This is from Chortle which I think we have a permanent link to below.
Rowan Campbell, quite a funny guy according to Tom, gives his account of going to play the Gong Show at the Comedy Store in merry old London:
“Left the little white croft house, up the driveway, turned right opposite the church. Passed the wee hall, 200 yards up passed the two houses, drove three miles on the track past salt-licking sheep to the haunted house then 12 miles to Ulsta where I just had time to grab a six pack of McEwans export, and a Shetland Times, before I boarded the ferry to Toft.
Waited 8 hours then got the bus to Lerwick. Luckily the weather was just fine enough for the Northlink ferry to sail and 12 hours later I was in Aberdeen from where National Express carried me to Victoria 36 hours later. Got to the Comedy Store, got on stage and then GONG.
Turned round and went home.”
I wouldn’t play the Comedy Store if my life depended on it and why? Well, I didn't get into comedy to be a piece of meat chucked at baying dogs.
If some bunch of over the hill performers want to pretend that this kind of experience "toughens you up" and is in some way beneficial to a young performer they can trot on, but for me its not even remotely what comedy is about.
Treating people like that is unbelievably arrogant and having a club where that sort of thing is routine strikes me as Caligulan decadence at its very worst.
Yes, no one is forced up there I suppose but isn’t it odd (and silly) that comedy seems to be the only art form where the very opposite of nurturing new talent is the norm?
No wonder TV producers are frequently going on about the dearth of new comedy talent.
To his (partial) credit Alan A’s Gong Show offers £100 as the prize; but it's money for being a jester to a baying mob - no one's offering that money for proper inventive entertaining comedy - it's like going 3 rounds with a boxer at an old style Circus. Its bear baiting.
How about giving us a ton to promote an original sketch show, with new stuff every month? Or am I just talking crazy?
But the excitement of Gong Shows has nothing to do with the possibility of discovering anything good or innovative, it's the whiff of blood in the air. You'd get exactly the same sort of crowd if you were hanging the poor buggers.
2 comments:
He is very funny, 'pish. I saw him a couple of times last year at Red Raw in Edinburgh when he was just starting out. He was always the best act on. I also caught him at Red Raw in Glasgow where he had a show-stealing set, largely centred around Michael Jackson (it's funnier than it sounds). I had no idea he lived so remotely, however.
I agree with you about Gong Shows, by the way.
Nic
To be honest although he was one of the few funny acts on a dreadful bill that night in Glasgow I thought Clare's act took the show.
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