James Mullinger recalls an awful early gig in this extract from his memoir

Comedian James Mullinger has written a book – Brit Happens: Or Living The Canadian Dream – about how he moved to St John, New Brunswick, and found success there after years of struggling on the UK scene. Released in Canada earlier this year, the audiobook has just arrived on Audible in Britain where it is available here. Here, in the the first of two extracts from the printed version…

When you start out in comedy, it helps if you delude yourself with an elevated sense of your own importance, as if the world has been waiting with bated breath for you to take the stage.

Without this little tweak in your perception of reality, you would realise the cold hard truth, and the truth is no one cares. You could evaporate into thin air in the middle of a set, and the next comic would simply take the stage, and the world wouldn’t miss a single beat. If you recognised that basic fact at the very beginning, you probably would never bother trying. You have to try in order to get hooked.

And in order to survive it all, you must get hooked because, after about 15 years in the business, you will ultimately reach the conclusion that was apparent, and which you denied, all along: no one cares! I never expect anyone to care what I am doing, which is why I constantly appreciate the fact that people come to shows and buy DVDs and, yes, books! Like this one!

So after years of working the well-worn path of open-mic shows and travelling the country to stand in the corner of every upstairs room in every dingy pub that will have you, the realisation that no one really gives a damn leads to that ever-present and reoccurring question of meaning: why? If it doesn’t matter, why do it?

To some extent, there is the allure of risk. Every time you approach the mic, you are taking a risk. It’s a gamble. Every audience is a known unknown. You are entirely aware of their presence (it’s why you’re there), but you don’t know them yet. You don’t know how they’ll react. And you’re playing the odds for the rush of adrenaline and endorphins and dopamine that floods your system when you hear laughter. Maybe that’s why we do everything we do. Posting on social media, buying new clothes, getting addicted to drugs, falling in love, telling jokes to absolute strangers — it’s all for that precious cocktail of chemicals your brain cooks up as a reward. It’s why we take our chances.

I think that’s why the really good comics, the perfectionists, become so obsessed with the craft. Some comedians will simply go on stage and roll the dice. Others will do everything in their power to play with a stacked deck, to tilt the odds in their favour. The more you study the craft, the greater your reward.

It’s astonishing in an age of CGI, IMAX, and space tourism to realise that the craft of stand-up comedy hasn’t really changed all that much in hundreds of years, since the age of the court jester. And it is still unbelievably popular. Netflix paid Dave Chappelle $60 million for three stand-up specials, which were watched by more people than most Hollywood blockbusters. It’s a bloke on stage telling jokes. No props, no special effects, no musical accompaniment. Just one person. A microphone. Some jokes.

But how does one finally arrive on that big stage?

The route into the harrowing world of stand-up comedy in the United Kingdom is clearly defined. The wannabe starts doing five-minute open-mic spots at comedy nights above pubs to crowds of hopefully ten. Once you’ve done 50 of these over six months, you might get offered a paid ten-minute spot somewhere in the country, and I guarantee the amount paid will not cover your gas or train fare. You will have to slog through these for at least another year, and you will lose money.

What you’re really shooting for is the coveted 20-minute spot. Once you work up to regularly performing those 20-minute spots, you might be offered the opportunity to trade them in for a ten-minute open spot at a bigger venue, such as Jongleurs or the Comedy Store in London, which has a capacity of 400.

Then, after, oh, a couple of years doing unpaid ten-minute spots, you could be offered a 20-minute set. Then, theoretically, you’re ready to attempt an hour-long show at the Edinburgh Fringe. In other words, after years of pounding the pavement, paying your dues, and working your way through the ranks, you are now ready to start doing shows that could, in the blink of a bird’s eye and if you’re not strong enough, end your career. Lovely.

It doesn’t take long, when starting out, to realise the open-mic circuit is a bizarre place. Hundreds of comics, ranging in age from their late teens to their eighties, sit in the upstairs (or basements) of pubs, night after night, awaiting the possibility of five minutes of stage time, during which the audience will stare blankly and, if you’re lucky, chuckle once or twice. Mostly though, it’s inaudible whispers punctuated by coughing.

But you are suddenly making a whole new set of friends, a social circle of social misfits from all walks of life. It doesn’t matter if you are a millionaire CEO or a dishwasher: when you line up for an open mic, you’re thrown together into the lion’s pit, where you’re all considered equal. Fresh meat. Shit at the bottom of the pecking order. Unless you manage to get a few laughs. Then you are royalty, and everyone bows down to you – until the next night when not a single joke lands and you run your fair kingdom into the ground.

The open mic is the ultimate social leveller. Especially for people who have felt like outsiders their whole lives, people looking for a place, a sense of belonging, a home.

I had been traipsing around, travelling to gigs, sleeping on station platforms for a few months, and feeling I had found a home away from home, when I saw an ad in Metro, London’s free daily newspaper, for Jimmy Carr’s Comedy Idol. The ad read:

Jimmy Carr’s Comedy Idol

• Are you a comedian just waiting to be discovered?
• Could you stand up in front of an audience and make them laugh?

Then Bwark Productions wants to hear from you.

This is your chance to actually do the support for Jimmy Carr’s one-off sold out gig at the Bloomsbury Theatre which will be filmed for his next live DVD… An opportunity to show the world just how funny you really are!

Carr is one of the biggest comedians in the UK, certainly the most hard-working and one of the wealthiest thanks to that furious work ethic. He fronts a half-dozen TV shows at any given time and plays to audiences of 2,000 or more, about four nights a week. His live act is known for its bite. Nothing is off limits, and he is notorious for his savage put-downs. A shot at a show with him as the judge seemed like a recipe for disaster, a miscellany of wannabes queued up like moving targets for the master of improvised humiliation.

Obviously all us freaks and weirdos clamoured at the opportunity, and we took our turns performing for a panel that included Carr, comedian Karen Taylor, and Iain Morris, who later went on to create the biggest British comedy of all time, The Inbetweeners. But as it turned out, Carr’s public persona was not on display that day. It was the real Jimmy Carr, a very sweet, considerate, and kind man.

I went in and delivered the five-minute act that I had been performing in various pubs. I would essentially open by stating that I had always felt like an outsider. I was always missing the action. And then I would go on to list examples of what I was like, all of them incredibly shocking:

‘I’m like the New York firefighter who took a day off on 9/11.’

‘I’m the guy who took his family to Thailand for Christmas and said, go for a swim, I’m off for a walk in the mountains.’

Yes, I was opening with a 9/11 and a tsunami joke. I know.

Perhaps this offensive streak gelled with Carr, because he put me through to the final. I had spent all day Sunday at this unusual hall, doing this peculiar thing, and went home that night feeling all was right with the world.

Over the coming weeks, Carr and Morris stayed true to their word. They guided us and helped us with our acts, which were to be performed at the world-famous Comedy Store in Leicester Square – the holy grail for experienced, professional comedians.

This whole experience gave me a very unrealistic idea of how my career was going to play out, though. I thought this was it. I had made it. Regardless of whether I won, I would be on Jimmy’s DVD and would be spotted and would be a superstar overnight. Yep.

Nope.

One of the only benefits of that competition was that Don Ward, the irascible owner of the Comedy Store, saw me that night, didn’t hate me, and was willing to offer me a five-minute open spot on a Thursday night at the club. I did it and it went okay. So I was invited back for a prestigious ten- minute spot on a Saturday night. Let me say that again: a ten-minute spot at the Comedy Store on a Saturday night.

I had barely seen [my partner] Pam for months as I had been performing nightly around the country, so I thought my moment in the limelight would be a great idea for a date night. I also wanted her to see how much I had progressed. I felt like this was my moment. I would storm it. Don Ward would book me for a weekend. I could quit my day job. We could all live happily ever after with me as a full-time stand-up comedian.

The MC that Saturday night was Mickey Hutton, and he introduced me thus: ‘Ladies and gentleman, you are going to love our next comic. Give it up for James Mullinger.’

In the Comedy Store, they don’t announce which comedians will fill the open spots until it’s time to actually take the stage. That way, the unknown comics get a fair shot. Then, after your set, the MC will tell the crowd, and the applause doubles when they realise that this great act they’ve just witnessed is a total newbie who isn’t being paid.

Mickey did not need to explain that night. From the second I burst on stage, overcompensating with overconfidence to mask my inexperience, the crowd were on to me. They knew. Nothing I said got a laugh. Every line was greeted with silence and mumbling, then chatting, then shouts, then abuse. Then, seven minutes in, it started. The chant.

Now, my dear civilised reader, there are certain words in the English language of North America which no male in his right mind would utter or write in a book. They are very distasteful words, words that are meant to dehumanise. So let me assure you that I am simply quoting for the accuracy of the historical record.

My set that night at the Comedy Store was so bad the entire crowd started chanting: ‘Unfunny cunt. Unfunny cunt. Unfunny cunt.’ Over and over and over again. Louder and louder.

With all due respect, I should point out that this particular word is not considered as offensive in the UK as it is in North America. But still, not even the most experienced comedian could salvage their set once a chant like that kicks up. At seven minutes, I slinked off stage, devastated. As I walked through the tiny green room of comedians, no one would make eye contact with me. They all leaned away from me as if unfunniness was contagious.

I left the room and walked back to the main area of the club. I kept my head down in case any of the four hundred people decided to continue the abuse verbally or physically. I saw Pam and bent down and whispered: ‘We should go’

She nodded gently, but made no attempt to rise. Instead, she said: ‘Do you mind if we leave separately? You go first. I’ll be out in a few minutes.’ At first, I felt crushed. But Pam had read the room. The audience hated me so much that I was genuinely worried it could possibly get violent (Jim Jefferies was once punched in the face while on stage at the Comedy Store in Manchester), and who knows what offensive remarks would have been hurled at Pam if she were seen leaving with me. She didn’t want to be subjected to that, and I didn’t want that for her either.

As I walked out alone, Mickey Hutton, the MC, was understandably humiliating me further, and the audience were in fits of laughter at how awful I was. He wasn’t being cruel. It is his job as emcee to get the audience back, to keep them onside for the performers to follow, and the audience needs to trust him. He told them that they were going to love me, and I betrayed that promise with my awfulness, so he needed to fix that before bringing on the next act.

That next act was Canadian comedian Sean Collins, who was the polar opposite of me. A veteran in this game, he oozed confidence and cool and charm. As he walked out to the middle of the stage, he paced slowly, knowing he had all the time in the world. He knew what he was doing. He pulled up the stool, sat down, allowed the silence to continue. Sipped on his Stella.

‘What’s with you guys and the fucking Stella?’

They fell about laughing.

Granted not his greatest line, but the timing and delivery and ownership of the moment were so perfect it generated a full-house, rip-roaring laugh. I never really recovered from that awful night, and I still have nightmares and daymares about it now. But in January 2020, my demons were exorcised, slightly, when I found myself headlining at Yuk Yuk’s in Ottawa, and who was the master of ceremonies? Yep, Sean Collins.

This made me nervous. It made me feel like it was 2005 all over again.

Also, he still lives in England and knows all the comedians, so I was convinced that I was going to die on stage again, and he would go back and tell everyone that I hadn’t improved at all in 15 years and was still being booed off stage every night.

Sean and I did five shows together that weekend in Ottawa, all of them barnstormers. And on the final night, over whiskey and tequila in the hotel bar, I told him my terrible story. Of course, he remembered absolutely nothing of the 2005 incident. Because why would he? New acts die in the company of veterans all the time. It was just another day at the office for him.

But thanks to that weekend in Ottawa, in the middle of a blistering snowstorm, seeing him out of the corner of my eye as the audience rose for a surprise standing ovation at the end of my set exorcised that demon chant. I’d survived and, in that ovation, had been redeemed.

TOMORROW:  I wrote: ’Tonight, for the very first time in my life, I felt like a proper comedian.’ That feeling did not last long.' Read it here

• Brit Happens: Or Living The Canadian Dream by James Mullinger is available  from Amazon.

Published: 6 Oct 2023