It has come to my attention that an alarming number of people honestly believe that from the moment comedians roll out of bed first thing in the afternoon, they sit at home twiddling their thumbs until such time as they are forced to peel themselves off the sofa and make their way to whatever comedy club their agent has scheduled them to perform at on any given evening.
Once there, they perform 20 minutes of sparkling off-the-cuff stand-up comedy before a rapt audience of at least 400 people. Their gruelling day s work done, they proceed to count the exceedingly thick wad of #20 notes they have been given as payment before consuming copious amounts of free drink and drugs with like-minded gag merchants. Suitably intoxicated, they then fall into bed with a suitably star-struck groupie that has been carefully hand-picked from the audience. Another day, another dollar.
Let me avail of this opportunity to set the record straight: these days, such perks are only enjoyed at comedy festivals.
Obviously, an exclusive band of wiseguys exists that has earned the right to spend their days in bed and their nights in a moneyed, drunken, drug-addled haze, while the rest of us mere mortals simply covet such licentiousness and aspire to it. Sadly, as in all walks of life, a certain amount of spade-work has to be put in before one can enjoy such a libertine existence.
Indeed, such is the gruelling nature of the comedy apprenticeship, that despite what they would have you believe, the most successful comedians I know are those that have eschewed the Snortian lifestyle on their way to the top, in favour of rigid self-discipline, a positively protestant work ethic and the daily grind that is essential if one harbours notions of getting on in the business they call show. A coincidence? I think not. As in all walks of life, hard work and abstinence are the keys.
Matthew Hardy, who has oft been mentioned in this column, is a classic case of the mercenary abroad done good. Six years ago, he arrived in London from Australia with enough money to last him six weeks. After a fortnight, he was broke. Today, he is still here, earning an excellent living as a regular at comedy clubs and festivals the length and breadth of Great Britain. A couple of weeks ago, he loaned me a diary he kept throughout his first year in England. It made for vastly entertaining and occasionally grim reading, chronicling, as it does, the blithe optimism which fuelled his decision to travel thousands of miles from home to a country where he knew nobody.
Then, page after page of milestones (first open-spot, first listing in Time Out, first paid gig, most awful death), mini-triumphs and spectacular failures. Then there were the long dark tea-times of the soul, when he was homesick, depressed and seriously considering packing it all in. Fortunately, he kept plugging away and eventually cracked it. He hasn t forgotten those humble beginnings, however, which would go some way towards explaining why he has bent over backwards to ensure that I don t have to endure a similar hell.
Those who assume that the stand-up s lot is a relentlessly happy one have never had to endure the soul-destroying grind of countless telephone calls spent grovelling into answering machines in an attempt to nail down gigs. They have never spent entire days at the computer screen, sweating bullets in an attempt to figure out what it is exactly that is so funny about shoes, only to air their conclusions to total silence and apathy. They have never come up with a killer gag: Why the hell did they spent three days searching the Pacific looking for JFK Jnr, finally find him, fish him out and then throw him straight back in again? , only to see Rich Hall tell it first. And then there s the train journeys. My God, the train journeys.
So, next time you see a successful comedian, don t envy his lifestyle and begrudge him his 365 lie-ins a year. After all, nobody forced you to get up early, put on a suit and travel daily to an office you have no interest in being in. No, next time you see a well known comedian, you march straight up to him, tell him you understand what he s been through and give him a big, big hug. He may well earn more money than you do, have a far more interesting life than you have and meet far more interesting people than you ever will, but it wasn t always thus.
As for me? Well, for the time being I m just delighted to be on the same wavelength as Rich Hall. n