It’s night time, I’m just the right side of pissed, and I’m in a room surrounded by silence, as the man on stage slowly loses conviction in his voice, yet still soldiers on with his five minute set in the manner of a small child body popping in front a corpse hoping to get a reaction.
“I once told a girl that I’d sucked a horse’s dick for a joke…”
Nothing.
“Of course, I haven’t… sucked a horse’s dick.”
Oh God.
“… erm…”
I’m torn between shouting at him to please fuck off, or punching myself in the head enough times to ensure that I pass out.
“I mean, who’d do that?”
No one?
Like everyone else, I shift in my seat uncomfortably – he might be the one dying on stage, but the rest of us are grieving. He’s butchering comedy right in front of us.
“I’m worried that if I did do it, I might like it.”
What??
“I mean… you know… then watching the Grand National would be like watching a porn film… ”
Oh, you motherfucker! It WOULDN’T be like that at all!
“… and… kind of… a day at the races? That’d be like…”
I actually want to kill myself.
“… a porn film…”
Are you SERIOUS? You just said that about the Grand National.
“Has anyone here ever sucked a horse’s dick?”
I’m having a silent panic attack on his behalf.
I’m torn between shouting at him to please fuck off, or punching myself in the head enough times to ensure that I pass out.
“Why are you doing this to us?” shouts a loan bewildered voice from the back of the room.
Everyone finally laughs.
Heckler 1 - Comedian Dead.
Roughly one minute later off he goes to weep at the bar, and rework his dynamite joke to include a rabbit’s vagina instead. Far more plausible.
Of course, the next act comes out and smears salt into the horse’s dick by absolutely killing it - thanks mainly in part to not straining for humour with a made up story about the time he didn’t give an animal a blowjob but said that he had for no apparent reason.
Laughter restored, world back on its axis, this is the comedy night equivalent of following Meg Ryan on Parkinson with Orson Welles on the Dick Cavett Show , and it happens every day somewhere in the world.
All of which leads completely seamlessly to a short list of the best comics I’ve ever seen doing their thing in tiny upstairs rooms, grotty back rooms, and in pubs where a microphone has been clumsily erected by the fruit machines with all the grace of the Incredible Hulk dancing Swan Lake.
This is my top five (in no actual order) – all of whom have made me happier than Desert Orchid getting a blowjob from a guy suffering from comedic rigor mortis...
Tony Law
Tom Stade
Terry Alderton
Joe Wilkinson
Tim Shishodia (talking about “mortgage boys”)
* Joshua plays a very small part in running a comedy night. It’s called Interestment Presents… Get Up Stand Up, and you can find out all about it on Facebook
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