Last night was a lovely night for gigs and socialising. I was on first again at The Funny Side of Covent Garden and, although it was far from a storming set, it was very lovely indeed. It was a shame I couldn't stay to watch sets by Danny Buckler and Milton Jones but at least I had time after my set to hear a funny story. Danny told me yet another in a very long line of tales about a comedian on the circuit who, basically, can't stop lying. The comedian in question is actually very much an OK bloke but the constant stories that fly around the circuit about him are simply incredible. He's slept with royals, cancerous pop princesses, he's written the theme to the "new" Bond film (update that every time a Bond film is about a year away from release) and he used to play guitar in Louise Nurding's band (yeah, I wouldn't have bothered making that up either). But last night's story was up there with the best of them.
Apparently the comedian in question (oh, this is going to get tedious so I'll make up a name for him, let's call him, oh, I don't know, fuck it; Shappi Khorsandi, yeah, that'll do) .... So, anyway, Shappi opened his heart to a newish comedian one night fairly recently about why people seem to think that he fucked Princess Diana. The new comedian said that he'd heard that rumour and Shappi decided it would be best to clear up the whole misunderstanding once and for all. The rumour started after Shappi won his photography award. (What photography award?) The award he won for taking that famous photo of the Omagh bombing. (Eh?) It's simple, Shappi sneaked past the police to crawl underneath the bomb itself to take a photo of it. (Wasn't the bomb in the boot of a car?) Do you want to hear this story or not? (Er...) So, the bomb goes off and Shappi finds himself blown 20 feet away from where he was and unconscious. (I'm leaving) When he wakes up he finds that there's a perfect photograph of the bomb just starting to explode on his camera. So, Shappi wins a big award for the photo and everyone loves him. Then he's told by a friend that Princess Diana is having a party in a Kensington hotel and he should go down and papparazzi it. Dann...SHAPPI leaps into his speedboat and gets there in seconds but when the Princess of Hearts finds out that Omagh Bomb Boy is outside she gets one of her slaves to invite him in. Anyway, he didn't even fuck her, he just did a bit of DJing and hung out with her royal highness and Dodi and Wayne Sleep and all that lot. Then, in the early hours of the morning, Shappi was photographed leaving the Princess' hotel, it got in the papers and THAT'S how that silly, silly rumour got started on the comedy circuit.
I for one am very glad that's all been cleared up now and I can finally stop obsessing over that story. At least Stu Who's stories of facial reconstruction, his son inventing the internet and him getting the moon pregnant have a certain charm about them. But, like I say, Shappi's a very nice man and I'm not really sure why he says what he says but it very much amuses me.
So, anyway, I then went on to East Dulwich Comedy run by the fantastic Emma and Ron. Once again this weekend, it's lovely to be working for such passionate-about-comedy people. The bill was excellent and I felt very nervous at the thought of having to follow both Matt Rudge and the legend that is Dan Antopolski. I'm a huge fan of Dan's and he was incredibly funny in front of a very small, very quiet but very nice audience. I haven't seen him do a set for a few years but he was just as inventive and brilliantly off-the-wall as ever. You should check him out right now. Marc Lucero did an excellent job compering and he proved to be very good company throughout the night, seeming just as nervous about me going on as I was. Matt Rudge is confident, young, good-looking and funny so he can go and fuck himself. And, considering how pretty he is, he should take that as a compliment. The cunt.
I'm off to the wedding of the year now. Expect a drunken blog later tonight. MESSAGE TO DANNY BUCKLER: If I've got any of that story wrong, please correct me. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment