10: Lush looters, running a new night, a disappearing car engine, and…
Jules had a fabulous run of gigs in Manchester—bar a table of “mean guys”,—and she and Tal Davies are running a new night in their home town!
Transcript:
Episode 10: Lush looters, running a new night, a disappearing car engine, and comedy mean guys
Jules O’Brian:[MUSIC] Hello, this is Jules O’Brian with the “Avoid Excessive Cleavage” podcast. The podcast for anyone who wants to grow older gracefully or disgracefully
and the podcast that says “no” to unsolicited advice and inspirational quotes. This week’s inspirational quote is taken from, well to be honest, it’s just a random quote that one of my social media feeds threw me, and it’s from, oh no,
it’s from an account called “The Power of Positivity.” Oh, straight away, that just makes you go, “Oh dear,” doesn't it? But clearly, I’m looking at the kinds of things that make it think that suitable for me,
so I’m just going to own it. And the inspirational quote says, “If the version of you from five years ago could see you right now, they’d be so proud. Keep going.”
Now, usually, I just take the mickey out of these inspirational quotes I know, and I sort of say, “What a load of rubbish,” and “That makes no sense.” But actually, I quite like that one.
I mean, it’s one of those, isn’t it? There are days when, yeah, I look and I think, “Oh my goodness, if somebody had told me five years ago that this would be my life now, you know, that I would be earning a living by doing something that I absolutely love
being a comedian.” I mean, I still, — did you hear the pause before I was even able to say that “being a comedian?” — because I still feel like the biggest imposter when I’m doing it.
I keep waiting to be found out, and when people don’t book me for gigs, there is that big part of me going, “Yeah, well, that’s because, you know, I’m not good enough and people have realised it, and they’re the ones that know the truth.”
So, there’s that. But, like I say, most of the time, it’s a really positive thing. When I look back at what life was like five years ago, I don’t know about you,
but, you know, for some people, I guess, things don’t change on a day-to-day basis, and if you’re pretty content with your life, then fantastic, you know, why would you want to change anything? But, yeah, five years ago, I was working full-time as a secondary school English teacher.
And whilst some of it, I did still enjoy, I think, five years ago, it was coming up to a point where it was clear to me that I wasn’t going to be able to do it for too much longer. Behaviour in classrooms was deteriorating, support from parents was severely deteriorating,
and I was struggling to enjoy it, you know? It really bugs me when people talk about teachers and they say, “Oh, they got all those holidays.” I think, “Do you know what? If it wasn’t for the holidays, I don’t think anyone would do it.”
Or nobody that’s doing it for the right reasons, anyway. And by the right reasons, I mean wanting to work with young people, wanting to support them, wanting to pass on a passion for, in my case, literature and stories,
and talking to young people about feelings and emotions, and, yeah, I know, I was a bit of a Robbin Williams to teach, you know, I think. Maybe a bit unrealistic, too idealistic.
But, you know what, the sad thing is now that even if somebody offered me twice the money that I was earning when I left teaching, and twice the number of holidays, I still wouldn’t do it, because it became such a… such a tortuous experience, I really wasn’t enjoying it by the time I left the job, which is so sad,
because I think if you’re going to be a teacher, if you go into it, for all, as I say, for all the right reasons, then when you find yourself struggling to walk through that school door every morning, it’s horrible, it’s horrible. I don’t know, lots of people aren’t happy in their jobs,
and that’s so sad, isn’t it? That that’s the way that a lot of us have no choice other than to live our lives. But, yeah, I was very lucky in that I did accidentally really stumble across another route, you know, for quite a long time, I was doing comedy in the evenings and teaching during the day, which did become a little bit exhausting.
But, I think that, you know, we’re not for having that option, being able to move out of education and into comedy. Yeah, I don’t like to think where my head would be at now, it was a pretty tricky time. But, yes, so, I guess, you know, that’s a quote that I think, yeah, keep going, you know,
and I am pretty proud of myself, actually, for what I’ve done over the past few years. In fact, last weekend, I spent it at the Frog and Bucket Comedy Club in Manchester, which is a fabulous club. I absolutely adore it. It always has fantastic audiences, the acts that they choose to have on there are generally just such nice people.
In fact, actually, do you know, in recent months, every green room that I’ve been in, and I’m touching wood as I say this, every green room that I’ve been in has only been filled with really lovely people, sort of, you know, no dickheads to the point that I’ve thought, “Oh, my God, if you’re in a room and you think there are no dickheads in it, does that mean I’m the dickhead?”
So, I don’t know, maybe, maybe that is true. I really sincerely hope not. Maybe somebody could have a quiet word with me if that is the case, but I really hope that's not the case. Oh, yes, so Frog and Bucket, gorgeous comedy club. Absolutely love it. One of the things that I really like about it, and I’m about to sound like a really old lady, is that when you go up onto the stage, there are obviously some little steps that lead you up onto the stage.
I say, obviously, sometimes, you know, when you go up onto a stage, when you’re about to perform, the stage would be really high up, and you just have to kind of, you know, hoick your way up onto there. It feels like you’re trying to do a bit of a Dirty Dancing lift at the end, you know, sort of throw myself onto the MC, and they’ll sort of just help pull me onto the stage. Anyway, at the Frog and Bucket, there are some little steps that you go up, but what I love about them is that there’s a little handrail, it’s the only club I know where there’s a handrail that you can hold onto to get yourself up onto the stage.
And I’ve got a video of myself, I did three performances, I did the Friday night, Saturday, Matinée, and Saturday evening. And you can see, as I go up onto the stage, I make full use of that handrail every single goddamn time, because every time before I go on stage, literally the MC announces my name, and my legs go from underneath me, I feel them go to jelly. And that’s, that’s not great. You know, you’ve got to, you’ve got to obviously step up either on one great big step onto a stage or several little ones.
So I adore the Frog and Bucket for having a handrail. That’s like one of the main things I think about, which I’m sure isn’t going to fill them with joy, knowing that as a comedian, that’s one of the things that I say, “I love gigging there because…,” and I do say nice things, I do say, you know, because great acts, great audiences, great location, gorgeous venue, but also I bloody love that handrail, never get rid of the handrail, it’s fabulous. So yeah, so I have three fantastic gigs there.
The one, weirdly, the four-o’clock-in-the-afternoon gig. Oh gosh, do you know, okay, let me go back a bit further than that…. On the Friday night, it was absolutely rammed, completely full. There’s a balcony and the downstairs area, and there were two stag dos in, which always makes me a little bit nervous. I think, I, I know, I’d be lying if I said otherwise, but they were awesome. They were so much fun, they were rowdy, but they were the right kind of rowdy. They just wanted to have a laugh. They were well up for it. We were bantering and just, you know, messing around. It was a lot of fun.
And the rest of the audience loved that as well. They kind of bounced off it. It was fabulous. Saturday, four o’clock. First of all, I got to the Frog and Bucket for that performance. And as I was about to walk in, the two guys on the door said, “Oh my God, you were amazing last night. Absolutely loved it. You're so funny.” And that, do you know when the door men are on your side, that is so cool, because I said this to them. I said, “You must see, obviously, so many acts.
“So to have you say that to me really means a lot. Thank you. I really, really appreciate that.” They were just gorgeous to me. So I go in, I walk through the club to go to the Green Room. And it’s, it was very couply. A few small groups of friends and stuff, but generally quite couply. Got to the Green Room. Same bunch of people as the night before. We’re having a lovely chat. It’s all good. I was doing the middle spot for every performance.
And I saw Jonathan Mayor, who was the MC, who again, I absolutely adore. He is just a wonderful MC and always is, I feel really safe. You know, when he’s the MC, he’s in full control of his audience. So he announced me on, obviously, legs went to jelly, used the handrail, gave Jonathan a hug and introduced myself and off we went. Well, there was also a stag do in for this four o’clock performance. And it was blatantly obvious before I’d even open my mouth that they did not like me.
And they had done that thing of, you know, it’s, it’s so difficult to explain, but they were doing that thing of, “Oh, it’s a woman.” You could feel it emanate from people. And sometimes you get it from people sitting in the audience who will just cross their arms or just refuse point blank to look at you, to smile, and, oh gosh, you know what, I hate sounding like this. I don’t want to be playing the ‘woman card,’ but I’m afraid from some people that does happen.
And these guys made a point of trying to be difficult. Now, it’s a weird one because they weren’t heckling; they weren’t shouting out abuse; they were, the only way I can describe it, and I told my daughter about it when I got home. And her response was, “Oh, God, so, you mean like a bottom set Year Nines.”
And that’s kind of, that’s what it was like. They were just a bit cruel. And so I would be doing my bit, you know, blah, blah, blah, punchline. Blah, blah, topper. Blah, blah blah, punchline. Blah, blah, blah, topper. And when I was doing the blah, blah, blah bit, they would be taking it in turns to go, “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
What was that? What? And I was, perhaps somebody more experienced than me. I know somebody more experienced than me would be able to deal with that. I just kept going. I just kept ploughing on. And the rest of the audience was with me. The rest of the audience were great. But of course, all I could focus on was this very unpleasant group of blokes who just wanted me to fail and who were essentially just a bunch of bitches, you know, they were just really mean.
So I came off and went back to the Green Room and I was saying this and Jonathan was saying, “Oh, the rest of the room loved you. The rest of the room were completely with you. Take notice of them. That’s just, you know, just who they are.” In fact, one of the door men had gone up to them and told them to shut up and to stop, you know, making a show themselves and being disruptive, but it didn’t seem to stop them.
And anyway, so I left there. I walked out in the next, well, at the end of the show and I had to walk past their table. I thought they’d have already gone. I had deliberately waited a little bit of a while in the hope that they would have left. And they hadn’t. They were still there. I thought, “Okay, you know, doesn’t matter. I’ll just walk past them.” And they jeered as I walked past the table. Okay, so I ignored that. I got to the door and one of the guys who had been on that table, was stood there and he grabbed my arm. That sounds a bit aggressive. He didn’t ‘grab’. He took my arm, patted my shoulder and went, “Good effort.”
Okay. Alright then. And then as I walked through the door, he shouted, “Get your tits out.” Now, I am more than happy to own the fact that some of my material is about that. It is, it jokes about, you know, I do make jokes about, “Oh, you know, how much would you get your boobs out for?” And the audience joins in and we have a laugh. And believe me, most gigs that I do, when I walk back to my car, if there’s somebody outside smoking or whatever, there will be a cheeky comment,
“I’ve got 50 quid here for you,” you know, but it’s always done very good humouredly. I have never, ever, ever felt humiliated by it. Because I own it, you know, I make that joke. And I do say, “Oh, I’ll see you outside in the next break.” So when people do that, I’m like, “Yeah, okay, that’s fine.” And you can tell the difference. You can always tell the difference, which is somebody who’s doing it good-naturedly, joining in.
It’s kind of like a follow-up from, you know, you’re still being on stage. And somebody who is doing it to be mean, to put it mildly, and that felt unpleasant. Anyway, that was that. So I left the club and I walked down to a really nice pub down the road, wine bar. And I sat in there. And of course, all I could focus on was what had just happened, the, you know, these guys and just feeling a bit meh. They’re beating myself up and thinking, “I’m such a snowflake. I’m not thick-skinned enough for this game. I can’t be doing this. What is wrong with me? I was a shit teacher as well. I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
I’d, I got myself a large glass of wine just to try and decompress a little bit. And I sat there and I was messaging various friends and saying, “Oh, God, woe is me.” And people were being very lovely, obviously. But then I got a tap on the shoulder. And turned around, and it was these two young women. And they said, “Oh my God, we thought it was you. We were just at the show. Oh, you were so funny. You were great.” They were absolutely gorgeous. They wanted a picture with me. I mean, that’s mad. They got somebody from another table to come and take a picture with me. Oh, they were just saying the loveliest things. “Put your Instagram in. Put your Instagram in.” She started following me on Instagram. I mean, just so gorgeous. And I said, you know, you’ve turned my night round because all I can think about is those men that were on that table that would be horrible.
“Oh, everybody hated them. Everybody hated them. They are a bunch of pricks.” So immediately, I’m like, “Oh my God, do you know what? Most people actually are lovely. Most people are on your side.” So while these girls are talking to me, girls, young women are talking to me. Another two guys walk in. And they came over as well. They didn’t know these are the two girls. Nothing to do with them at all. “Oh, it’s you, we were just saw… Oh, I was crying. I was crying.” I think they meant with laughter. I hope they didn’t mean in pity.
And these girls were like, “She’s worried. She’s worried because of those blokes.” And they’re going, “Oh, God, take notice of them.” So just everybody was so kind, so lovely. And it just made me realise, “God, why do I do that?” And I think everybody does it, don’t they? No matter what your job is, I think you do tend to focus on the negative comment or the negative attitudes or the negative behaviour that you get from people, rather than focusing on the laughter or the goodness, the kindness. Why do we do that? Why on earth do we do that? But anyway, that just filled me with joy. And I walked back up to the Frog, feeling like a million dollars actually. And had an even better gig than I’d had on the Friday night. Love it. Just absolutely loved it.
It was so much fun. Gorgeous people. Just, yeah, it was the best. It really was. Coming home was a bit of a crash back down to earth. It was a bit of a weird one. Just coming home, I haven’t had any gigs since then. So that was Saturday. Today is Thursday. I’ve got a gig tonight in Biggleswade, which is a couple of hours drive away, but that’s fine. I shall stick on a book or podcast to listen to. It’s all good.
I like it actually. I’m quite getting to appreciate the driving now. I quite like that alone time as long as I don’t get stuck in traffic, but we all feel like that anyway, don’t we? But yeah, so I came home to Tamworth, which is where I’m based. So Tamworth, just outside of Birmingham, we’re known for inventing the Reliant Robin and all manner of, really, really cool things. Most recent cool thing that we’re known for in Tamworth is that we have a Holiday Inn where asylum seekers were being housed.
And so, we had a lovely bunch of gentlemen, rioting outside there. They set a couple of fires when it was happening, you know, a couple of weeks ago when people were, you know, looting Shoezone, and Lush, and all that. Mind you. You know that the guys that looted Lush, that one, especially, have you seen these men? Look at the state of them. When you see them now, and they’re all being obviously they’re going through the court process and then on the news, they’re putting up images of them. Can you believe their ages? They all look absolutely terrible. So I’m sort of thinking maybe, you know, can’t blame them for looting Lush really: they need all the good quality moisturiser they can get their hands on. Absolutely shocking.
These two guys that I’m talking about in particular were 25 and 48, and I thought “Really? 25 and 48? If I’d have looked like that at 25 and 48 I’d have probably gone rioting as well.” I’d have needed to get that out of my system. What a state. Anyway, so yeah, so there we go. That’s that’s a little bit of Tamworth. A nice thing that is happening in Tamworth though. Let’s move away from that. Let’s forget about the horrible things that people have been doing. A nice thing that is happening in Tamworth on Sunday, the 15th of September at a beautiful place that I think it’s a bit of a hidden gem actually.
I don’t think many people know it’s there. It’s called Middleton Hall and Gardens and it is just a stunning nature reserve and stately home. And yeah, we’re running a comedy night there. My comedy pal, Tal Davies, and I are running a comedy night. We’re not actually performing. Just putting the night on, seeing what happens, the hall contacted us and said, “You know, is this something that you’d be prepared to put on for us.”
And we are so excited about it. The comedian that we’ve got headlining is Joe Enright. Now you may know Joe from Peter Kay’s “Phoenix Nights” in which she played, oh my goodness. She’s just a hilarious, hilarious character. And also from “The Job Lot”, which was on ITV. It’s now on Netflix. You can binge watch that. My kids and I binge watched it. And I just absolutely love it. She plays a completely different character in that sort of character.
We’ve all worked with over the years a real jobsworth. And she’s brilliant. Joe is actually a good friend. And she could not be further from the character that she plays in that TV program. As a person, she is kind, generous, sweet, just so, so lovely. And in that program, you sort of watching her and thinking, that’s never the same person. That’s never the woman that I know. Can’t be. But she’s just a fabulous actress. She was also in Ricky Gervais’s “Afterlife”. So, you know, we’re talking about somebody here who is quite a big deal.
And we can’t quite believe that we’ve managed to get her to come and headline at Middleton Hall for us on the 15th of September. So it’s just going to be a fabulous night. You know, it feels like sort of you’re stepping back in time when you walk in there. It's going to be in their Grand Hall. We’ll set it all up for a comedy night. There’s a bar. And it’s just going to be gorgeous. So, so yeah, if you fancy that, if you go to my socials or Middleton Hall socials, you’ll see a poster with all of their info on. There’s a QR code to make it nice and easy to book online,
or you can give them a ring and just call them up and and yeah, book your tickets over the phone. Absolutely not a problem. So, yes, absolutely. Please, please come along to that. It would be fabulous to have you there. And yeah, if you’re someone that listens to this podcast, it would be really nice to sort of put a face to the listeners. It would be really lovely. Before I went to Manchester for the weekend, actually the week before I went, I was on my way to another gig, which was in Stoke.
So kind of relatively local for me as regards, you know, all the travelling that I have to do. And I’d done all my usual, you know, make up on got changed, got ready to go, gone through my set, went out, jumped in the car, turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Absolutely nothing to the point that I was like, has somebody nicked the engine out of my car?
And I mean, I haven’t got a clue what I’m looking at, but I pop the bonnet. Honestly, if the engine hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Nothing. Absolutely dead. This is 90 minutes before the show is due to start, and I’m opening it as well. So I, you know, I could feel my palms starting to go sweaty, my heart rate increasing.
I never pull out of gigs. The only time I ever pulled out of gigs is when I’ve been so poorly and literally cannot do it when I’ve had laryngitis or a cough that, you know, you literally can’t, can’t talk. And, and yeah, so I just don't, I don’t pull out of gigs and certainly not 90 minutes before it’s due to start. So I’m staring at the engine. Like I say, going into absolute panic, come running back into the house, shout my daughter, I don’t know why I shouted her. She’s not going to know anything either.
We’re both as clueless as one another. So she comes downstairs with me. We’re now both stood staring at the car engine. Looking at, pointing at things again, “Is that meant to look like that? Is that supposed…, I don’t know, what’s that, you think?” So we then phoned my friend, my lovely friend Helen, who I’ve talked about on here before, the one that’s always on, you know, various dating apps and receives pictures of things and sends them on to me.
We won’t go back over that again. It’s quite upsetting, isn’t it? But so there’s now the three of us. I've got Helen on FaceTime showing her the engine. She doesn’t know either. And myself and my daughter, Ellie, all staring at the engine. Realised, “Okay, I'm going to have to do something about this. I’m going to take some kind of proactive approach because I can’t just keep staring at the engine.” There’s now sort of, you know, 80 minutes until the gig starts.
So I had to call the people running the gig and just, I mean, what can you do? I just had to apologise profusely like, oh my god, I was so desperately sorry. I mean, that is not, that’s not funny. You know, when you’re the person that’s opening a gig and you’re not going to be there. Fortunately, she was absolutely wonderful about it, so understanding, so kind, sorted it out, it was all good. In fact, as well, because I’d put it in our little group chat of all the acts that were going to be performing that night.
A couple of the guys were messaging and saying, “Where are you? Is it going to be feasible for me to come and get you?” And unfortunately, it wasn’t because, you know, they’re obviously travelling from different parts of the country, but how lovely that there are people that are prepared to do that, you know, if it had been earlier in the day, certainly could have arranged it, but yeah, that was not going to work. Anyway, so that’s one of the sort of, you know, down-to-earth-with-a-bump kind of things. I had to call the AA out.
But of course, the car was on my drive and I’ve only got, this is really boring, but I’ve only got roadside assistance, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Long story short, I had to pay an extra over £100 to sort that out so that they would come to my house. Then I had to pay £150 for a new battery because the guy did it there and then for me, I know I could have gone and got it cheaper somewhere else. I got no oil in my car, so we did that as well. It was another £18 and I lost money, obviously because I didn’t go and do that gig. So that was a pretty expensive night.
The next day, one of my cats, I’ve got four cats. I know that’s too many cats. I just keep rescuing them. I feel sorry for them. I can’t help it. What can I say? One of my cats, I noticed, had licked off all the fur from the inside of one of his legs. It was red-raw, really poorly, took him to the vet. It was another £70, thank you very much. He’s now on steroids. I need to crush up tablets and give him the best tuna every day because that’s the only way that he will eat it.
So, I’m just, I mean, I am bleeding money at the moment, but anybody who wants some money, you may as well. Well, just come and take what I haven’t got because I’m feeling as though, yeah, there’s just so much money bleeding out of me right now, but hey, what are you going to do? Could always be worse. Could definitely be worse. At least, you know, I don’t look like one of those rioters. Do I? Things could definitely be worse.
Okay, I’m going to wrap up in a minute. Pass couple of podcasts episodes that I’ve done. I’ve talked about other people’s podcasts and how much I love them. The one I talked about previously was “Two Guys and a Chainsaw”. The one I spoke about after that one was, oh, “Tough Gig”
Lou Conran and Eddy Brimson’s podcast, which sort of talks a lot about behind the scenes at gigs and, you know, which gigs are going well, which ones perhaps not so well sometimes. I just want to talk a little moment about, and this is somebody who absolutely does not need me shouting them out. She’s never going to know about my existence. I’m sure, but I adore the pants of her and it’s “Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody Everything.”
I love her podcast. I love her. I adore her attitude. She just takes no nonsense from anyone and is, um, yeah. I love the fact that she knows exactly who she is. She’s so confident about herself. And people are, you know, again, people that love her, love her. But there are people who are just so unkind. And again, I do think a lot of the time this comes down to the fact that she’s a confident woman who is putting herself out there.
How dare she raise her head above the parapet and, um, go for it. And she’s so successful. She’s got a beautiful family. Wonderful husband. Happy, happy life. Well, as far as I can see anyway. And I just think she is a phenomenal person who is hilariously funny. Again, really insightful, kind, thoughtful. And yeah, I think her podcast, Telling Everybody Everything, is wonderful. And if you’ve not given her a listen, then, um, then maybe give her a try.
So thank you very much for listening to me again, Waffle on about, oh my God, I can’t believe I just spent so long talking about my car engine and my cat’s leg. If you’ve listened for this long, God bless you, well done. And it would be so awesome to see you at the comedy night that Tal Davies and I are running at Middleton Hall on the 15th of September. Be wonderful to see you there. And, um, yeah, come along, come and say hello and laugh your head off. It will be a wonderful fun night.
Don’t worry, it’s not one of those where, you know, you have to worry about sitting on the front row and getting picked on or anything like that. That will not be the case at our comedy night. You know, this is going to be a lovely fun, inclusive, enjoyable, brilliant, brilliant comedy night. So come along, Middleton Hall, 15th of September. It would just be lovely to see you.
Thank you so much again for listening. And I’ll see you next time. [MUSIC]