TOUGH GIGS AND RICH KIDS
SHORTLY after I first appeared on Have I Got News For You, I received a phone call at home. ‘Hi, is that Michael?’ asked a female voice. ‘Speaking,’ I replied. I always say, ‘Speaking’ when someone asks if it’s me on the phone. It’s so annoying. I wish I didn’t. It just pops out of my mouth automatically. Identifying yourself by describing what you’re doing at that particular moment is weird. I may as well have said, ‘Sitting’ or, ‘Scratching’. ‘My name’s Fay Clayton, we haven’t met. I work with Addison and book the corporate events. Sony want to fly you out for one in Portugal. You perform the next day and fly back the morning after. They’ve offered five thousand pounds.’ ‘Offered? Me?’ I asked, stunned. In truth I nearly fainted. I had never done a gig for five thousand pence, let alone five thousand pounds. As she was speaking, I was staring at the Sony logo on the television I got from Curry’s on a ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ deal. I’m finally going to buy this Sony TV outright, with their own money, I thought to myself. I flew to Lisbon a few weeks later. All went well on that occasion, but corporate gigs are notoriously tough. You get paid ten times more for ten times less of a response. The audience is often dominated by men who aren’t there for comedy. They are there to network, feast and drink excessively, all at the expense of their employer. I tried to adapt my act to respective events, with varying results. At the Customer Service Awards I walked on and said in a monotone voice: ‘The hosting of this award ceremony is important to me. Please wait and I will be hosting as soon as possible . . . The hosting of this award ceremony is important to me. Please wait and I will be hosting as soon as possible . . .’
Nothing. No laughs. More than a thousand people who worked in customer service didn’t get that joke and just waited patiently for me to start.
After a rocky beginning I did mostly enjoy the corporate work and I also started performing at private parties.
At the first bar mitzvah I did, I felt like one of the family. I was sitting and chatting with an 89-yearold lady who had flown over from Florida for the occasion when I was interrupted by a hilariously cocky 12-year-old boy.
‘I’m considering hiring you for my bar mitzvah. Good job tonight...on the whole,’ he said in his unbroken voice. He then held out a business card, which I took. The card just had his name and mobile phone number on it.
‘Thank you, Daniel. I hope to see you on your big day too,’ I said.
‘Maybe,’ he said, walking away. ‘There are a few others in the mix.’
I’m not sure what was the purpose of giving me his card. Surely he needed my card, not that I had one. Was I supposed to keep phoning him and inquiring whether he had made a decision about wanting me for his bar mitzvah?
Sometimes I was hired to entertain people who weren’t celebrating a special occasion. They were just so rich they couldn’t be bothered to go to a show so they paid for me to come to them.
I was once flown on to a yacht in the French Riviera to entertain a family of 12, including a three-year-old girl who sat at the front with big headphones on, watching an iPad in her pyjamas. Just before I got to my first punchline she lifted up one headphone and shouted: ‘Is it finished yet, Mummy?’