic but didn’t know how. She had told him that her boyfriend was a pro (which I was but barely) and suggested we meet and have a chat.

A week or so later, I met Nick Frost on the balcony of his flat in Cricklewood. Helen introduced us and fora moment it felt strangely as though I was on a blind date, saying to Nick, ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’ He put on a little demonstration of his funniness to impress me, throwing a few impersonations into the conversation and rebounding around the party with confidence. When I left, I spied him fast asleep in an armchair next to a giant speaker, bolt upright and clutching a can of Red Stripe. I couldn’t help smiling. I liked him; really liked him, in fact.

I wrote Nick a list of bookers and clubs to contact (which he still has seventeen years later) and took him to see his first gig, a new-act night at the Cosmic Comedy Club in Fulham.

The compere that night had failed to materialise and the promoter, who had booked me before, asked if I would step in. It was a tough night and I pretty much died on my arse, which didn’t instil Nick with a huge amount of confidence in his new mentor. Determined to prove my worth as a comic, I took him out again the following weekend to the Balham Banana, a popular south London club, which ran two shows simultaneously on two levels. This time, the night was a storming success and Nick seemed suitably impressed with my efforts, almost as impressed as he was by the fact he had given comedian Mark Thomas a cigarette in the dressing room.

A few weeks later, Nick took part in the new-act night at the Cosmic and did extremely well, only being pipped at the post by another act who had brought along enough support to win the audience vote at the end. Nick’s set was only slightly less well appreciated by a gaggle of Chiquito’s staff who had secured the night off to cheer him on. I can clearly recall Nick performing a routine about built-up shoes and parading around demonstrating how someone might walk with an orang-utan sticking out of his arse.

Over the next six months he performed ten gigs in all. Five were great, five were demoralising and nightmarish, and at the end of the tenth set, he decided that it wasn’t for him, which frustrated me enormously because in the short time I had known him I realised that he was possibly the funniest person I had met in my entire life.

Despite his reluctance to pursue stand-up, he continued to come to my gigs, and by the time I had parlayed my stand-up career into television, he had seen me perform hundreds of times; he can still recite passages from my set and remembers much of it better than I do. We quickly became inseparable and it all seemed to make more sense to me than any previous friendship, despite our differing backgrounds and experiences. Two years my junior, Nick was like no one I had ever met before. He was blissfully unpretentious and unshackled by the strictures of political correctness. The African chefs at Chiquito’s loved him precisely because he could expertly impersonate the variety of sub-Saharan dialects that flew around the kitchen, which he did without a shred of prejudice, making him the subject of much finger-snapping and screaming laughter. If I broadened Nick’s horizons culturally, then he broadened mine socially, and crucially taught me how to chill the fuck out.

Over the next few months, I introduced Nick to as much comedy and film as I could, constantly taking him to the cinema or watching videos and going to live performances whenever we could afford it. It seemed odd to me that I worked in comedy and yet the most talented comedian I knew was a waiter at a local restaurant. His natural ability outstripped thatofanyone I had encountered on the circuit and Iwas convinced he had something extraordinary to offer.

I resolved to find some way other than stand-up to showcase his talents.

 


Date: 2015-12-17; view: 2000


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