Professional? Part 1 (It's Not About Rugby, Don't Worry)

(Header description: Wigan rugby league team celebrating in front of their fans)

Hello there

I’m going to have to write this quickly because I’m not sure how long I can manage to concentrate with that picture being up the top there.

To explain, that’s a picture of the main rivals to my Rugby League team, celebrating after knocking us out of the cup on Saturday.  It’s not something I would have envisioned ever having on my patreon page, but there’s a reason for it, that led to me having a ponder about the nature of professionalism.

In my maturity, I’m relatively pragmatic about defeat in the sports.  There are still the pangs when it’s our rivals who do it, but we have done it to them a lot over the last few years, and I’m all good with accepting the blows after knowing the joy of victory.  It’s a big deal that rivalry though.  For most supporters of Saints, the idea of a defeat by Wigan is sickening.  Be that in a cup game, league game, or even a friendly.

So let’s have another look at that picture, focussing over on the left.

(Image Description: Zoomed in shot from the left of the header image, showing camera operator Karl Rooney forlornly having to do his job)

You might recognise this as Karl Rooney.  There have been loads of pictures of Karl on here before, as he was a camera operator for the studio and Codnor sections of the movie.  He’s genuinely the best camera-op I’ve ever known, as well as being one of the most willing and supportive folk too. It’s no exaggeration to say that he was instrumental in saving the production of the movie. He did it for nowt (he didn’t even take his Per Diems payments), never complained once, was completely collaborative, and pulled in the same direction at all times, which made my life a lot easier.  He’s also a massive Saints fan.  In fact, in that picture, he has a Saints top beneath the neutral shirt he has to wear when he’s working for BBC Sports.

That poor, poor lad.

Imagine that. Having to film your biggest rivals celebrating. For relatability, If you’re not into sports, then it would be like having to professionally film your ex at a movie premiere with their new squeeze. I can’t even imagine what was going through his head.  Well, actually I can because he told me, but I don’t want to repeat it here and get him into trouble.

What I can tell you, having endured the ensuing broadcast post-final-hooter, is the shots of the Wigan team celebrating were perfectly covered, and as dynamic as they would have been if it were Saints. The job he was there to do was executed as immaculately as always. Totally, unwaveringly, professional.  As I say, that poor, poor lad.

I’ve been thinking about professionalism recently a lot.  As in, the nature of professionalism, not “Oh I might try that one day…”

If you’ve been listening to the Reboot podcast, you’ll know that in the last episode we discussed it there a little bit, mainly in relation to the last days of us performing together in phase one.  I wanted to expand on it a touch here, as the structural dynamic in the podcast doesn’t always allow for the full discussion.

Rob told me ages ago, that he remembered in our shows that he would feel like I was being rougher with him on stage when we’d been prickly with each other off it. There was a bit in the first show, which was really clever comedy, where Rob would be reading a newspaper and I would come in and smack him across the head with a cricket bat.  Honestly, it was really clever.  It was a hollow, plastic bat, which made a hell of a loud crack when it hit.  This is what the clever joke was, that it was so momentarily violent and vicious.  It was a shock moment, and the response from the audience was always a loud split between involuntary laughter and a mood of “what just happened!?”.

I can honestly say, I made no conscious decision to hit Rob harder at any point. May it further please the court that there were no bruises or marks on him at any point.  However, I don’t doubt at all, that if he felt like it was harder, then it must have been. When you do something night after night, you are very attuned to any differences in it, particularly so if you’ve also been picking at each other in the day.

So I thought more about my own relationship with professionalism.

In many ways, I had a comedy career ethos of not being professional. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think this might be a slight pushback against being ‘trained’ in acting.  Conversely, much of my technicality training became non-negotiables.  Non- negotiables are key here.  So, for example, I know all the rules on how to position on a stage, which shoulder is out to the audience, always gesture with an upstage hand rather than the one nearest the audience, all that stuff.  That would come under professional too, and they were always employed whenever I was on a stage.

The unprofessional ethos covered stuff like general messing about, deliberate disruption for my own entertainment, gossiping, slightly longer breaks. You get the idea.  The general non-negotiables were things like being on time, being prepped, not “not bothering”.

On that last point, I reckon if you asked the people that can remember who I am, some may say I often ‘didn’t bother’. I would argue that as unfair whilst completely understanding why they would think that.  I’m a victim of my own charade.  I liked to give off the impression I wasn’t bothered on stage.  I mean, in many ways, I wasn’t bothered (insofar as I had no interest in dead-eyed ambition), but the times I ever walked onto a stage and genuinely didn’t bother are very few.  I can’t argue it never happened, but it really didn’t happen much. Maybe exactly six times. And always as a response to a perceived injustice.  Like if someone was being untoward in the audience or whatever.

One of the six times was at the Northampton Picture Drome, which I somehow ended up resident compering despite finding it an utterly reprehensible evening most nights.  It was an old cinema, which they’d shoved a load of big tables into and had a comedy night where they could sell drinks and food for the entire evening, regardless of what was on stage.  It was very rarely an easy gig. Even rarer that it would be fun.  In the Peacock & Gamble stuff, if you ever heard us use the phrase “Help me out Donna”, that came from an evening at that gig.

Ed was the first act, and it wasn’t going great. He eventually opted to do a bit where he got an audience member onstage and did pick up lines on them.  He chose – wisely – somebody in the audience that we knew was a fan, thinking this would make the whole thing safer as they would play along.  It was a girl called Donna, who proceeded to totally freeze on the stage, making Ed’s comedy advances fall very flat with the audience.  There was a long pause after one of the bits where Ed just stared at her, before finally saying, in the saddest of voices “Help me out Donna”.  It got a huge laugh in the room.  Just from me, but it was huge.  It was the saddest and most hilarious thing, and summed up the desolation of that gig perfectly in four words.  Every night was "Help me out Donna" at the Picturedrome.

Anyway, back to my (arguably) unprofessional evening there...

I’d been the resident compere for two years.  I can’t even remember if it was monthly, or every other week, or even weekly (pretty sure it wasn’t weekly), but I had grown to loathe it.  It was however, two hundred quid and only an hour’s drive away, and given that I often drove way further for the same money, it was regular bank. I always tried to write new stuff for it, and you learn from the difficult gigs not the easy ones.

On the night in question, I got a call from the promoter (who was also part of my then-management) to say that the headliner had cancelled.  I don’t remember who it was, but it was an hour till show time. He then called me back a few minutes later to say that the first act, Mark Olver, was also running really late from Bristol.  The option was to either cancel the show, or rejig the evening.  It was eventually decided that we would split it into two extended sets.  So, I’d do forty, Mark would do forty when he decided to grace us with his presence, and the headliners fee would be split between us on top of our own fees.  Which pretty much doubled my fee. That was all I could focus on, because the logistics of what I would have to do for that money were awful and daunting.

As I say, I would always write new stuff, but I wasn’t writing forty minutes of new stuff. I’d done every last bit of my full show material, possibly a couple of times, so was walking on to that stage with my wits and the remaining fumes of the limited goodwill I’d got from familiarity.

I did an hour for the first half, so it went well enough (otherwise I’d have been off at forty without a second thought).  Still no Mark Olver.  Because the staff running that gig had no concept of how a night of entertainment worked, fifteen minutes later they were saying we had to start again.  My insistence that there wasn’t another act to bring on just confused them, and I walked back onto the stage with my eyes rarely leaving the door for the emergence of Mark.

We’ve all been in audiences that felt like a hostage situation, but it’s even weirder to feel it from the stage.  Another twenty minutes in, and patience was running very thin.  Mine and theirs.  I’d explained the situation, but that goodwill was flagging. Eventually the heckling began.  Not the whole audience, just the long table at the back which was always where the trouble began. I was slammed with a “Get off the stage”.

“I’d love to, but I have to stay here because there are literally no other acts in the building.”

More leary shouting, more “just get off the stage mate”.

I was mostly eye-rolling, but eventually offered to help.

“Okay, tell you what, if you order me off the stage one more time, I will accept your instruction.  However, as I’ve told you, there are no other acts here, so you will be literally watching an empty stage. I’ve done my time and more.”

I knew full well they wouldn’t back down.  In fact, I was relying on it.  I wanted my out.  More shouting from them.

“No problem, off I go. Have a lovely evening, good night.”

They were the last words I ever said on that stage.  I walked down the steps, through the audience, and out the front door.  I called my then-management and said I was no longer resident compere of that gig, and bumped into Alan Moore.  Who I don’t know, so we didn’t stop and chat.  The audience may well still be sat there waiting for Mark Olver.

I like breaking things down, especially when I get a chance to critique myself in it. What I did, was arguably unprofessional, and arguably justified. The whole audience weren’t being objectionable, but it was never in my skill set to ignore disruption in the room.  One person talking or being rude, and that was me with my cross hairs up. Not fair you see.  That’s when I would suspend being professional without a second thought. When there was a perceived injustice. Anyone who would just carry on and ignore it, whilst professional, is also failing humanity by allowing evil to run freely. Too much? Well, we all have our standards…

All of which is my argument for the reasons why Karl Rooney would have been completely justified in throwing that camera at the back of their stupid heads whilst they danced about in front of their idiot fans.

I rest my case, your honour.

I did have another thing to tell you about being “unprofessional” at TV warm up gigs, but this is daft long already.  I’ll keep writing over here, and maybe put it up later this (or next) week. This has just officially become a two-parter and I shall amend the title thus.

Hope you are having a great time over there.  Do send nice thoughts my way as I’ve Rocky Robot meetings today (in fact, a big one is starting right this second at 11am Tuesday). I’m sure I will be the model professional in those…(Sorry to Jon in advance)

All the loveliness your way from here

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