Catholic and fellow comedian, saw me do this routine was after we had only known each other for a short while, at a club downstairs in a pub in Putney in July 2005. It was the second or third time I’d tried it. She didn’t like it, andneither did a load of other people, who walked out. But we were supposed to be going out for some food, and she is nothing if not greedy, so she stayed. Afterwards, over a plate of hot offal, Bridget collected her thoughts enough to explain, rationally, what she didn’t like about the material, saved me from making a terrible professional mistake, and handed me the keys to the most well-reviewed show I have ever written.
In my early passes at the piece, the encounter with Jesus was like an assault. And sometimes I even dragged His mother into it. I vomited on him, presumably against His will, as His complicity in the incident was never addressed. In real life I was furious with the religious right for messing up my life, professionally, emotionally, physically and financially, and I wanted to take it out on their spiritual figurehead. The early attempts at this bit were just me in a bad mood, trying to wreak a hollow revenge and losing sight of any artistic discipline in a splurge of scatological abuse.
But Bridget pointed out that the real Jesus would help me in my distressed state, because that was the kind of guy He was, and that He and I had to meet each other halfway . If I was attacking Jesus, the story wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. Thus, the Jesus in my story invites me to make use of Him, as if taking upon Himself the sins of those who have driven me to this state of drunkenness, and in so doing He proves Himself a better Jesus, a better God, than the vengeful tyrant posited by the religious right who had taken issue with our deeply humane opera.
Was it possible to write something which, when reduced to its content alone, would be impossibly offensive, featuring as it did a urine- and vomit-fuelled encounter between a drunk comedian and a holy figure in a cramped toilet,and yet to write and perform it in such a way that it became tender, moving and meaningful over and above the supposed taboo nature of its content alone? Where notional ideas of offence were concerned, could one conceive a piece that proved that intent and tone and context could make something more uplifting and ennobling than it was offensive and gratuitous, despite the apparently irredeemable nature of the events it portrayed? In short, if you felt our careful, theologically rigorous and kind-hearted opera was blasphemous, well, try this on for size, you twats, and – you know what? – I will still win on points. I will make meaningful religious art out of toilet filth, just to beat you. I will give you the Word made flesh.
Having got comfortable onstage again doing Stand-Up Comedian the previous year, and having made the odd bold stage move during my trek around the deserts of Australia, I also started to think more about how I could bend the physical parameters of the performance of stand-up, and yet still have the new show remain, recognisably , a stand-up show. The influence of many different performers and styles of performances had been nagging at me in my period off, and now I was ready to put them into practice.
*
In the autumn of 2003, I was taken on holiday by my then partner to the Corbières region of south-east France. We went for sun, sea and sand. But we got more. A whole lot more.
Having read nothing beyond a website about beaches, we didn’t know that the Corbières, and the Cathar region further south-west, were rich in history, myth and folk culture. The French spend a lot of money preserving their rural traditions and national arts identity, and cinemasand radio stations are heavily loaded against English-language content. Both times I’ve visited the Corbières I’ve stumbled across some astonishing site-specific musical or theatrical performances of clearly commercially
In my early passes at the piece, the encounter with Jesus was like an assault. And sometimes I even dragged His mother into it. I vomited on him, presumably against His will, as His complicity in the incident was never addressed. In real life I was furious with the religious right for messing up my life, professionally, emotionally, physically and financially, and I wanted to take it out on their spiritual figurehead. The early attempts at this bit were just me in a bad mood, trying to wreak a hollow revenge and losing sight of any artistic discipline in a splurge of scatological abuse.
But Bridget pointed out that the real Jesus would help me in my distressed state, because that was the kind of guy He was, and that He and I had to meet each other halfway . If I was attacking Jesus, the story wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. Thus, the Jesus in my story invites me to make use of Him, as if taking upon Himself the sins of those who have driven me to this state of drunkenness, and in so doing He proves Himself a better Jesus, a better God, than the vengeful tyrant posited by the religious right who had taken issue with our deeply humane opera.
Was it possible to write something which, when reduced to its content alone, would be impossibly offensive, featuring as it did a urine- and vomit-fuelled encounter between a drunk comedian and a holy figure in a cramped toilet,and yet to write and perform it in such a way that it became tender, moving and meaningful over and above the supposed taboo nature of its content alone? Where notional ideas of offence were concerned, could one conceive a piece that proved that intent and tone and context could make something more uplifting and ennobling than it was offensive and gratuitous, despite the apparently irredeemable nature of the events it portrayed? In short, if you felt our careful, theologically rigorous and kind-hearted opera was blasphemous, well, try this on for size, you twats, and – you know what? – I will still win on points. I will make meaningful religious art out of toilet filth, just to beat you. I will give you the Word made flesh.
Having got comfortable onstage again doing Stand-Up Comedian the previous year, and having made the odd bold stage move during my trek around the deserts of Australia, I also started to think more about how I could bend the physical parameters of the performance of stand-up, and yet still have the new show remain, recognisably , a stand-up show. The influence of many different performers and styles of performances had been nagging at me in my period off, and now I was ready to put them into practice.
*
In the autumn of 2003, I was taken on holiday by my then partner to the Corbières region of south-east France. We went for sun, sea and sand. But we got more. A whole lot more.
Having read nothing beyond a website about beaches, we didn’t know that the Corbières, and the Cathar region further south-west, were rich in history, myth and folk culture. The French spend a lot of money preserving their rural traditions and national arts identity, and cinemasand radio stations are heavily loaded against English-language content. Both times I’ve visited the Corbières I’ve stumbled across some astonishing site-specific musical or theatrical performances of clearly commercially
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