I can't quite believe it but I am off to Montreal tomorrow. I have been so busy with getting old and trying to come up with jokes about getting old that I hadn't thought about the impending "Just for Laughs" (juste pour rire -gotta get used to being bilingual) festival. They saw the show in Edinburgh and asked me to come along and take part in the "Best of British" show, which means I will be doing 12 minutes alongside such notables as Frank Skinner and Jimmy Carr. Though it will be hard to think what I can do in such a short slot, it will be cool to only have to work for a fifth of an hour a day, and so I might treat this as the much needed holiday I need.
I have been to the Festival twice before in the mid to late nineties, when Stew and me did the TV coverage of the event for Paramount, and it was two of the busiest weeks of my career. We got up at six every morning to go and film until six in the evening (cramming in links and interviews as the budget was so small) and then went out to do a gig or two most nights, before heading back to the hotel to drink. I don't remember much about it and I can only have been getting three or four hours sleep a night. I saw almost nothing of the city, apart from one sex supermarket, and what was visible from the roof of the Delta Hotel, where we filmed a few sketches.
I didn't really like it back then. It seemed to be an industry thing and there were too many actors who had worked out 7 minutes of material in the hope of landing a part in a sit-com, who would do their set like a little play, moving around the stage in exactly the same way, using the exact same script, being unable to improvise and even starting jokes again with an "excuse me" when they made a mistake! One night there was a power cut as Stew and me came on stage and people were flabberghasted that we managed to ad lib our way through two or three minutes of darkness and no amplification.
I think I was also a bit jealous that Stew was getting to do his solo act, or maybe more worried that he would be discovered and whisked off to America, leaving me in the lurch. It very nearly happened - I wonder what would have become of him if he'd done a big US sitcom or something - and we did end up writing a pilot script for Fox (or someone), though nothing came of it.
I may be disenchanted again this time, but for the moment I am looking forward to it. I am not going with the expectation of becoming the kooky neighbour or someone's butler in a sit-com, but am actually flattered to have had my stand up noticed and be able to do a bit along side some great Brit comics. I will try to have fun and not be overwhelmed by the business side of things. I am going just for laughs in whatever language you want to say it and hopefully that's what I will have and what I will hear.
So today, slightly dazed and disbelieving I packed my suit-case and got my stuff together for an early start. There will be an extra five or six hours in my day tomorrow and I am ending it with a gig in a club somewhere on the outskirts of town. I will have to work out what I am actually going to do on the plane over. Not like me to leave it to the last minute.
No doubt, as long as they have the internet in Canada, I will be able to keep you updated. And if I don't come back it's because I will be playing some terrible English stereotype on the next episode of Joey.
