I was gigging in London Bridge tonight. I have been very tired and a little bit ill this week and wasn't feeling full of beans when I arrived and in any case am always a little bit reserved before a show, as I am mentally preparing myself for what is to come.
I went down the stairs towards the room where the gig was already in progress. There was a young woman standing at the bottom, outside of the venue. "Richard Herring! Hello!" she said brightly, as if I knew her, though I didn't recognise her. But as I get older I have got worse at remembering people, which is a bit of a curse as I am never sure when people say hello to me whether they are known to me, or just people who have recognised me from TV. I don't get recognised by strangers that much, so will generally assume I know a person who greets me.
I wondered if she was a comedian, maybe an open spot that I had worked with or possibly she worked at the venue, though if so she was new.
So I said hello back and asked her who she was. She told me and then said she was a massive fan and had taken part in the Fist of Fun illegal lottery. I thanked her for that, but was slightly discombobulated by the fact that she had greeted me with such familiarity, and worrying about the gig and making sure the people who ran it knew I was there. "Why aren't you in the room?" I asked.
"Oh I came out to get a drink and I don't want the comedian to pick on me, so I am going to wait. I have come here especially to see you."
This was all a bit full on for the first minute of arrival and looking in her eyes I worried she might be a bit crazy and obsessive (though in hindsight I think she was just much drunker than I had realised). Generally (as I hope most of you will attest) I have a lot of time for fans, even the more eccentric ones (like the Bean) and will have a chat. But then most people respect my personal space and understand that before a gig I might need some time to acclimatise and also that even after a gig I may not want to spend the whole night talking to them. But occasionally someone will want to monopolise me or not recognise that they should wait til later. I don't mind too much. I have few enough people who like me, so can't afford to upset any of them.
Anyway, I made my excuses and headed down to go into the gig, as I wanted to see the other act, even if this woman didn't. But the door wouldn't open and so I went to buy a pint of Guinness. On my return I sat just outside the room, in a little alcove where the acts generally wait. I could hear the gig as it was being relayed out into this area and saw that the door that the acts enter by was open and people were coming in and out, but didn't want to go in as I thought it might be distracting to the comic who was on. So I sat on a chair and looked through the paper to see if anything topical would spring out at me and generally prepared myself for the job ahead. I think it was clear that I needed some quiet time, but the excited woman came over and started talking to me. "I want you to know I came tonight especially to see you," she said. I thanked her, but commented that I hoped she wasn't the only one, yet she seemed to be expecting a lot from me, "And then you arrived and just walked by, when I was hoping you'd talk to me."
"I'm sorry," I said, "But I had just got here and I wanted to let people know I was here, because this is my job."
"I used to love you when you were on the telly," she told me, still not sensing that I was having some quiet time, "I entered your illegal lottery and you sent me a giant poster of you and Stew, you were wearing a striped shirt. It was a massive poster, I had it on my wall for years."
"Wow, that's quite rare," I told her, "You should probably try and sell that on ebay." I know that we had had one in our office and we'd given one to Lucy, the little girl in the Fist of Fun opening titles, but I doubted there were any others left and our one had been thrown away.
"Did you give a lot of money to the lottery?"
"About £1.50" she replied.
"Wow, you got a good deal!"
"Do you remember me?" she asked, "I used to write to you a lot."
I was getting slightly worried now that she might be about to stab me in the face with a knitting needle. "I don't think so," I replied, "We used to reply to everyone who wrote to us. There was a lot of people. Sometimes I remember names, but not always."
She seemed disappointed. In fact she was clearly disappointed by me in general. She had been a big fan of my TV show and I sensed she had been building up to this meeting, but her over-enthusiasm combined with my slight reticence meant things were not turning out as she had hoped.
"I haven't seen any of your stuff for about eight years, but I used to love your TV show," and then she started listing some of the things that were on the show.
Again, I can take a certain amount of this and it is lovely that people remember that old stuff, but I also remember it and so hearing a list of old sketches is not that interesting to me. And I was trying to prepare for the show. The new show. That was happening now. Not a decade ago. And pre-gig I was not in the mood to be sociable.
"What are you doing now?" she asked.
"I am just looking through the paper to see if there's anything topical for the show. And just trying to relax and get into the right frame of mind."
"Oh right, well I had better leave you to it," she said a little deflated.
"I'll be around after the gig, but just at the moment I need to focus," I tried to explain, feeling pretty shitty that I was not living up to the image that this girl had of me.
But I was quite relieved that she had gone.
It sounded like the gig was going a bit awry, the comedian not getting much off the audience and having to deal with people coming in and out. His exasperation was obvious and I slightly worried about how things were going to go for me. But I tried to lose myself in my paper.
The woman came back, "I know you want to be on your own," she said, "But I really want to talk to you. I have come her to see you, you know."
"Yes, I know."
"And I am such a big fan."
I realised that I wasn't going to get the peace I craved and reluctantly started talking to the woman again, now more worried that she might not leave me alone all evening, but still not wanting to appear ungrateful for her support. But I felt like she felt that I owed her, because of her support for my work almost a decade ago. We had a stilted conversation for a few minutes. I explained how I was doing new material tonight and that it might not all be brilliant, but hoped that she'd like it as much as she clearly enjoyed my TV work. Then the first half of the gig ended and the hosts and the other comedian came out and so naturally I said hello to them and asked them how things were going. The woman, I am guessing aggrieved at what she perceived as a snub, drifted off.
So soon enough it was time for me to go on. The woman had bought a bottle of rose wine to drink with her friend (and I think we can presume that more had been drunk before this one) and gave me a little thumbs up as she passed as if to say she was looking forward to seeing me again after all this time. Her and her friend were sitting in the front row.
So I got going with my new material and though there was a bit of an odd atmosphere in the room most of it was going well. It starts with my quicker jokes, some silly, some slightly satirical, some about being old, before moving on to a deconstruction of two crude T-shirt slogans. I was about 15 minutes into the set, when I became aware of this woman (my biggest fan) and her friend talking quite loudly. I thought that that was a bit off, but ignored it for the moment. And then unexpectedly both women got up and made for the door. I was flabberghasted. This woman who had made such a big deal of being a fan and coming especially to see me was leaving a quarter of the way into the show. Had I been that much of a disappointment?
The bottle of rose, it should be noted, had already been completely drained and I realised now how drunk the woman had been (which made a lot more sense of things). I expressed surprise at this turn around in allegiances, but the woman was out of the door. Her friend, however, turned round and said, "It's just cock jokes, it's a shame to come out and see someone still doing cock jokes."
I joked back that they were coming to a comedy club and maybe this shouldn't have been such a surprise, but also that I hadn't actually done all that many cock jokes and that the stuff I was doing was if anything deconstructing cock jokes. But I did add that it was probably just as well they left as there was loads more about cocks coming up - the show, like much of my work (and life) has an unhealthy obsession with sex.
But ultimately I couldn't believe that I had managed to turn a fan into someone who walked out of my gig quite so rapidly. Whilst I think my persona is different now than the Lee and Herring Herring, it's not as if I was refined and unobsessed by sex back then. In fact at least I have moved on from the material in which was almost all about me having sex with various animals.
But it was an unexpected turnaround, which I could now share with the audience. To think I had been slightly concerned that she might not leave me alone, but in fact she hadn't even been able to bear sitting through the whole show. Perhaps she was stung by the fact that I had not been as friendly as she had hoped, perhaps my act had changed so significantly as to be an abhorrence to her now, perhaps talk of anal sex and oral sex was too much for them or perhaps she was just too drunk to be able to listen properly. But I found the whole thing both hilarious and unsettling. I ad-libbed a good five minutes about it, not knowing if the whole episode reflected badly on me or her.
But it's sad to be a disappointment to someone who once liked me that much. Because if this story came from her POV I am sure you'd get a very different perspective of it all.
On the plus side, for the rest of you, there should be a giant and rare Lee and Herring poster becoming available on ebay pretty soon I guess.
