Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [101]
It seemed like this was the best I could hope for by playing Jongleurs. I wasn’t going to be famous, but maybe I could be totally deluded. I occasionally played other clubs like the Banana in Balham, Up the Creek in Greenwich, the Glee in Birmingham, the Hyena in Newcastle, and I would come alive and get a sense of how much better I could be. The audience were more focused, allowing me more time to express myself onstage. But I felt any good work that I would do would be undone by returning to Jongleurs for the next few weeks.
Then a genuine opportunity presented itself. Duddridge announced that he was taking me to perform at the Edinburgh Festival. This was what I had been waiting for. This was my chance to make a name for myself. Edinburgh is where stand-up stars are found. There are hundreds of shows in every nook and cranny of the city. Open a cupboard door in Edinburgh during the Festival and there will be a wannabe comedian performing a show to a handful of punters.
The opportunity that Edinburgh provided was the Perrier Award. This is where a panel of about twelve journalists, comedy fans and TV execs see every show, nominate the best five shows and then pick a winner. Just to be nominated will set you on your way to stardom, as demonstrated by the esteemed list of comics the panel have unearthed through the years, including Frank Skinner, Jack Dee, Eddie Izzard, Steve Coogan, Harry Hill, Lee Evans, Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey, Johnny Vegas, Peter Kay, the list runs and runs. Household names who were nobodies before the Perrier panel found them. It seems that if you’re going to become a successful stand-up comedian, you will be nominated for the Perrier Award. Very few people slip through the net. The year before I was set to make my debut, 2002, the Perrier panel again proved their worth by nominating the then unknown comedians Jimmy Carr, Omid Djalili and Noel Fielding. The winner was Daniel Kitson.
For all the tough Jongleurs gigs, here was my big chance to break away from the pack. In addition to the main award, there was also the Newcomer Award for which I would be eligible as I was making my debut.
Duddridge managed to book me into the much sought-after Pleasance Courtyard for twenty-five shows in August. The Pleasance Courtyard is a real hub of the Festival. Hundreds of people flock there, drinking and socializing and choosing from a multitude of shows starting hourly in a series of venues ranging from the 350-seat Pleasance One to my venue, the sixty-seat Pleasance Attic. I now had something to aim for, a focus.
Edinburgh, however, is a gamble. For all the success stories aforementioned, there are many more whose dreams were not realized, leaving them in massive debt. The Edinburgh Festival is very expensive, costing between £5,000 and £10,000 to put on a show. It takes a lot of soul-destroying Jongleurs gigs to pay that back. But it was a gamble worth taking, a gamble all aspiring comedians had to take.
I headed to Scotland filled with optimism and adrenaline. The Festival lasts three weeks, and the plan was for Kitty to join me on weekends. I shared a flat with the comedian Paul Tonkinson. Paul is from North Yorkshire and was my only real friend in comedy. We had met at the Glee Comedy Club in Birmingham, and he became my biggest fan. Nobody believed in me like Paul did, he saw something in me that nobody else had, not even me. He lived near me in London, and we had been spending time together, talking about ideas and stand-up. Paul had been a comic for ten years, he had played clubs all over the world, appeared on several TV and radio shows, but he kept telling me he wanted to learn from me. I was flattered, but deep down thought he must be as deluded as the Brummie comedian who was now claiming the sitcom Seinfeld was his idea.
Paul was more excited about my Edinburgh show than his own. ‘You’re gonna win the Perrier Award, mate,’ he kept saying over and over again. He even went to the