On the day of the Fell Foot Sound festival, David, Nathaniel, Chris and I decided to travel to the woods in a car together and buy ten big bags of marshmallows to hand out around the campfire. It was a long drive to Yorkshire from London but we were in high spirits and couldn’t wait to arrive at a trendy new music festival.
Fell Foot Sound was located right in the heart of the woods. There was a lovely big stage and a friendly, supportive crowd loving every band that played for them that day. Adam, the promoter (the same promoter who’d organised The Wow! Scenario’s final gig), had some news for me. ‘We’ve just been told that we have to be done by ten tonight. It’s been too loud the past few days so the police have given us a curfew. So . . .’ he pulled an apologetic face that let me know something bad was about to happen ‘. . . could you guys do comedy after the music has finished instead? That way we can keep the entertainment going.’ This didn’t sound too bad. As I said, the crowd was friendly and there was a good atmosphere at the festival. We wouldn’t be playing the main stage, though; we would be playing on a patch of ground at the bottom of a hill and the audience would all sit on the hill and watch us from above. That also sounded fine. And we weren’t allowed to use microphones because of the curfew. And there would be no campfire. Hmm.
It’s worth mentioning that no one at the festival was expecting stand-up comedy at all. It hadn’t even been advertised when they bought the tickets and wasn’t included in the programme. They were also expecting the music to continue until gone midnight, as always.
It was decided that once the final band had played their final song at ten p.m., a nice man called Barry, who actually owned the woods, would walk on to the stage and tell everyone about the comedy. We were told it would be best if the news came from Barry because everyone loved Barry. The previous three nights had all ended with Barry reading a self-penned poem and the crowd had adored him every time.
So once the final band had played their final song, Barry walked onstage and, as promised, everyone went berserk. I’ve never seen anyone welcomed onstage like it. So much love, birds flying from the trees, people whooping, hollering, whistling, chanting his name: ‘Ba-rry! Ba-rry! Ba-rry!’ He raised his hands and they quietened down, then one guy shouted from the back, ‘Read us a poem, Barry!’ And the crowd cheered as one in agreement but, alas, Barry shook his head. ‘I can’t tonight,’ he said. The crowd were distraught. ‘Come on, Barry! Read us one of your poems, mate!’ ‘Please, Barry, Please!’ Barry quietened everyone down again. ‘Oh no, I can’t read a poem you see, because I’ve got to introduce some comedians, they’ve come here to do some comedy for you.’
‘Tell them to fuck off!’, a man shouted.
‘We don’t want comedy, we want poems!’ someone agreed.
‘No comedy!’
As one they all started booing and saying, ‘No comedy’, transforming from an audience into a mob within seconds. I think the comedians were the only people who weren’t shouting, ‘We don’t want any fucking comedy.’ Barry raised his hands again, ‘OK, OK . . . ONE poem,’ and a mighty roar went up from the crowd. Barry then recited a poem entitled ‘Into the Woods’ during which he had the entire audience in the palm of his hand. The only line I can remember is ‘Into the woods, up to no good’, but they couldn’t get enough. As soon as he finished the poem they lost their minds anew, totally loco. At one point a guy jumped up from the crowd, crouched beside Barry and pointed at him with both hands while people cheered and clapped like there was no tomorrow. (He looked exactly like the cub scout who double-pointed at Matthew the juggler while dressed as a lion – the exact same pose. This was surely a bad omen.) Barry very humbly accepted the applause and then it was time for the comedy.
As the crowd reluctantly made their way over to the comedy hill I noticed, for the first time, that they were all absolutely wasted, completely trashed and generally hammered. Adam the promoter confirmed that this was the case and informed me that most of them had been doing magic mushrooms for four days straight. I was to be the first act on. Not only was I the first act on but we didn’t have a microphone and no one was introducing us. The only thing that made this set up look like anything resembling a gig was that the ‘stage area’ was lit up by two big sets of lights. They could smell my fear though, because as soon as I stepped out in front of them they began to boo. They booed me ON stage. I was so frightened that I actually brought the ten bags of marshmallows out with me and began throwing them into the audience as if throwing steaks to a pride of angry lions.
The heckling never stopped. Just constant heckling from start to finish. There was one guy sitting on the front, scrawny with long hair and a long beard, who would keep telling me to suck his dick but at a volume that only I could hear so it felt way more menacing and personal than the people shouting about how I was a piece of shit at the top of their lungs. I then introduced the next act.
The next act was the only act I did not book. He was Adam’s friend and lived nearby so had been added to the bill. We had met him moments before the gig and David Trent had grilled him in a manner that at the time I had deemed unnecessary.
‘What are you going to do, mate?’ David had asked him directly.
‘About ten minutes of material,’ he responded.
‘OK,’ said David, ‘but what are you going to do?’
‘About ten minutes of material.’
‘OK. But what are you going to do?’
‘About ten minutes of material.’
‘OK. But what are you going to do?’
This went on for ages, both of them saying the same thing until I told David to stop interrogating this guy and show a little faith in a fellow comic. He was treating him the same way I treated Lloyd before the third Pindrop gig, as if this comedian was about to draw a dick on his forehead and yell at the crowd. I thought David’s behaviour had been rather insulting to this poor guy until the unknown act in question walked on stage and uttered his opening line: ‘Is it me or are all women lying whores?’ Now that line would deservedly get a bad reception at most comedy clubs – even some of the rougher weekend club audiences wouldn’t stand for that line – so for him to say that at the end of a festival where they don’t like comedians because they think we’re all a bunch of piss-taking, narrow-minded bullies, a festival where they had just had an early curfew imposed on them and instead of listening to experimental avant-garde indie music they had to watch their least favourite form of entertainment, a festival where their hero’s poetry recital had been cut short because some comedians had taken it upon themselves to close the entire weekend, was suicide. As soon as he said the word ‘whores’ they went feral. Bottles smashed at his feet, cans whizzed past his squirming torso and a bag of marshmallows smooshed straight into his face and seemed to stick there momentarily before dropping to the ground. They were justifiably angry now. He lasted two minutes then walked off, saying ‘Fuck that’ to the rest of us and, without stopping, walked straight out of the woods and into his car and drove home. We all looked shocked, apart from David who was feeling pretty vindicated.
None of us got as bad a reception as that guy but we all got the boos and the heckles and we all got the guy in the front telling us to suck his dick. But the guy in the front didn’t stop there. During Nathaniel’s set he got up and walked around the stage area before approaching David and me. Obviously I feared he was coming over to demand we carry out his request but he didn’t; instead he said, ‘Can I get up and do some jokes?’ This was unexpected and frankly insulting. Clearly we were so bad at comedy that this guy had decided that anyone could do it.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked David, who was now in charge of screening all strangers before they went onstage.
‘I’m going to go up and do a cheer for Barry and then I’ll do ten minutes of pure comedy.’
‘Ok,’ said David, ‘but what are you going to do?’
I stopped the conversation there and pointed at the guy. ‘Absolutely, you’re on next,’ I
said, much to David’s confusion. I took David to one side so I could explain myself to him. ‘He’s been an arsehole to us the whole show,’ I said. ‘He deserves whatever happens to him when he tries it for himself.’
As Nathaniel was finishing I asked the guy his name.
‘Rybo,’ he answered. Of course it was.
I walked back onstage as Nathaniel made his way back to the safe haven otherwise known as offstage, and I made the following announcement. ‘People of Fell Foot Sound! It is now time for you to witness the comedic stylings of one of your own! He’s been at the festival all weekend! Please give it up for . . . Rybo!’
Then the unthinkable happened. The crowd lost their minds as if I’d just introduced Barry back on to the stage. They LOVED Rybo. I started to panic. What if Rybo does better than all of us? What if he’s way funnier than any of us have been and gets more laughs than all of us put together and he’s the one everyone goes home talking about? This wasn’t looking good for the Fell Foot Four (a name David, Nathaniel, Chris and I had given ourselves in order to feel braver).
‘How’s it going, Fell Foot Sound?!’ bellowed Rybo, and the crowd went bananas. ‘Let’s hear it for Barry!’ and the crowd went ultra bananas. And then began the ten minutes of ‘pure comedy’.
Now, before I tell you what he said I would like to apologise. I hate this part of the story. I really hate it. But it’s exactly what he said so, here we go . . .
‘Last night there was a couple in the tent next to me and they were proper getting down to it and at one point I heard the geezer shout . . .’
I am so, so, so, so sorry for this next line, I considered changing it to something else but this is what he said, oh God I’m so sorry.
‘At one point I heard the geezer shout—’
(Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry . . .)
‘I’m gonna cum in your pussy!’
(I said I was sorry.)
There was silence.
Stunned, horrible, silence from everyone in Fell Foot Woods. It was the first time the woods had been silent in four days. Everyone was staring at Rybo in disbelief and disgust (apart from one guy who looked pretty proud of himself). I slowly approached Rybo and whispered, in a calm voice, ‘Come on, Rybo, it’s over now.’
He turned to me looking distraught and confused. ‘But . . . but . . . I thought that’d be funny,’ he pleaded.
‘I know you did, mate, we’ve all been there, let’s just go now though, eh?’
‘Please.’ He looked like he was about to cry. ‘Please just let me do one more joke. Just one more joke.’ Even though it was not a good idea and even though Rybo still hadn’t technically even performed ONE joke yet, for some reason I nodded and allowed him to continue because in that moment I actually felt sorry for him. As comedians we were used to tough gigs and had become somewhat immune to the embarrassment that comes with them but this guy had never done this before and wasn’t equipped for how it was making him feel. So I gave him another chance. He nodded solemnly back at me in thanks, then raised his arms in the air, turned his back to the crowd and, before I could even take one step away from him, dropped his jeans. Swiftly followed by his underwear. And then he waddled back towards the audience revealing a cold, naked penis. While I was still onstage. The audience were not happy. Not only was a man exposing himself to them but they had nothing to throw at him because they’d used up all their ammo on the misogynist from earlier on. As they booed loudly Rybo looked disorientated once again, this clearly not being the reception he was expecting when dropping trou’ in front of an unconsenting audience. So he looked down at his penis, maybe to check it was definitely on display, like maybe he thought he’d accidentally not got his cock out and that’s why everyone was so annoyed. Regardless of why he was checking, he did look disappointed when he saw his own genitals. It was a cold night and Rybo’s bits and bobs were now rather tiny and the ratios were all off (Chris Boyd, comedian and wordsmith, described it as ‘ninety per cent bell end’). And so Rybo set about making his penis look more impressive, the only way he knew how.
I had still not left the stage when he began to masturbate. I was frozen to the spot, scared but also fascinated, the whole thing feeling like a surreal dream. The audience protested but Rybo wouldn’t listen. He began to shuffle around the stage with his trousers and pants round his ankles, tugging away and shouting, ‘I’m gonna cum in your pussy!’ I hate to use this phrase a second time but I feel it should be pointed out that Rybo was now employing callbacks into his act, hinting at a higher degree of comedic understanding and professionalism than maybe we had all given him credit for. It’s safe to say that I was in way over my head and did not know how to handle this situation. Fortunately for me, a hero was at hand.
Right at the top of the hill a woman sprang to her feet. She was wearing a dog costume and had been wearing this costume all day long. It was beige and fluffy with big floppy ears and a long, shaggy tail. She began sprinting down the hill, towards the stage, her ears flapping in the wind, her eyes fixed firmly on Rybo. Just before she reached the bottom of the hill she jumped, flinging herself towards him, clothes-lining him to the ground. She then pinned his shoulders to the floor with her knees and began to slap him back and forth across the face – forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand – with huge back swings between slaps. In answer to your question, yes, Rybo continued to masturbate and yell his now all-too-familiar-yet-still-revolting catchphrase at the top of his voice. And then without warning all of the lights went out and that was the end of the festival.
I mean that, by the way. That was the end of the festival. There was no ‘Get home safe everybody’, no ‘Thanks for coming’ – it didn’t end with one of Barry’s poems or an actual band playing some songs or even some stand-up comedy. The festival ended with a woman dressed as a shaggy dog repeatedly slapping a man on magic mushrooms as he masturbated and shouted obscenities while I stood next to them looking horrified. See you next year, folks.
Twister
After having told a story about a gig that went badly I’d now like to balance things out by telling you the story of a gig that went well, to prove that good gigs can be just as damaging as bad gigs.
I was doing a show in Bath where the promoter provides the acts with free accommodation in a flat right next door to the venue. As the only act who didn’t live nearby I would have the flat all to myself that night. My days of sleeping in bushes were behind me; I had free reign of an actual property now – I had made it.
After the gig finished the venue turned into a nightclub, so at the end of the final act’s set I was hastily making my way towards the exit door when I was stopped en route by a woman who had turned up as part of a hen party. She said she had enjoyed the night and thought we were all very funny so I instantly liked her. She bought me a drink and we chatted about stand-up for a while. Then she told me that the hen in her group had to kiss a man for every letter of the alphabet depending on what their name began with. She asked me what my name was again (and I told her because I am that free and easy with my personal details).
‘Oh cool, she hasn’t kissed a J yet!’ she said.
‘I’ve got to kiss your friend?’ I was clearly not fully on board with this game but then she said, ‘You can practise on me if you like.’ Full props. I’ll admit, up until that point literally no one had ever hit on me before so maybe the line seemed better than it was. Reading it back now, it definitely sounded smoother at the time but then again that line will work on 100 per cent of the single straight men alive today, I promise you.
Her friends came over, took her to one side and they had a conversation while peering over at me from time to time and then she returned with her coat and bag.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said and, maybe because I looked disappointed, she asked, ‘What are you doing now?’
‘Well, I’ve got the flat next door . . .’
She looked angry. ‘Oh, do you think I’m that kind of person do you?’
My st
omach clenched, I had totally misjudged this and now felt awful. ‘Heavens no, not at all, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, if you want my number it’d be great to meet up another time. Sorry.’ We swapped numbers, she left and I returned to the flat feeling like a sleazeball.
I was in the flat for five minutes before she rang me. ‘I’m outside!’ she said.
I opened the door and she ran into the flat and into the living room. As soon as she entered the flat she changed into a completely different person. I followed her into the living room; she turned around and pointed at me. ‘Go and get me a Chinese takeaway!’ she demanded. I looked taken aback so she reiterated, ‘Go and get me a Chinese takeaway now!’
‘We can go to a restaurant together if you like?’ I tried. ‘There should be somewhere open still if you want to get dinner together.’
‘No, you have to go and get me a takeaway!’
At this point I started to worry that I was about to get robbed. Maybe this was a trick she regularly played on comics who played the club next door – get invited back, send them out of the flat for Chinese takeaway, then totally fleece the place in their absence.
‘I’m not going to go and get you a takeaway, we can order takeaway on the phone if you like and get it delivered?’
‘No, you are the man and therefore you have to go out and get me, the woman, a takeaway!’
‘Well, I don’t think that’s true,’ I said rather feebly, unsure as to whether the man getting Chinese food for the woman was a thing or not. She folded her arms and sat down, looking grumpy.
James Acaster’s Classic Scrapes Page 16
