Tonky Talk

Paul finds himself running home… from work!

As a stand-up comedian, it’s hard to describe the difficulties of the last year. Compared with many, of course, I’ve been lucky. It’s been more of an existential threat, a collapse of meaning. Stand-up can seem flighty from a distance, but there is a structure to it – the working week is, essentially, gigs from Thursday to Saturday, often involving long journeys, late nights and early mornings. It’s nowhere near as arduous as a normal job, but the loss of it has been difficult for me and left me questioning myself even more than usual: who am I if

I’m not doing stand-up? The performer has been dormant, that strange quirk of my personality that propels me to get up in front of strangers and make them laugh. It’s an odd thing to do with your life, and a choice that many stand-ups have found left them unemployable in other fields. As we started the new year, I urgently felt the need for something to do. I wanted to feel useful.

So I sought out structure – a volunteering job and, for the first time in 30 years, working nine to five. The last time I had a job was in the early 1990s, as a delivery boy for Harrods. I lived at Harlesden, the job paid £110 a week, rent was £60, money was tight. Every morning, I’d hop over the live tracks at Willesden station and jump on the tube into Knightsbridge. By the time I clocked in I’d be a nervous wreck. Thirty years later I’m helping out with Covid response at a hospital in London.

For the first week or so, I am semi-intoxicated with the novelty. It’s great to have a reason to get up in the morning, I like my workmates and I’m learning every day. Because I’m out of my comfort zone, drinking midweek is out of the question, so my mind is sharper. I’m also on my feet a lot more and I soon feel the weight coming off. My legs are firmer. A full day leaves me tired but satisfied.

There are some runners in my department, so after a few days I run home with a workmate. It’s about four miles back, mostly flat through the city streets, weaving from Euston up to Archway and then into Crouch End, a nice way to unwind from a day’s work. A manageable distance but it adds up; you can get a good sweat on. The next day, I run in and have a shower at work. A revolution is taking place. I have never run that early in the morning. In two weeks, I lose half a stone. My running is changing, I’m moving better, lighter over the ground. The runs home are getting faster and the tempo of my cadence naturally increases.

Don’t get me wrong; although I’m only dipping my toe in the work environment, I’m getting a glimpse of how hard it can be. The commute, the relentlessness of daily work, that draining feeling. But at the end of the second week, after a fairly hard day at work, when my incompetence has become glaringly obvious, there is still a dignity to it. An honest day’s work for an honest day’s reward. Another week ticked off and the weekend is opening up before me. After I get home, shower and come downstairs, I am exhausted from the week. My head buzzes with a strange tension, my legs feel like lead but I am strangely elated. The relief of a Friday evening.

I take the dog for a walk to de-stress and, all of sudden, I find myself singing and don’t stop for a good half an hour. I’m so relieved to be finally living something like a normal life that I’m acting like a lunatic. After months of torpor, I feel renewed.