Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [104]
I took a swig from my Jack Daniels and went for it. I ditched most of my mediocre material and just played with the audience. I improvised and enjoyed myself. I wasn’t trying to be funny, I was just having fun. Laughter filled my min-uscule Attic venue, and for the first time, I was myself onstage, the best of me. I didn’t care if there were any press in. That night I learned for myself that I could do it, I wasn’t wasting my time.
But luck would have it that there was someone from the press there, Bruce Dessau from the Evening Standard. Here are some extracts from his review:
Michael McIntyre is so sharp, he is in danger of shredding himself. This livewire was so busy bantering brilliantly that I’m not sure he did much scripted material … He teased a cabbie, mocked an hirsute schoolboy and snatched a sandwich from a punter … His publicity shots make him look like a squeaky clean teenager, but there is a wise head on those shoulders. He has been professional for only two years but worked the room like a man possessed … If McIntyre doesn’t make the Perrier shortlist, he will have been cruelly overlooked.
I couldn’t believe it. I had gone from not selling a single ticket to being talked about in connection with the Perrier, and not just by anybody, by Bruce Dessau, who was on the judging panel. The review had an amazing impact on me, but unfortunately not on ticket sales, as it was printed in a London newspaper, London being the capital city of a country that I wasn’t performing in. I could only imagine that Londoners were sitting on the Tube thinking, ‘That sounds like a good show. If I was in Edinburgh, I might go to that, but I’m not. This is my stop.’
Bruce went back to his fellow Perrier panellists and reported his discovery. Suddenly I was in the running. The rest of the panel were dispatched to see me, including one night when ten of the twelve judges were the only tickets booked for my show. The remainder of the tickets were handed out for free to make up the numbers. I never quite repeated the heights of that one night but I had done enough. I was nominated for the Perrier Best Newcomer. My show then sold out for the remaining week of the Festival. I didn’t win it, but I had arrived. Having plumbed the depths of despair, I found somehow everything had turned around.
Duddridge was thrilled, my mum was so proud, Paul thought I was robbed and should have won the main award, and my PR girl said she didn’t like Perrier and preferred Highland Spring.
I was overjoyed with what was a successful Edinburgh, out of the blue. In three weeks’ time, Kitty would be marrying a Perrier Best Newcomer Nominee.
Finally, everything seemed like it was coming together.
22
Everybody chipped in to give us a magnificent wedding. My mum and Steve bought Kitty’s wedding dress, Kitty’s parents provided the flowers and the food, friends purchased our wedding bands, Kitty’s parents’ friends kindly allowed us to use their wonderful country house in Somerset for the reception, other friends made the cake and hired us an old Rolls-Royce, Lucy paid for the wine and LloydsTSB Bank paid for the honeymoon.
I borrowed £10,000 for the holiday of a lifetime to the Maldives. You only ever have one honeymoon, I was marrying the girl of my dreams, I had just been nominated for a Perrier Best Newcomer Award, I was twenty-seven years old with my whole career ahead of me. I was sure I could pay it back.
The fact that everybody had contributed made for a really special family occasion. People were calling up almost every day offering to help in any way they could. I remember Kitty putting the phone down saying, ‘Great news, Michael, my uncle’s girlfriend is a professional horse photographer.’
‘Sorry? What are you talking about?’ I said, confused.
‘She’s agreed to do the photography at our wedding,’ Kitty said.
‘There are no horses coming to our wedding,’ I commented.
‘I know, but I’m sure she can photograph