Road Trip!
I was gigging on the Isle of Wight tonight, which is as good as going abroad, meaning not only a drive, but a ride on a ferry. How exciting.
Though the trip started with a bit of a downer when I put my sat nav on my windscreen with a bit too much force and somehow managed to crack the windscreen glass. Luckily I could still see to drive, but it was annoying to have incurred yet more expense in a week of mishaps. And this time there was not going to be a routine in it. Although the crack looked almost like a little cartoon man, all fuzzy in the middle, with antennae and long arms and legs and as I drove along looking at it I wondered if there was a childrens' story in a little shiny man who lived only in the cracks in windows. Might be a bit scary. But good to see my determination to find something positive in every negative. This time, luckily, most of the expense is covered by insurance. And I feel like some kind of Incredible Hulk for breaking a windscreen with what was little more than a tap. That mugger was lucky to escape. I could have broken his face.
It was rather retro fun to be on a ferry. It felt like being back in the 1970s (probably only because that was about the last time I was on one - with a car at least - maybe early 80s to be fully accurate). But the experience was kept real by there being a large number of French school kids aboard as well as grey faced pensioners. I remarked that it was like a floating service station. The clientelle was remarkably similar, but maybe that is just what the British public look like when they get together: colourless, unhappy and dull.
The ferry moved slowly and rain drizzled down from the concrete sky. I had the overwhelming urge to throw my new iPhone into the waves. Luckily I fought against it. What is it that drives the mind to such madness?
If the ferry was 1970s then the Isle of Wight itself felt like it was trapped in the fifties, partly because it seemed that few big name shops had bothered to open branches there and maybe, like many seaside towns and mainland tourist attractions, it was about fifty years ago that it had its heyday and thus little renovation had gone on since then. The Winter Gardens where we were playing was equally retro.
I even got nostalgic with my dinner and had fish and chips, which was a reminder of those days thirty odd years ago when British food was made of fat and stodge and when this was the biggest possible treat. I think I had chosen a bad shop to visit as the fish seemed undercooked and the batter unbelievably thick and tasteless, but it made for an authentic recreation of the slightly miserable childhood days sitting by the sea, the sky thick with clouds, eating unpleasant slimy food. It made me feel sick.
I had feared that the audience was a bit too mixed to fully enjoy my show, fearing the more risque jokes and the narrative structure of the show might bore them. But despite the wide age range of the crowd (from some boys in their early teens to middle aged and respectable looking ladies) the acts in the first half all went down superbly. It's another recommend for the Fringe and what's more you can see them for free in a show called
It's got jokes in. I was pleased to see that the filthier jokes went down well with the audience and although I had considered giving them a more general set, decided that I shouldn't be so judgemental and did the preview show. And it went well. The three young boys walked out shortly after a bit about paedophilia and I conjectured that that was what had upset them "That directly affects us, that's not on," or alternatively they were bored as I was the only act thus far without breast - or at least my breasts are not that appealing. In honesty I think it might have been passed their bed times!
I greatly enjoyed the show though and correctly surmised that there might be some right wing and racist Little Englanders on this island. "I've a feeling that some of the people here actually envy the Channel Islands their Nazi occupation," I suggested. The mixture of laughter and dissent made me think I'd hit a nerve.
But the crowd seemed to appreciate the fact that we'd come over to perform and it feels like they don't get that many acts over here - the theatre staff had excitedly told one of the acts that Jimmy Tarbuck had once been in the dressing room we were in. Which with all due respect to Mr "hardest job in the world" Tarbuck is not that much to write home about.
It had been fun to travel back in time.
