‘Well, no, I wasn’t, but I wish I had been.’
Another gasp.
She continued her loose, improvised monologue for another minute or two, but we were now too shocked to laugh. As she came to an end, we applauded uncertainly, then turned as one to Ivor, who was running this stand-up comedy class.
‘Thank you, Pamela. Um, very good. Yes.’
Not much seemed to faze Ivor, but it took him a moment to work out how to respond.
‘Some nice observations there. If I had any criticism, I would say that, while there are no taboos in comedy as such, the “rape” line did take us all a bit by surprise. I felt that perhaps we found it hard to laugh again after that.’
We nodded our heads in agreement.
Summer 1992. Like some of my friends, I had opted to take a year out after my A levels. Unlike my friends, however, many of whom were travelling around the world, I had decided to launch myself on the London stand-up comedy circuit.
My teenage passion for performing had continued unabated. The year after my Edinburgh Festival experience, I’d bagged a background role in a West End play. Two years after that, at sixteen, I joined the National Youth Theatre – which mainly did Shakespeare and more serious stuff than the NYMT.
In the National Youth Theatre I had met a funny guy called David Williams, who was a few years older than me. (I’ll tell you more about that later, of course.) David and his friend Jason Bradbury were doing ‘open spots’ on the comedy circuit – unpaid five-minute slots for aspiring acts – and I’d follow them around. Sometimes they went down a storm; other times you could almost see the tumbleweed – but I thought they were hilarious and I dreamed of being a stand-up comic too.
Ivor Dembina’s stand-up comedy course was incredibly helpful. Not only did we get to write and test out routines on each other, building them up week by week, but Ivor also taught us how the alternative comedy circuit worked: no sexist, racist or homophobic material, don’t go over your time, don’t nick anyone’s gags and don’t badmouth other acts because you don’t know who’s friendly with who.
The only sticking point was that I had an idea for a character that I wanted to try out, but Ivor wouldn’t let me. His reasoning was that we should be ourselves onstage. I was happy to do that on the course, but I knew that, as soon as I was playing the circuit itself, I would appear in character.
There were a few character comedians on the circuit and they were always my favourites to watch. As much as I enjoyed the observational comics, I had no desire at all to be one. I didn’t want to walk out and do gags about being bald and I didn’t have a girlfriend to talk about. I wanted to perform – to show off – but I wanted to do it in the guise of someone else.
And I had a character in mind – well, not really a character, more just a silly voice at that stage. Throughout my childhood I would both entertain and ultimately rile my mum and brother by doing silly voices. I’d often fixate on one and then get consumed by it for weeks. For a time I couldn’t stop being Jack Wild in Oliver! After I returned from the Edinburgh Festival I was Miss Jean Brodie.
‘Okay, that’s enough now!’ Mum would say, her patience wearing thin once again, especially if I was supposed to be studying for my bar mitzvah or mowing the lawn.
I had been a massive fan of Harry Enfield and had loved a spoof South Bank Show documentary he’d made, called Norbert Smith – A Life. Enfield played the subject – formerly the defining young actor of his generation, rather like Lord Olivier, and now a sweet, befuddled old man.
There were various interviewees in the film – characters who had supposedly worked with Sir Norbert and who shared their recollections. One of them – played by Moray Watson – was called Sir Donald Stuffy, seemingly a nod to a couple of other famous theatrical Donalds: Sinden and Wolfit. During his scenes he told long-winded anecdotes and appropriated the names of other actors. For instance, Dame Anna Neagle became ‘Dame Anna Neagly Weagly’ and Rex Harrison was ‘Rexipoo Harrison’. He was the ultimate ‘luvvie actor’ and even though he only appeared onscreen for a minute or two, my brother Howard and I thought he was the funniest thing in the show.
I’d impersonate all the characters in the programme, but whenever I did Sir Donald Stuffy’s voice it seemed to amuse Howard the most. I did it so often that it wasn’t long before I stopped quoting lines from the programme and started using him as a vessel for my own jokes instead.
Gradually I built up a biography for the character – shows he’d been in, his friends, his agent, where he lived, until it felt like my own. Howard proposed the name Sir Bernard Chumley, which stuck.
If Ivor wasn’t too sure about me appearing in character – at least, on his course – my mother had greater concerns. If I was going to be taking a break from full-time education and still living at home, I’d need to be contributing towards my upkeep. I couldn’t argue with that and I knew it would probably be a long time before I’d be getting paid to perform, so I started to look for a day job.
Previously, while doing my A levels, I’d added to my pocket money by working as a babysitter. I didn’t get much work – most parents told me that they would rather have a girl minding their children – but after I placed an advert in the synagogue magazine, one couple, Clive and Michelle Pollard, contacted me and I started looking after their kids on a Saturday evening.
Clive manufactured and imported football merchandise – like those mini-kits you see in car windows – and had the contract to sell his wares at Wembley Stadium and in various football club shops. He had also just won the contract to run the shop at Chelsea Football Club. I was Arsenal through and through, but, keen to fund my stand-up career, give my mum some money and aware that jobs were hard to come by in the recession-hit Britain of 1992, I asked Clive for a job.
‘We’re looking for an assistant manager,’ he said.
‘Yeah, I can do that.’
‘You’re only eighteen.’
‘Well, I’m old enough to be trusted with your kids,’ I replied. He said it was a good enough answer to get me a job, and so it was agreed that I would help set up the shop and work there during my year off.
The job kept me busy through the day, and during the evenings I set about launching my comedy career in earnest.
I began by writing a dreadful routine at the desk in my bedroom. The set took the form of a long, rambling theatrical anecdote about events at a party Sir Bernard had attended. He name-dropped frequently – but often got the names a bit wrong – Bruce Wallace, Mel Gibbons – and invariably I would use the name-drop simply as an excuse to do an impression of a particular celebrity – Jimmy Savile, Jim Bowen. I had no idea what I was doing and, in truth, my desire to perform and be acclaimed for it outweighed any particular comedic message I wanted to deliver.
My meteoric rise was carefully planned. I would do my first open spot at the Punchlines in West Hampstead on Saturday, 3 October 1992. I would perform the following evening at the club for open spots that Ivor had recommended – the VD Clinic (which promoter Kevin Anderson said stood for Val Doonican). And then on the Thursday night I would crush it at London’s premier venue, the Comedy Store. In less than a week I would be a star. Job done.
What confidence. What delusion. But then I was only eighteen years old.
Actually
