Life and Laughing: My Story

by Michael McIntyre

  But when they weren’t enjoying the love and intimacy that I wasn’t, we had as much fun as you would hope to have when you’re a student. Edinburgh is a wonderful city. It had already played a very sad part in my life with the scattering of my father’s ashes, but now it was a party town. We were out almost every night and when we weren’t out, we were slobbing out back at the flat, drinking and smoking and watching movies. In fact, our lifestyle in the flat was so lazy that we purchased a fleet of remote control cars to pass things to each other without having to get up. We strapped ashtrays, lighters, beers, tobacco and crisps on top of the cars and navigated them to each other by remote controls.

  Now, I’ve just come off the phone to Bill Clinton, who tells me my career shouldn’t suffer if I tell you about a particular incident involving marijuana. Experimenting with drugs is difficult to avoid at university, it’s part of life, part of growing up. One of my flatmates managed to get the details of a drug dealer who lived in the depths of Leith. If you are unfamiliar with Leith, then watch the film Trainspotting. I volunteered to go and buy it, trying to impress my new friends. I regretted my decision almost immediately.

  I headed down to Edinburgh’s most deprived area in a taxi at about 10 p.m. I was off to visit a drug dealer by the name of Scott. Why did I agree to this? I was terrified. I rehearsed what I might say to him, but everything sounded so wrong coming out of my mouth:

  ‘Hello Scott, any pot in the house?’

  ‘Scott, would I be correct in assuming you are the possessor of skunk?’

  ‘Yo, Scott, I’m here to score some weed, dude.’

  ‘Scotty, baby, it’s Mikey, here for the herb.’

  I liked the fact that he was called Scott and from Scotland. I thought it must make form-filling a bit easier when the answer for ‘Name’ is the same as ‘Nationality’. I thought of making this joke to him as an ice-breaker, but correctly decided against it.

  It was freezing cold as always. I arrived at Scott’s tenement block in my buttoned-up cashmere coat from my grandfather. I looked up with trepidation at Scott’s building glowing eerily in the moonlight. The main door was ajar so I pushed it open. It seemed to be colder inside than outside. He lived on the top floor. I climbed the four flights of stone stairs, getting more tense with every step, preparing for my illegal transaction. I reached the door and knocked.

  Within moments, I was being viewed through the peep-hole, as I heard a Scottish voice from the other side of the door holler, ‘It’s Hugh Grant, but he’s all Chinesey.’

  The door opened to reveal a man with a tattoo of the map of Scotland on his face. This was worse than I could have expected. ‘All right, pal?’ he said before walking away. I followed him. I followed a man with a Scotland tattoo on his face. I arrived in the living room. The décor of the living room was minimal. Not minimalism which is a design statement involving clean lines, Scott just didn’t own anything. There was a nail in the wall. Maybe a picture had fallen off or he was waiting for the right print to go with the room. There was a brown sofa, a chair, a top-of-the-range television and a coffee table on which sat an overflowing ashtray. Needless to say, the room reeked of spliffs.

  The tattoo-faced chap sat on the chair and on the sofa sat a man who was the spitting image of Skeletor from the eighties animated children’s series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Next to him on a side table I saw the strangest thing. A toaster with the front ripped off exposing the hot grills. There was no toast in it, but it was burning hot.

  ‘All right, mate, I’m Scott,’ Scelator said, friendly, smoking a joint.

  ‘Hiya, I’m Michael, your name must make form-filling a bit easier when the answer for “Name” is the same as “Nationality”,’ I said. Why did I say that? I panicked.

  Scott laughed unexpectedly. He really laughed. I laughed too.

  ‘That’s hilarious,’ he said in a Scottish accent that nearly required subtitles. ‘You’re hilarious. Are you lookin’ to buy some weed?’

  This was going really well. I didn’t need to ask after all, he had asked me. Tremendous.

  Then the toaster popped up, with no toast in it. Scott nonchalantly pushed the toaster button down again. Odd.

  ‘How much do you want?’ Scott asked.

  ‘I don’t know, whatever is the done thing. Will you take a post-dated cheque?’ I said.

  This was not a joke; this was my level of naïveté.

  ‘Are you fuckin’ jokin’?’ Scott said.

  I froze. This was an error. I knew I should have brought some cash, but nobody had any. Shit. Then the toaster with the exposed burning grills popped again. Scott popped it back down again.

  ‘I’m not joking. I have a guarantee card,’ I said, potentially making things worse.

  Scott just stared at me, his scalding toastless toaster next to him.

  ‘I tell you what, you’ve got balls comin’ in here with your post-dated cheque. Student bastard. That’s hilarious. Sit yourself down and have a toke on this.’ He then passed me his joint as I took a seat alongside him on the big brown sofa. This was not something I had envisaged. I had never done this before, I didn’t even know if I planned on doing it later. I was buying the marijuana for my flat to appear cool. I couldn’t say no. I took a puff on the joint. It didn’t take long for the effects to take hold, and I relaxed and slumped into the chair.

  ‘It’s good innit, pal?’ Scott said.

  ‘Marvellous,’ I said, honestly.

  Then the bizarre toaster situation occurred again. It popped up, and he popped it down with no toast. I was now stoned and feeling more confident.

  ‘Scott, you must tell me, what’s going on with that toaster?’

  ‘Heating’s broke,’ Scott said, matter of factly.

  His stoned mind had created a heater out of the toaster by peeling off the front panel and popping it down every three minutes. Priceless.

  I sat with Scott and the man with a tattoo of Scotland on his face for about an hour telling them all my funny stories. I told them about crashing my car by pushing it into a parked Mercedes, painting Jeremy’s wall and pretending I worked for Saatchi & Saatchi. We were all in hysterics. I wrote Scott a post-dated cheque, did the deal and stood up to leave. The tattooed man asked, ‘Where are you staying in Edinburgh?’

  ‘Would you like me to show you on your face?’ I said. We all rolled about laughing again.

  I was in a right old state. I could barely see in front of me. I kept laughing to myself about the toaster as I trundled down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, the door was now closed. I pushed and pulled but it didn’t budge. I realized it must be one of those doors where you buzz yourself out. I searched for a buzzer and found one. Bingo. I pushed the buzzer and then the door, but it still wouldn’t open. I pushed the buzzer and pulled the door, still nothing. I then repeated this, kicking the door. As successfully as my Scott visit had gone, I didn’t plan on returning, ever. So I kept buzzing and kicking until the door finally opened.

  It transpired I was actually on the first floor and not the ground floor. My scrambled brain had not completed the final flight of stairs. The door I was buzzing and kicking was somebody’s front door. The door swung open to reveal an overweight Scottish man in his boxer shorts, not dissimilar to Rab C. Nesbitt.

  ‘What the fuck are you doin’ bangin’ on ma door?’

  I ran for my life. I realized instantly that my explanation would sound absurd and he looked about ready to kill me. So I bolted down the stairs and out of the ajar main door. I sprinted as far as I could before looking behind me, terrified at the prospect of seeing a near naked Scotsman chasing me, but thankfully the coast was clear.

  I decided there and then that maybe this drugs malarkey probably wasn’t for me. But I continued to drink and smoke and not attend my lectures. I wasn’t rebelling; I just had no interest in Biology or Chemistry. I received a letter from the department head summoning me to a meeting. I told him I was struggling to adjust to university life and
assured him I wanted to be a biologist … or chemist.

  At some time during my first year, I watched a Woody Allen film. I had never heard of Woody Allen, but this was the epiphany I had been waiting for. It wasn’t even one of his better films – I think it was Crimes and Misdemeanors – but I was transfixed. I then rented every one of his films every day until I had seen his entire body of work. Nothing had resonated with me as much as Woody Allen. It wasn’t just that he was hysterically funny, it was where the comedy was coming from. He was confused about life and love, he was a loser, a funny loser, like me. I know there is a great deal of difference between this neurotic New York Jew and myself, but I could relate to his insular outlook on the world.

  After I watched all Woody Allen’s films, I immediately realized what I was put on this earth to be. I am a writer. I’m going to write a film. For the first time in my life, I worked at something with a passion. I had worked hard on occasion at school, but then it was because I had to, it was expected. Now I was driven and excited. I bought every book about screenwriting I could find and devoured them. As soon as I understood how to structure and lay out a screenplay, I sat down at my computer, a hand-me-down from Steve, and wrote and wrote and wrote until I passed out, then I woke up and carried on. The words and story just gushed out of me, I was so engrossed in it, I felt so creative, so switched on.

  The film was a romantic comedy set in Edinburgh. It was called Office Angels and was about a student, Marty, who was a loser in love (ring any bells?). The premise of the film was that everybody has his or her own angel. Angels work in regular offices with phones and faxes and canteens; their job is to find true love for their client. They negotiate with other angels until they have built up enough of a romance file to make a presentation to the Love God (ideally played by Sean Connery; I would have accepted Billy Connolly), who decides whether they have found true love. If they have, their work is done; if not, their clients break up and the angels go back to work. The film jumped between the lives of characters in Edinburgh and how they are affected by the work of their angels. The problem with Marty was that his angel was lousy and lazy, and his mistakes lead to Marty’s appalling love life, but, you guessed it, he gets his girl in the end.

  What I enjoyed most about the script was that it was an opportunity for me to create the happy ending that my own life wasn’t providing. I created a fantasy girl, Sasha, well out of my league, and wrote a story where she and I end up together. Real life wasn’t panning out for me, so I created a fantasy. That’s basically what this script was. It was a fantasy of how I wanted things to work out for me, with jokes. I was thrilled with the result and like any writer managed to convince myself I was on for an Academy Award. I gave it to a few select people to read and they all reported back positively. I then packaged it up and sent it to various local producers. I wanted to send it to all the big boys of the British film industry like Working Title, Film4 and Fox, but they didn’t accept unsolicited scripts. This meant I needed to have an agent, although due to my naïveté at the time I thought I needed a solicitor.

  Initial feedback was good, but the readers didn’t seem to share my conviction that it was Oscar-worthy. The consensus seemed to be that it was funny, but there were various comments regarding the plot. ‘What do these people know?’ tended to be my overconfident reaction to opening these rejection letters. ‘Idiots.’ I had read stories about successful film scripts being rejected for years, so I wasn’t disheartened; I genuinely believed I was sitting on a goldmine. I missed most of another term writing, rewriting and flogging my script. Again I was summoned to see the department head to discuss my poor attendance and again I assured him I wanted to be a biologist … or chemist.

  I sent Office Angels to Scottish Screen in Glasgow. They developed screenplays and are an entry point into the film industry. They enjoyed the script and I travelled to Glasgow for a meeting with them, but again they weren’t overly interested, just encouraging.

  Then I had a bit of a breakthrough. There was a show on BBC2 called Scene by Scene hosted by the Northern Irish film maker Mark Cousins. I watched his show on Sunday nights every week. The show consisted of one-on-one interviews with directors and actors. I watched avidly, recorded and re-watched again and again as he interviewed the likes of Martin Scorsese, Steve Martin and the highlight, Woody Allen. While drinking with friends in a bar in Edinburgh, I spotted the man himself, Mark Cousins. Outside of the Edinburgh Festival, you don’t tend to see TV faces around (although nowadays everybody seems to claim to have sat next to J. K. Rowling in a café), so I had to double-take. But it was him, the man who had met Woody Allen. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip by and immediately made my way over to him.

  ‘Hello, you’re Mark Cousins,’ I said.

  This is the kind of nonsense people say when they meet people from the telly. People say it to me now all the time. ‘You’re Michael McIntyre.’

  What am I supposed to say? ‘Thank you, I’ve been having these bouts of amnesia where I forget who I am, your reminder has been a great help to me.’ Thankfully Mark was more polite.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he said in his very trademark Northern Irish accent.

  ‘I’m really sorry to disturb you, but I’ve written a screenplay, and, well, I was …’

  I didn’t really know what I was asking, but before I could finish my ramble, he said, ‘Sure, I’ll read it. Have you got a pen and paper and I’ll give you my address?’

  ‘Really, oh, thank you,’ I said. I didn’t know it, but Mark Cousins was a bit of an industry player. He was the head of the Edinburgh Film Festival and had access to all the producers I needed to get at. I just wanted to ask him what Woody Allen was like. But I left the bar that night aglow, clutching Mark Cousins’ address. I couldn’t believe I had met Mark Cousins from the TV, and he was going to read my script.

  I packaged it up along with my covering letter and sent it special delivery the next day. Meanwhile, I had end-of-year university exams. I didn’t care; I had found my vocation. University was actually becoming successful for me; I was socializing and working incredibly hard for my future. The problem was that I wasn’t working hard at the course I had signed up for. I was concerned about being kicked out, and my department head told me he was interested to see how I would perform in the exams. I started to revise; I didn’t see that I had a choice. It was during my half-hearted revision of chemical equations that the phone rang. It was Mark Cousins. He loved the script and wanted to meet. I slammed shut the textbook, which was never to be opened again. He loved my film, I knew it, I knew it was good. I was so thrilled to have that vindication, from a professional, who had met Woody Allen.

  I met him in the Dome Restaurant that was one of the locations in the film. He was so generous to give up his time to help a young aspiring writer. He couldn’t have been more complimentary about the script and wrote me a list of producers to send it to and said I could use his name in the covering letter. Well, that A4 piece of paper with Mark Cousins’ handwriting was all that I felt I needed to move to London to make it as a writer. I had my final meeting with my department head.

  He looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Are you sure you want to be a biologist … or chemist?’

  I replied, ‘No, I’m going to write comedy films, like Woody Allen. I’m moving to London!’

  16

  I wouldn’t be moving back home in London. Not because I was an adult now, determined to fend for myself, but because my mum, Steve, Nicholas, Thomas and Andre (now born) had upped sticks and moved to France. My mother had always dreamed of living in the sunshine, so she sold the house in Golders Green, and with the proceeds in cash drove to the South of France and bought another one. So my grandmother rented a tiny studio flat in West Hampstead for my sister and me to stay in.

  Lucy was also heading up to Edinburgh University but was rather more studious and academic than myself. She got eleven As at GCSE and three As at A-Level so the world was her oyster. She didn’t
require ‘clearing’ to get into Edinburgh; nor did she have to wait until she got there to find out what her course was. She was Little Miss Perfect: outgoing, social, she had a huge circle of friends and a charming boyfriend. She could have perceived me as her loser university dropout older brother, but she believed in me and she loved my script. She read it and improved my writing significantly. I would have been lost without her input but mostly her support, especially when I started to receive rejection letters on a daily basis.

  I sent the script to everyone on Mark Cousins’ list with hope and optimism. In fact more than that: I fully expected a bidding war. But the returned scripts would land on my doorstep. Many of the covering letters were standard, copy and paste: ‘Thank you for sending in your screenplay, which we read with interest, blah blah, blah. Good luck with placing it elsewhere.’ One script was simply returned to me with the word ‘NO’ in big red pen on the front. Not a good day. I was also struggling to write another script. My first one had been such a breeze, but I had difficult-second-album syndrome. The problem, of course, was that my first album wasn’t a hit.

  My sister was spending a lot of her time at her boyfriend’s flat, leaving me to struggle with my new script and start working as a barman at All Bar One in St John’s Wood to help make ends meet. She came to witness me pulling pints and excitedly told me she’d met an actress who was perfect for my film.

  ‘Have you been casting for my film?’ I asked while serving up a lager with an overflowing frothy head. ‘I love that you’ve got so much confidence in it.’

  ‘She’s a friend of Joe’s,’ she said, referring to her boyfriend. ‘She’s just hilarious and ditzy, a real character. I kept thinking she reminded me of someone, and then I realized it was Sasha, the girl in your film. She’s an actress, and her dad is a really famous actor. You’re going to love her.’