Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [118]
I launched into my walks routine and got no reaction whatsoever. The opening of the joke isn’t particularly funny, but you would expect some support from an audience of 2,000. I quickly changed my plan and turned to my best short jokes, including the one about buying Kitty’s pregnancy tests. I didn’t panic. I inherently knew that my jokes were funny. I just had to perform them well and with a smile on my face and trust that people watching at home would find them as funny as everybody else outside of this stuffy occasion. However, as my act went on, the laughter built, and I started to receive rounds of applause. I ended with the walks routine and the audience were in the palm of my hand.
I was just as good as in Brighton; the audience were tougher, but I had done what I set out to do. I bowed to the Royal Box and the smiling Charles and Camilla and left the stage. I was buzzing with excitement. I passed crew members, other performers and Barry Manilow doing breathing exercises. I half expected them to congratulate me but realized that nobody had seen my gig. Nothing had changed backstage, but everything had changed for me.
I climbed the stairs to return to the pacing corridor I had left not fifteen minutes earlier. I was desperate for someone to confirm it had gone well. The corridor was now empty but for two people, Addison and Danny. As soon as they saw me they ran towards me and into my arms like I had just scored the winning penalty in the World Cup final. We jumped up and down hugging and celebrating.
I did it.
25
That was three years ago. The Royal Variety was my big break. From then on, I did all the things that you may have seen me do. Panel shows like Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You. Chat shows like Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Stand-up shows like Live at the Apollo and the Royal Variety again. My own show, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. And I released my DVDs, Live and Laughing and Hello Wembley.
In action on my Comedy Roadshow in my favourite city of them all.
I tried to write the last three years for you in detail, but it was so boring to read. It turns out that writing about success is actually very dull, so I deleted it, for your sakes. It was like a long-winded arrogant CV (the previous paragraph is a clue). I discussed it with Kitty and my mother and Addison and my publishers, and everyone agreed. In fact, only my 27-inch iMac questioned my decision: ‘Are you sure you want to delete?’ it asked.
I clicked ‘Yes’, and I made the right decision.
But I still wanted to write a final chapter to fill you in on some of the lovely things that have happened to me and update you on some of the characters in the book. You know at the end of ‘films based on a true story’ when they have writing on the screen to tell you what happened to the people in the story? I always love that, so I’m going to do the same thing with my book. Now, I don’t actually know what happened to everybody, so I will fabricate some. I will indicate the false ones, so that I don’t get into any legal strife.
Barry ‘Baz’ Cryer
A bona-fide comedy legend, Barry has written for the likes of Tommy Cooper, Bob Hope and Frankie Howerd, but maintains that working on The Kenny Everett Show with my dad was his favourite. I hadn’t seen him since we sat in the studio audience together at my father’s ill-fated BBC pilot The Hecklers, until fifteen years later he called me at the Lyric Theatre in London, where I was performing. Meeting up with Barry and listening to his stories about working with my father has been so special for me.
Kenny Everett
Kenny died a few years after my father, aged fifty, from an AIDS-related illness. He is greatly missed by his legions of fans and by comedy as a whole. There are photos of him all over my mum’s home in France. She misses her friend.
The Tarot card reader
Revealed as a fraud in a Scotland Yard sting days after my mother’s reading. The psychic bookshop was actually just a front for money-laundering and drugs-trafficking. The so-called