Suspicious Minds

Today I was nearly kidnapped. For reasons I won’t go into, I had been shunted from Hove to Brighton and back to Hove by Brighton & Hove City Council. Having walked miles and miles in the blistering heat I was sent to an office in Kemp Town (just outside Brighton) only to find, again, that I’d been sent to the wrong place. I should, in fact, have been at Brighton City Hall. Now, without being rude, I explained to the man in the Kemp Town Office that I’d been sent to numerous incorrect offices and thought the council service was poor (bear in mind I’ve actually worked for the council for over a year and know how shit they are). Just as I was leaving to return to Brighton City Hall a man who had overheard me interrupted.

“I can give you a lift, if you want?” he said.

I was hot and annoyed so didn’t really think about what I was saying so I just thanked the man and accepted the offer.

“I’ll only be a couple of minutes,” the man continued, “I’ve just got some business to finalise”.

So I sat next to the man in the waiting area and we began chatting. He was a tall, broadly built man – much bigger than myself – who spoke in a deep booming voice. He began telling me how he’d been evicted from his council house without notice and that council workmen had smashed up furniture which he had bought.

“But I filmed it all. I filmed ‘em doing it. Got the date and time on it and everything. And I’ve still got the receipts for the furniture. There’s nowt they can do.”

Suddenly I started thinking. Why had I accepted the invitation to get in a car with a complete stranger?! Not only a complete stranger, but someone who was much bigger than me and enjoyed filming things being smashed up. How foolish I had been! Never trust people, Dan. That’s the first rule of civilised society. Keep yourself to yourself. Keep your head down and try not to attract attention. But what had I done? I’d done the exact opposite. Firstly, I’d been overheard by a stranger. Then I’d spoken to a stranger. And very soon I was about to get into their car and be driven to Godknowswhere. If I wasn’t careful, this stranger was dangerously close to becoming an acquaintance. I had even sat down next to him – there was no getting away now. And then I started to panick. What if the guy’s a complete nutter? What if he kidnaps me and takes me to a secluded old warehouse and abuses me? He might cut me up into little bits and send them to my parents. But what could I do? What’s worse than being kidnapped, tortured and murdered? Well, being rude. I couldn’t just come out and say to this person “oh sorry, I don’t want a lift actually because I’m scared of you”. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. There was, after all, a small chance that he was perfectly normal.

In the end, I opted for the safe option.

“Are you waiting to see someone?”

Brilliant, I thought. He’ll say that he’s waiting for someone then I’ll be able to say I’m in a rush a beat a hasty retreat.

“Yeah, but to be honest I don’t need to I’ve got the footage”

Shit, I thought. He turned to the receptionist.

“Tell Mr Robinson I don’t need to see him. He’ll be hearing from my solicitor.”

And with that, the tall stranger stood up and left the office. I followed him out into the hot afternoon sun and approached the car. I had to be on my best behaviour now. Don’t antagonise him, Dan. Just agree with what he says.

“Sorry, it’s a bit messy in here,” he said as I slipped into the passenger seat. I laughed. Loud. Too loud really. Could he tell I was scared? But what does a psychopath care if you’re scared? They probably like that. The problem would be if he’s a borderline psycho and all he needs is some terrified person in his passenger seat to push him over the edge. I had to act. Quickly, make a friendly remark, I thought.

“Haha, don’t worry about the mess – you should she my bedroom!” Why did I say that? What a stupid thing to do. Not only had I got into his car but I’d invited him back to my place!

He laughed and pulled out of the carpark.

“Where do you want to be? I’ll just drop you by the Pier shall I?” he said. Very clever. That’s right, lull me into a false sense of security before you butcher me. I clung onto my seat belt and began wondering how I could break free of this metallic fortress. Foot through the windscreen? Elbow through the window? He might smother me too quickly.

We drove slowly along the front, passing a pub.

“Ah, The Legend. Great pub! You ever been there?” he said.

“No,” I replied.

“Used to spend a lot of time in there when I was younger.” Damn, I thought. Bring in some witty banter, Dan. Break the atmosphere of fear.

“Haha, propping up the bar, I guess?”

“Yeah, shouldn’t really talk about it though, I used to have a bit of a drink problem. Well, not a bit, it was quite serious really.”

No! I was stuck in a car with an alcoholic nutter who was going to rip off my balls and feed them back to me. What a way to go! All I’d wanted to do was pay my council tax! Just as I was about to barge open the door and roll into the road, the stranger pulled the car into the verge and popped the doors.

“Here OK for you?”

“Yes, great ,“ I said, “thanks very much for the lift. Bye”.

He drove off and I wandered up to the City Hall. I felt ashamed. Why had I been so suspicious? Why had I thought the worse of someone? And why can’t people do a nice deed without being accused of being a psychopathic murderer?

Dan

Brighton Fringe: From Washout to Sell-out

A week is a long time in politics. It’s even longer if you’re a Daddy Long Legs and your average lifespan is 24hrs. But in comedy, a week can be a roller coaster.

After months of writing, re-writing, cutting things out, rehearsing, putting things back in, publicising, fliering, hoping and shitting, all our hard work comes down to two gigs in one fine week in the middle of Brighton Fringe Festival. One fine week prefixed by Chris losing his voice, Pete’s inexplicable nose-bleeds and my unfortunate rash. From our point of view, the first gig was a bit of a washout. Despite hours of fliering and my ridiculous headgear we only got 13 people through the door. And most of those were people we knew. We were initially taken aback by the turnout (and I think this was reflected in our energy at the start of the show) but the material was well received, we got consistent laughter, and the delivery and performance was good. We were just pissed off that no-one was there to see it, although with the show being at 22:00 on a Tuesday we were always going to struggle for numbers (despite being comedy pick of the day in the local newspaper and the fringe email!).

The second show couldn’t have been more different to the first. Demoralised by the first show, we threw caution to the wind and gave up on fliering and rehearsing. Instead we hired our resident heavy, Jon, to force people to come and utilised the power of Facebook to network our way to success. It worked. The second show was a sell-out. More chairs had to be brought into the theatre and the show had to start late as a result. The energy levels were good all the way through, the material consistently went down well and it was much more enjoyable than the first gig. Because of the first gig we went into the second a bit more relaxed and confident which allowed us to play around with the material a bit more and ad-lib some extra material. As the gig went on, however, I think we became a little bit more self-conscious and because of this (and lighting and sound issues) we missed out a couple of sections and lines. This was really annoying as we reference them later in the show and some good material was lost.

Overall, the festival was a great experience. I think our performance was more solid in the first gig – we performed the material well and without (much) mistake but the second gig was much more enjoyable and allowed us to gauge the quality of the material more effectively. The bigger audience also allowed us to establish a better rapport and atmosphere – because of the small audience at the first gig this was very difficult. Most of all, we’ve got a better idea of what works and what doesn’t in the show. We’re playing around with the material a lot more now which means we’re writing new bits and improving sections. The familiarity also means the performance is getting better. But there’s still a long way to go before Edinburgh. The show will be further road tested in Manchester, London and Brighton before then. It’ll be polished, refined and tweaked but rest assured we’ll return infantile, silly and slightly obscene.

Dan

Dan's a Head Case

We’ve recently been flyering for our Brighton Fringe show. Due to the greed of Brighton & Hove City Council it’s now compulsory to buy a pass to flyer. This means that all the small productions (like ourselves) can’t afford to buy a pass because we’ve already forked out on venue hire, fringe registration, entry into the brochure, costumes, posters and fliers. Conversely, all the big productions and commercial outlets can afford to buy passes. The whole point of the pass system is to reduce litter but, when the biggest culprits have always been big productions and commercial outlets and these can continue to flyer at their will, how the fuck is that fair? It creates a two-tier system. The big shows will get bigger because they can publicise more and the small shows will get swallowed up. It undermines the whole definition of an ‘arts’ and a ‘fringe’ festival.

Anyway, there is a small window of opportunity to flyer for free. This opportunity falls during Fringe City on each Saturday during the festival. With three Saturdays and 2, 500 flyers that’s 833.33333333333333 flyers per day! However, due to the restrictions, every other show in the world is out flyering. Therefore, we needed something different to distinguish us from the crowd. We needed something unique yet attractive. We needed something distinct yet inviting. In short, we needed something that makes me look like a bell-end. And so we came up with this:
I originally had the idea when I was pretending to be a beekeeper by putting my washing basket on my head. The idea soon evolved from a beekeeping costume into a PR machine. It has garnered much interest in our show and one person even called me ‘block head’. I’m not sure if that’s bullying or not. The only drawback to my magnificent headdress (apart from being precarious during even slight winds) is the craterous indentations it leaves on my forehead. This can be painful and has caused my forehead to start peeling. But the positives outweigh the negatives. For anyone interested, I will be holding workshops throughout the 2009 Fringe on how to make these head cases.

Dan