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Montreal comedy festival - Day one and two
Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005
I was last at this festival 18 years ago, and I remember the feeling of importance it had for all our careers, 'we' were Jeremy Hardy, Hale and Pace, Stephen Fry, Kit Hollarbach, Simon Fanshawe and a few others. We were like babies... all clinging to the life raft of familiarity that was nationality. People that didn't normally talk to you because they're from 'Alternative' comedy, or 'Radio' were suddenly realising that you were nervous too, and had major bowel afflictions before the performance. Jeremy Hardy kicked butt last time ... I remember being very impressed by him. I remember all of us being secretly jealous of Simon Fanshawe -the first place we went on arrival was this cabaret venue where Fanshawe had been doing his comedy styling in residency for a short period. When he hit the stage it was clear that he'd been in Canada for a while and knew how to work the crowd. We were all jumping up and down, a bit 'ring -rusty', hoping to get on stage soon. When we did get the chance to perform, it was actually big fun. We found that the Canadians knew us -knew the cadences of our language, and style. Liked our accents and understood what we were on about. It wasn't like playing NewYork or L.A. where you definitely (as an English Person) feel alien. This was like playing to a home crowd.
I had a similar experience last night -my first try out here was at a place called 'Jimbo's' a tiny club, upstairs from a bar, and next door to a place with a big sign that says 'Massage Plus'. Lenny Barker (writer on the Lenny Henry show -it just makes it easier if everyone is called Lenny0 and I scoped the place out and did a sound check and I realised that we needed to go some place else to relax before the show, because as usual in comedy club land -there's no where to be, before the show. I'm not being poncy or anything, its just I don't like hanging out with the cigarette smoke and the alcohol and all that, I like to be in a little cocoon somewhere backstage. Or under some cardboard in a skip -one or the other.
We went to a Caribbean restaurant called MANGO'S just down the street. The food was lovely and I had the ackee and Saltfish, with the fried Plaintain... I recommend it highly -very good food. I practised the set in a conversational way with Len, the way we do, and we strolled up to the club.
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