Life and Laughing: My Story (30 page)

I may have been struggling at this time in my life, but I was gathering material for my later career in television. After my
Would I Lie to You?
tale, our next car, a white Austin Metro Princess that set me back £395, provided me with several stories for my
Top Gear
interview in 2009. The petrol gauge was broken, so I had to check the milometer and mentally calculate the miles per gallon to know when I needed to refuel. This worked pretty well until the milometer broke as well. Then I had to drive along guessing how many miles I had driven and then calculate the miles per gallon. This worked less well. Needless to say I ran out of petrol several times and spent a lot of time filling up my jerrycan at petrol stations. The first time it happened, I didn’t have a jerrycan and totally forgot that they were called jerrycans. I said to the petrol station attendant, ‘I need a … oh what’s it called? A … you know … thing you put petrol in …’

And the attendant said, ‘Car?’

The closest I got was ‘petrol suitcase’. Jeremy Clarkson and the
Top Gear
audience all had a good laugh at the nightmare that was my life at the time.

But, for all our financial woes, Kitty and I were happy, deliriously happy together and in love. We lived on the philosophy that ‘love is all you need’, until the bailiffs knocked on the door and refused to take ‘love’ as payment. Then we realized we would also need some cash. My stand-up ‘career’ was not providing any. I made the semi-finals of the ‘So You Think You’re Funny?’ competition after the performance that Kitty had witnessed. But I did not make the final, let alone win it. I continued to do the occasional new-act night, but they were so few and far between that I had little chance of improving. I also suffered terribly with nerves. At the beginning it was new and exciting and I had the excuse of being a novice. But now there was so much at stake, and with every failure my dream of being a stand-up comedian was moving further away and the reality of becoming a supervisor at Dial-a-Mobile was moving closer.

20

My fellow new acts were beginning to make an impact in the industry, something I was simply not threatening to do. Hannah Chambers, who gave me my first gig at the Comedy Café, was moving into management. She saw all the new acts walking through her doors and was picking the best ones. She was, and still is, excellent at talent-spotting. Her initial picks from the open-mike nights were Daniel Kitson and Jimmy Carr. I asked her if she would consider me, but despite being encouraging, she simply wasn’t interested.

The truth is, I wasn’t very good. I couldn’t compete with Jimmy and Daniel. Daniel was honest and open and naturally funny, and Jimmy had wonderfully written material. I was naturally funny, but didn’t know how to replicate this onstage, and my material was average. If I were an agent, I wouldn’t have represented me. There’s a comedy website called Chortle; it’s an online bible for British stand-ups and is extraordinarily comprehensive. I knew it was only a matter of time before the site reviewed me and checked every day. When I saw my name on the front page of the website in the ‘Latest Reviews’ section, I nearly vomited with nerves. I wanted a career in stand-up, and here was the first clue as to whether that was possible. As upsetting and deflating as it was at the time, the review was accurate. It ended with: ‘Michael McIntyre is the equivalent of a Marks & Spencer pullover. Dependable and durable, but nothing to get excited about.’

I was devastated. I was so desperate for an endorsement, for somebody to see that I was talented. But the reality was that comedians were becoming successful around me, and I was being roundly dismissed. I showed it to Kitty, who was typically positive and wise: ‘What’s wrong with you, Michael? Not only is this just one person’s opinion, it’s not a bad review. Marks & Spencer is quality. You’ve seen the adverts, “This is not just any chicken, this is M&S chicken, the finest, most succulent, tender, juicy chicken.” That’s you, the best.’

‘The best chicken?’ I said.

‘No, comedian. You’re not just any comedian.’

‘No,’ I resisted, ‘that’s the food. Marks & Spencer’s food is the best, the clothes are average. I wouldn’t be upset if I had been compared to a Marks & Spencer smoked salmon parcel, but I wasn’t. I was compared to a pullover. The food is special, but the clothes are boring.’

‘Nonsense, Michael,’ Kitty retorted, ‘Marks & Spencer stands for quality, whether it be the clothes or the food. Everyone loves M&S and everyone is going to love you. Plus, you’re wearing an M&S pullover right now.’

She had a good point, but it was by no means the review of someone who was destined for the top. Kitty believed in me, but nobody else did, until I performed an open spot at a very small club called the Laughing Club in a pub called the Albany in Twickenham. The club was run by comedy enthusiast Adrian Rox. It was a small function room with about fifty people in the audience, and I didn’t think it went particularly well.

The following day Kitty’s parents, Simon and Alexandra, were visiting our humble abode for dinner. We were sitting in the kitchen/diner/toilet on plastic garden furniture I’d bought from Homebase and eating Tesco value cornflakes. The phone rang, and I excused myself and went to the living room to pick it up. ‘Hello, welcome to Dial-a-Mobile. Are you calling about the new Nokia, sorry, hello?’

It was Adrian Rox from the Laughing Club, and he offered me my first paid gig, in Liverpool. I ran into the kitchen but Kitty wasn’t there.

‘Where’s Kitty?’ I said to Simon and Alexandra, breathless with excitement.

‘She’s in the loo,’ Alexandra said.

‘I’m here, darling,’ Kitty said, from the loo, just a few feet from us, ‘I can hear you.’

‘I just got a paid gig,’ I announced, beaming from ear to ear. ‘One hundred pounds!’

I couldn’t believe I was going to be paid for something that I had been doing for free for so long. The fee didn’t include accommodation. We found a B&B in Liverpool for £30, and the petrol there and back cost £80. The £100 is of course taxed at about 20 per cent. So after my first paid gig I ended up owing £30.

The gig was unremarkable, and for only a handful of Liverpudlians; however, Adrian subsequently asked me if I wanted to host his Twickenham club. He thought I was good at talking to the audience and could jovially move the show along. I enjoyed hosting – there was less pressure on me to be funny. I could relax and get useful stage time between acts. I jumped at the chance. This meant that every Saturday night I was the compere.

I had developed about ten minutes of material that was working at the Laughing Club week in, week out. My year-long wait for my open spot at Jongleurs Camden was now nearly over, and I was well prepared. When I had played the Comedy Store the previous year with such mixed fortunes, I was so raw, I had no idea what I was doing. Now I had an act. I had jokes that I had performed every week for months, and they worked. I felt confident this time. I called them to confirm my booking, on my Dial-a-Mobile Nokia 3310 off-peak using my free minutes, and to my horror they told me they had given my spot to someone else.

‘Why?’ I asked frantically, having waited a year.

‘We didn’t have your number,’ the lady from Jongleurs said.

‘That’s because I’ve changed phone. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep my old number with my new Nokia 3310, but I did get free weekend calls, 400 free minutes per month and a free in-car charger. I need this open spot – I’ve been waiting a year for it.’

‘We tried for ages to get hold of you,’ she said nicely, ‘but nobody knows who you are. Nobody has ever heard of you. We presumed you weren’t doing stand-up any more. I’ll see what I can do.’

She was lovely and squeezed me back on to the bill. The incident made me more determined. I had no standing in the industry whatsoever. Over a year had passed since my first gig, and nobody knew who I was.

It was Saturday night, the best night of the week for comedy. Friday nights can be a bit rowdy, the audience have been working all week and tend to drink too much. But on a Saturday night people are relaxed and in a good mood. I was too. I had been getting laughs with my jokes from an audience of about fifty people in my Twickenham club. Now I had an audience of five times that, so I figured I should get five times the number of laughs. This was simple mathematics, a welcome change from working out how much petrol I had in the car.

I was due on in the second half, so I settled back and watched the acts in the first half. These were well-known circuit comics who made a decent living from stand-up. Watching them gave me more confidence. They were getting a terrific response, but I felt that my jokes were just as good.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Michael McIntyre.’ I strode purposefully on to the stage hell-bent on making sure that in ten minutes’ time Jongleurs wouldn’t have to phone around to find out who I was.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t want any trouble here tonight, I’m not hard, I don’t have the accent for it. When I try to sound threatening it sounds more humiliating
, I said, hamming up my posh accent.
‘Come on then, if you think you’re hard enough
.’
It sounds more like a homosexual invitation.
‘
You, me, outside now … it’s a lovely evening, let’s take this alfresco on the veranda. Do you want some? Do you want some? … Nibbles, they’re divine.
’

Comedians have traditionally made jokes about the Irish, saying they’re stupid, and I would like to say that I totally disagree with this. I’ve been to Ireland, I’ve met a lot of Irish people, I found them charming and wise. Although you can’t ignore all the evidence. The fact is they live on an island and called it Island and then spelled it wrong.

I had an amazing gig, much better than at the Comedy Store, by far the best gig I’d had so far. It was exhilarating; the audience erupted when I left the stage. I was walking on air when I returned to the tiny, quite grubby dressing room. Before I could catch my breath, the door burst open and a confident, stocky man with a hint of a Welsh accent cornered me. ‘You were good, you were really good, I think you could be the best there is. The very best, that’s how good I thought you were. Do you understand what I’m saying? You could be outstanding, unbelievably good.’

He thrust a card in my direction. It read: ‘Paul Duddridge, Artist Management’. He was an agent. This was beyond my wildest dreams for that night. I just wanted to get re-booked at Jongleurs.

‘Call me!’ he said.

I couldn’t believe it. This was momentous. I chatted to the other comedians, who all endorsed him as a top comedy agent. He wanted to be my agent. Me! I sold mobiles for a living and hosted a weekly comedy night in Twickenham for fifty people. I’m moving into the big time.

I raced home in my Austin Metro and into Kitty’s arms, clutching the now sweaty business card.

‘It went so well, it was amazing, the best night ever, and this agent gave me his card. I think I got an agent, he said I could be the best. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy.’

I showed Kitty the business card. I loved the words ‘Artist Management’. I was an artist now. I knew it.

Kitty and I sat on the sofa in the living room (although after thirty seconds, it was a bed), talking late into the night. She told me how she never doubted me and how proud she was. Although it had seemed like a tough year, it had only been one year, that’s nothing. Watch out Jimmy Carr and Daniel Kitson, I’m coming! Hannah Chambers made a mistake turning me down, because I’m an artist, an artist with management.

I’m not a Marks & Spencer pullover, I am a Marks & Spencer smoked salmon parcel.

Within days I had a meeting with Duddridge at his offices in Barons Court. He was an amazingly impressive character with strong philosophies on the comedy business. I couldn’t really take them all in, but they all sounded wonderful. He said that if I did everything he said, I would be successful. He was like a comedy guru, a life coach, focusing on the mental side of things. He used a lot of proverbs such as ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink’, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’, ‘Act like a king to be treated like a king’, ‘Lie down with dogs and wake up with fleas’.

I couldn’t follow everything, but there was no doubt he was an inspirational orator. I felt uplifted and ready to rule the world.

‘Don’t make a decision now,’ he said ushering me out, ‘have a think about it, then call me.’

Driving home, my head was buzzing with his voice. When I got home to Kitty, I tried to remember some of the stuff he had said.

‘How did it go, Michael? Tell me everything!’ she asked, as I came through the door.

‘Well, he said lots of stuff. He’s an amazing character; he was like a motivational speaker.’

‘But can you remember anything he said?’ she pressed.

‘Err, something about a king being taken to water … and lying down with your enemies’ dogs … I don’t remember exactly.’

‘What are you talking about, Michael?’

‘He said I need to wake up and drink fleas.’

‘What?’

‘You had to be there. You’re going to love him. He’s a successful agent, he really believes in me. I’ve got to go for it, right?’

Early the next day I called him, and he became my first agent. I waited until 6 p.m., off-peak, and used my free minutes to phone in my resignation to Dial-a-Mobile, and went out for a celebratory dinner. This was the beginning. I knew it. Within days things started to change for the better. The best news of all was that I was being fast-tracked by the mighty Jongleurs empire. A combination of my successful open spot at Camden and the clout of Duddridge meant that I immediately had a whole string of gigs booked at their clubs around the country. Within months I became a jobbing comedian, performing twenty-minute sets at Jongleurs clubs in Oxford, Birmingham, Leeds, Southampton, Portsmouth, Cardiff, Nottingham – in fact, just think of a major city and there was a Jongleurs.