This Is Your Life by John O'Farrell Page A

little more about my experiences playing the various comedy clubs.
    â€˜You must know Mike Mellor then,’ she said and before I could stop her she waved across a short stocky bloke with a shaven head.
    â€˜Mike, do you know Jimmy Conway? Jimmy’s a stand-up comic like you.’
    â€˜Er, no, can’t say the face rings a bell.’ He shrugged. Mike Mellor was drinking champagne like the rest of us. But he was drinking it straight from the bottle. ‘Just starting out, are you?’
    â€˜No. Jimmy’s on the circuit, a proper comedian.’
    I attempted a smile but it wasn’t returned.
    â€˜So where might I have seen you recently?’ he said, taking another swig.
    I said the name of the only comedy club I’d even been to, hoping that he was unlikely to have ventured that far out of London. ‘The Chuckle Cabin at Brighton?’
    â€˜Oh yeah, you must know Chris.’
    â€˜Chris, yeah. He’s a good bloke, Chris.’
    â€˜She.’
    â€˜Oh,
that
Chris! Sorry. I was getting it mixed up with another club run by a bloke called Chris.’
    â€˜Which one?’
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜Which other comedy club run by a bloke called Chris?’
    â€˜Oh it’s a little one down there, tiny really, above a pub in Seaford, the, um, the Funny . . . the Funny Place.’
    â€˜Never heard of it.’
    â€˜No, Chris needs to do a bit of work on his publicity I think . . . but that’s Chris all over,’ I said, shaking my head in despair.
    â€˜Jimmy doesn’t do television like you, Mike,’ said Arabella.
    â€˜I do telly,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve got my own show!’ and then he felt forced to add, ‘. . . being piloted on BBC Four.’
    â€˜Well, Jimmy won’t do it on principle,’ continued Arabella. ‘He only performs live.’
    â€˜I’ve played most comedy clubs and I can’t say I’ve ever seen you,’ said Mike Mellor. He took another big swig from the champagne bottle and wiped his mouth like the hard man in a cowboy film.
    â€˜No, I haven’t done much in this country for a year or two,’ I replied, the drink making me even more reckless. ‘I’ve been, um, gigging in the States for a couple of years, actually. They seemed to really go for me but, you know, it’s a great scene they’ve got over there now’
    â€˜Wow, the British comic who broke the States
before
he made it big in England!’ said Arabella.
    â€˜Well, I wouldn’t say I was that big in the States, you know .. . I get by’
    â€˜You must be good if you’re here. Billy wouldn’t be seen dead with an unfunny comic’
    â€˜Poor choice of phrase,’ said Mike Mellor.
    Soon after this Arabella spotted someone she urgently wanted to speak to and I was left on my own with this scowling skinhead of a comic. We stood together in awkward silence for a while.
    â€˜So how did you know Billy?’ I asked him.
    â€˜I didn’t. I’m here with my girlfriend. She knew him through work.’
    â€˜Oh well, he was a great guy,’ I reflected. ‘A great guy . . . I’m really going to miss him.’
    I chatted with one or two other people over the next hour or so and maintained the same persona, becoming increasingly confident in the role of stand-up comic returning home after storming every comedy club from New York to LA. I was a little shocked at myself, weaving such elaborate webs ofdeceit, and eventually I felt overwhelmed by the need for somewhere to hide for a while. I slipped out into the lobby and wandered along a corridor. On a trolley outside the door was an abandoned platter of food and, after a furtive glance in each direction, I picked up a paper serviette and packed it with half a dozen chicken sticks, garlic prawns and asparagus spears, and looked for somewhere to stuff my face in private.
    I found a little ante-room, walked in and closed the door