by Des Bishop
It was the ultimate comedy release for all.
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After a few weeks back in New York with the family, I knew that there was no turning back. My dad was very excited about going to Edinburgh. Everything he had done for the previous few months was geared towards getting back up on stage. I made him promise me that he was doing it for himself as well as for me, and I believed him when he said he was. I got my parents a business-class flight, which meant that virtually any chance to make money for the whole run was now gone. I didn’t care about that; I was more worried about how my dad would deal with the flight. But it was out of my hands, because I was heading to Edinburgh straight from Dublin with Aidan, who had also become a comedian and was doing his own show at the fringe; they would be travelling there without me.
Michael John decided he would be able to make the trip, which put my mind at rest. All that was left to do was to make sure that the show was good enough. A week to go and I still had a lot of work to do on it. I had still not used the pictures on stage yet, so I booked four nights in the Twisted Pepper in Dublin. It was a tiny room that held about fifty people, and tickets were free. I put the pictures up on a flat-screen TV behind me, but I did not know how to do a PowerPoint presentation on my Mac. I thought I would be able to connect it to the slide show in iPhoto, but it did not work. In the end I just clicked on pictures from my iPhoto album throughout the show. It sounds as if it should have been a shambles, but the goodwill you receive from people who are getting something for free shouldn’t be underestimated. The non-paying crowd was not feeling too critical, and the show went great.
It was the first time I got to show the video of my dad pretending to be James Bond, with Black Bob jumping up to lick his hand. They absolutely loved it. I really could not have imagined how big the laugh would be at that moment. I had mentioned it so many times on stage as a description and people would laugh, but I was never sure how it would work in reality. But man, did it work great. I then told that first audience that my dad would be surprising the audience in Edinburgh by walking out at the end. You could feel the emotion in the room at that moment. They could sense that this was the beginning of something special, and so could I. I was extremely emotional after the show: I just knew at that moment that the show was the right thing to do.
I had actually broken down a bit during that performance; only then had I realized the impact of the pictures. I decided that this picture would come up on the screen behind me as I told the audience that my dad said he would die a very proud man because of how he felt when his kids rallied round him.
I found it hard to tell that story with my dad’s happy face behind me. I could see how happy we were to be around my dad and I could see how he was the only guy who mattered to us at that stage in our lives. Here I was on stage, talking about how we were celebrating what my dad had achieved, and the picture made everything so clear. It hit me that I was talking about something that I felt very deeply.
I loved the show then. When I first started writing anything at all, possibly even before I became a comedian, my dad gave me the advice: ‘Remember, Des, Emotion Sells.’ I think it was around the time Angela’s Ashes came out and my dad was obsessed with emotional Irish stories. That was something I used to joke about around the table when I would come back to New York after that. Emotion sells. I’m pretty sure, though, that he did not anticipate he would be the subject of the emotion that I would end up selling.
The show made me feel so close to my family. It was such a fun way to be together in the end. Yes, my dad was dying; but the story would end with us smiling and laughing and, most importantly, together. I could not wait to get to Edinburgh. I could not wait for that moment when he would walk out into the spotlight.
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My parents made it over in one piece. My dad struggled getting on the plane, as he was so dehydrated he nearly collapsed. The only reason for that was his pig-headedness about drinking water. He moaned every time you asked him to drink any, and in the rush to get to the airport he must have been dehydrated to the point of panic. He nearly got sick in the airport, but he began to feel better when he got on the plane and was able to relax. I had driven across to make sure I had the car to transport him around, so myself and Aidan were there to meet them at the airport.
In the end the entire family was in Edinburgh at the largest arts festival in the world, getting ready to do a show about our lives. It was beyond surreal. It was not until we were all there that I realized how much of an undertaking this all was. I had to do the technical rehearsal with them around. Normally, I would keep them a mile away from my professional business, and now they had to be there. Normally, I would tell my mother to mind her own business when she asked me how my career was going. Now it was her business. I could not get annoyed when they asked me about ticket sales because it was related to a performance my dad was in. Mostly, guys end up working for their dad in the family business; now my dad was working for me. Incidentally, he was terrible at taking directions.
We had some final stresses about what my dad would actually do when he came out on stage. Personally I felt it did not really matter what he did when he got out there. I felt he could have said the ‘Our Father’ and people would laugh. He could even have sung it to annoy my mother. But we all felt it would be good to give him something concrete to say. I really wanted him to say, ‘It’s great to be on stage with my son Des at a stand-up comedy show, because when I think of my life like a stand-up gig, then this is a Fucking Big Closer!’
I had always thought of that as a theme for the show. I saw the show as a curtain call for a man who had sacrificed his desire to be in front of the audience for his kids. So I thought it would be a funny, quick way for him to summarize the whole thing in terms of a comedy performance. Plus, I thought it would be a good surprise if he said ‘fuck’.
He really did not want to say ‘fuck’, though, and he had no faith in my line. He loved improvising and messing around, but he hated learning lines. I also think he hated me telling him what to do. He never agreed with me on my suggestions. It’s the only thing I was anal about; I really thought it was a good closing line. He got it wrong every single night until the final night. And when he said it right, it got a huge laugh.
My dad hated learning lines so much that he lost sleep over it. All our lives he always got people’s names wrong, no matter how many times we corrected him. My Cousin Jen was always Jan, my buddy Mars was always Lars. For twenty-four hours he was miserable leading up to the gig because he was stressing about that one line. It was not really that important for the first night anyway. I was just dying to see how the audience would react when he came out. There was still a part of me that worried that it might be too much.
I can’t exaggerate how stressed I was. I had to get my dad backstage without anyone seeing him. There was no way backstage until the show before ours ended, so I had to leave him in the hallway. To do that I had to drive into a pedestrian road and down a narrow lane to get him to the backstage door. Bear in mind that my dad’s mobility was very poor by this stage. In fact, during rehearsals we realized that it would take him so long to walk to the centre of the stage that it would be best if I headed towards him as he came through the curtain. That way the audience would not end up feeling bad for him.
I got him into the hallway, drove back out of the lane and found a spot; ran back and got coffee from Starbucks for everyone; organized tickets for my mother and two brothers and made sure they were sitting together because this was also being filmed for the documentary. Then they let us in and we had to set up the show for the first time, and we had all of fifteen minutes to do it.
I had never done the show before with somebody else doing the cues for the pictures. I had also changed all the pictures around and now there were forty-one picture and video changes in the show. We had to get in, set up my computer, get the screen up, check the mics and set the lights before I even got my suit on fo
r the show. When that was done I went backstage and told my mother to grab her seat. As the house music came on I could hear ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ and I knew the footage from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was playing on the screen. I changed into my tux with my dad next to me in the dressing room. This was it. The footage lasted seven minutes and I knew I would be on stage by the end of it.
It was a strange moment, being backstage with my dad. He was buzzed up. I was too, but I was too stressed to take any of it in. The show itself was very new and I was still thinking about all the cues and things I had to get through on the stage. And then suddenly the show began with my dad’s scene from Zulu coming up on the screen. I waited to go on stage after the opening video, with my dad next to me. I remember wondering how I had ended up doing a show with my dad. I could hear the James Bond theme and I waited for my cue. I gave my dad a thumbs-up and shouted into the backstage mic, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the show is called My Dad Was Nearly James Bond. Please welcome to the stage … Deeeesssss Biissshop!’
That hour flew by. I can’t remember much about it. I know there were times when I felt it was a bit flat, but for a first night it was great, and the energy in the room was tangible. First nights are usually like this, as the nerves are bouncing off the walls.
Then, at the end I showed the Bond video we’d made and it got a huge laugh. I could hear my dad getting into position behind the curtain as it was playing. Black Bob got a huge laugh, and I am sure my dad was shitting himself as he heard it and then his cue. I pointed at the screen where his picture had gone into freeze frame as if I was asking the crowd to applaud the man on the screen.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, my dad, Mike Bishop!’
He popped out from behind the curtain. I will never forget his big cheesy hands waving. He was loving it. The audience hadn’t a clue that this was coming and they were awestruck. The applause went on for ages. I had walked my dad to the mic and I remember him using his hands to tell the crowd to quieten down. I wish I could remember the particular dialogue of that night, because it was different every night, depending on the situation. I know we had a bit of banter between us. One night he came out and surprised me by saying, ‘I assume you’re all dog lovers, are you?’ That got a great laugh the first time he said it. It really doesn’t matter what he said, because it just worked great anyway. It felt fantastic and it was such an incredible moment.
We got backstage afterwards and for me the biggest feeling was relief. In the nights that followed I felt much more emotional, but that night there was just pure delight that we had pulled it off. I was so happy nothing had gone wrong and I was thrilled that the audience’s reaction to my dad could not have been better. It was one of many standing ovations we would receive from the audience, and by my dad’s final show on the eighteenth night, I began to expect them.
It was a strange way for all of us to come together, but it was also a wonderful family moment. Both Michael John and my mother were in tears as they arrived backstage. Michael John was saying that it was ‘brilliant, just brilliant’ as the tears flowed down his cheeks. As I hugged him, my father said, ‘Tap, tap,’ picking up on the joke from the show. ‘Funny!’ I said and laughed because this could not have been more different from a normal comedy-show reaction. Aidan had his own show to do and was waiting to run across town to do it. It was not the ideal preparation for him.
‘Give me a hug, darling …’
My mother was in pieces. My dad was sitting in the chair, so delighted with himself, but he was taken aback by the power of my mother’s crying. He said, ‘Give me a hug, darling,’ and he stretched his arms wide and embraced her. We have this moment on film and I have watched it many times. The camera happened to focus in really close on my dad as my mother pulled away. It was as if her emotions had swept over him and he was now aware of the enormity of what we had done. You could still hear ‘Nobody Does It Better’ playing as the audience was leaving. My dad took a deep breath and by the look on his face he seemed to be thinking, ‘Holy shit, these people know I am going to die.’
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The ultimate irony of course is that, despite the fact that we came to realize our father’s true worth, in the end he got the praise from the public he’d always craved. People in Ireland fell in love with him after seeing the documentary, ‘My Dad Was Nearly James Bond’. I think the documentary excited my dad even more than the stage show. He loved the attention. Just before he died, when Aidan showed my dad the listing for it in the RTÉ Guide, he said, ‘Who would have thought that I would have to wait this long to get my big break?’
There was a scene in the documentary showing him backstage during the first night in Edinburgh. He was as happy as anything back there, knowing he was part of what was going on. He said, ‘I love hearing the words “my dad”. “I need a chair for my dad.” “I need a glass of water for my dad.” “I need a cushion for my dad.” My dad, my dad.’ I could hear the pride in him then for being that dad. He then said something that resonated with so many people. ‘When your children come into the world, I learned that it’s no longer my life, it’s their life. The only way you could describe it is, it’s no longer my life, it’s their life. If you go through life that way with your children, you’ve got a shot. You have to totally turn it over to them. If you don’t, they pick up on it, and they never forget it. Children and elephants, they’re two of a kind. They never forget, never forget.’
When I saw this for the first time, I was blown away by how articulate he was about his experience of parenting. It was ground-breaking advice and it was so well put. This really was a final nail in the coffin of any lingering thoughts I had about my dad being stupid. Not only was he very articulate, he also had an emotional understanding of one of humanity’s greatest journeys – that of being a parent.
Nowadays many people come up to me to tell me how much the show has meant to them. Also they always want to tell me about how much that backstage scene meant to them. I could give you many examples that often made me cry as I walked through cities and towns in Ireland, but one really stands out. Recently I was in Dún Laoghaire early in the morning, walking on the pier. This man came up to me with his young daughter. He said he just wanted to let me know how amazing the documentary was and how much it had touched him. He then told me how great he thought my dad was. It always hits me deep when dads come up to me and say this. So I watched as he walked away with his little daughter. They were playing together as they walked, and he looked so happy. I thought about what it meant to so many dads who perhaps at times see the sacrifices they are making for their kids and lament the life they had when they had more freedom. I know that what my dad said reminded them that in the end the sacrifice is worth it. Because my dad said all this, knowing he was about to die. These were the things that mattered to him in the end. All his regrets were washed away by the love and gratitude of his family.
Dads always make me cry these days.
My dad never let go of his vanity. I showed him and my mother the documentary months before it was broadcast. It was just the three of us watching. It’s always a bit tense, watching with your family something you have made, and it’s particularly tense when the thing you have made is about them. But I was happy with their reaction.
A still from the documentary, showing my parents in a waiting room at the hospital. It was weird watching them watch themselves.
Fifteen minutes passed and my dad waited patiently to discuss with me what he thought. Of course his mind was poisoned with fear about what other people would think rather than what he thought himself, but he managed to get together the words he wanted to say:
Dad: So, are you happy with it?
Me: Yes, I am very happy with it. What do you think?
Dad [big pause]: Yes, I am very happy with my performance.
Me [hiding my laughter]: Great.
Dad: Yes, I think I come across very well.
&nbs
p; Me: Yes, you come across great.
Dad: But there is one thing. When I came out of the radiation dressing room with my hospital pyjamas on and say, ‘For Brutus was an honourable man,’ that’s from Shakespeare. I was joking because the pyjamas looked like a toga.
Me: Yeah, I know; it was a good one. I love that bit.
Dad: But I don’t think the audience got it.
Me: I think they will.
Dad: But they didn’t laugh.
Me: Who didn’t laugh?
Dad: The audience.
Me: What audience? We are the audience. We did not film your radiation appointment in front of a live studio audience. Trust me: it’s funny, don’t worry.
There are bits in the documentary taken from the show where there was an audience, so it must have been killing him that my live stand-up bits were getting laughs and there was no laughter for the rest of it. The poor fellow must have been tormented watching the thing, worrying why no one was laughing at his funny bits. I thought it was hilarious.
He watched it again after that and he really fell in love with it. He became very happy with his ‘performance’. I did not have the heart to tell him it was not a performance; he was just very happy with himself.
This is the story of our lives – my dad’s and mine. We are performers. We love an audience. We love to share our experiences with others. At times it seems we need instant validation. I craved attention from a really early age, and at times it got me in some trouble. It has not always been a positive force in my life, and when I look at my dad’s life I could not say it was a positive force in his life either.
