Went to see some old pals do a gig last night, in a little London venue known as…Wembley Stadium. (Ha! It’s not little! It’s huge! It seats about 12,000 people! That is a killer opening.)
In 2002, I was doing 2 shows at Edinburgh. The first was an improvised show called Text in the City; in a move almost as killer as my opening line above, that was the name of a show where the audience would text in their suggestions (do you see?), those suggestions would appear on a screen behind us and we would do them. It was all about embracing the new-fangled texting craze and putting a new spin on Improv. Yeah, man.
The spin ended up being that it didn’t work. Not the concept (that had worked in Dublin and might work again; I believe some young children in their twenties are trying it this year), but the technology: the people behind the show didn’t realise that – way back then – Edinburgh still had several pockets of zero mobile phone coverage. It seems the epicentre of this zero coverage was our venue. It was the only place in the world that actually sucked coverage away. With a mixed cast of the Comedy Store Players, Dublin Improv plus guests, the show could have been great (and there were some excellent moments in the techno-free shows we managed to cobble together). But punters were inevitably disappointed, as the bars on their phones faded almost as quickly as their trust. Shame.
The second show was Cream of Irish or Best of Irish or Something of Irish at the scary Caves on Cowgate: Kevin Gildea and I were the staples in a show with a rotating line-up of whatever great Irish comics were in town, or felt like an extra gig after or before their own. It was a good show, good times – except I’d only been doing stand-up for about 3 months. There were some pretty cruel reviews – probably completely accurate – and you can’t ask for mercy if your name’s on a poster alongside the words “best” or “cream” (or even “something”). Plus there was no point in pointing out that I was doing my best: that wasn’t the kind of best anyone was after. Including me. So, I spent a month feeling like I was letting everyone down. Twice.
To make matters shit, I was going through a break up with someone else who was at Edinburgh, a comedian with whom I shared dozens of mutual friends, and we’d already planned our accomodation; there was a hasty scramble for new digs at the last minute and silent, telepathic negotiations as to who should leave which too-small backstage area first. Awkward. Awful. But I lucked out accomodation wise: I landed a share with two other Irish comics (they really were cream of) but, suffice to say, I shouldn’t have any happy memories of that Fringe at all.
Except…
Straight after Something of Irish (let’s go with that. I like it), there were some Kiwi guys on in our venue. We met them at our tech run on the first day and later, flyering outside the venue. They were doing two different shows, back to back. They were really lovely, but having a tough time. They had photocopied their flyers in black & white and were approaching people themselves, not having much luck because they hadn’t been on the UK circuit, this was their first Fringe and they hadn’t been on the telly. Only a handful of people (mainly the Kiwis who already knew them from home) were coming to the show. Out of same-venue-support, we went to see them on maybe the 2nd night. Both shows. We didn’t have any expectations, but what we got was a top surprise.
The first show was a series of insanely brilliant sketches written and performed by two of the guys, while the other did the lights. In the second show, one of the guys stayed on as performer, but the other two swapped so that the second performer in the first show was now the lighting guy and vice versa. Seamless.
The second show was – well, if I say it was funny songs or musical comedy, you won’t get the full picture. It worked musically. Not just worked: “legit”, po-faced songwriters would have killed to come up with stuff as cool as this. And funny? They lyrics were already great, but regularly changed up or ad-libbed to make them even better. And the banter between the two clearly very old friends was hysterical. It was obviously something special…for the ladies (and men), because, my friends, that little combo were Bret and Jemaine, otherwise known as Flight of the Conchords. (The “other guy” was Taika, who’s now a successful director – including some eps of the FOTC TV show. Go, T.)
By that time, I had already written some of the songs that will feature in my Edinburgh show for this year, but FOTC were so musically brilliant and SO funny, I shelved those songs. For ages. When it’d been done that well, what was the point?
I think there were just 2 nights during that month that the Something of Irish crew (and me) didn’t stay on and watch and we told everyone we met about the shows. Everyone. We couldn’t believe that such a gem might go unnoticed. “If there’s any justice,” we’d rail, shaking our fists at the sky, “people will come to this!” Might as well shake our fists at the sky – there was no mobile phone coverage and so no-one to call. A bit of railing is very cathartic and you never know who might hear.
Well, last night, it was obvious just how much justice had been served: roughly 12,000 helpings a night. The first bank of seats at Wembley Arena probably seated the same amount of people that came to see FOTC in that entire first Edinburgh run – except for the last week. By the last week, people were coming. In droves. And I guess they all told someone who told someone, or maybe the coverage issue was resolved by then. All I know is that it’s right and proper.
And the rest is history.
