I Kent Be Bothered Anymore!
Before last night, the last time i had ventured into Kent for a gig was to the delightful town of Erith where the crowd were racist pricks who had a running joke amongst themselves of threatening to beat the shit out of me! Bearing in mind it was a small pub gig where the entire crowd knew each other it did feel like at any moment they could just have made me disappear.
After the Erith gig I decided not to venture back to Kent unless it was totally necessary. What I didn't realise was that my return would not only be sooner than imagined but also simply down to my lack of knowledge of English towns. Having been asked to do a gig in Chatham, rather than google the place to see where it was, I went with my instincts which were incorrectly "Chatham?? That sounds northern!". The worst geographical error I'd made prior to this was accepting a gig in Dartmouth thinking "That sounds like Dartford so can't be far!!" only to find out a week before the gig it was in Devon!
So, last night came around too soon and alas me and two of the other comics (two very funny gentlemen who i shall leave nameless incase they don't want mentioning) set off in my car to Chatham. On the way there we told horror stories of our previous gigs in Kent and made jokes about that night's gig going wrong. Any fears about the gig were soothed when we arrived at the theatre to see Michael Bolton was playing there on Friday week! If its good enough for Mike it was good enough for us!
The first half of the gig went as well as it probably could have considering it was a big room with not many people, I did ok as did the other acts that had been on. Then came the second half of the gig where it started to go wrong.
The next act who is a good friend of mine went on and did a few jokes about his ethnic background (half Indian). All was going well and the crowd were enjoying themselves. Then he did a joke about prostitutes and jokingly gestured towards two odd women at the side of the stage who up to this point had been a little annoying. I've seen him do this joke a number of times and it always gets a laugh and has never been met with any objections. However, the women seemed to take massive offence at this and pretty much spent the remainder of his set talking loudly amongst themselves without actually explaining why they were offended so that it could be addressed.
He finished his set and there was an interval at which point the women stormed up to him and aired their disgust at his suggestion that they were prostitutes. He apologised and explained it was a simple joke he'd done many times before and no one had ever taken it as more than that but they were insistent that he was obviously the devil so subjected him to a tirade of abuse at one point even bringing into question his parenting skills. They then stormed off to fill out a complains form.
I've seen people over-react to jokes many times but this was by far and away the biggest over-reaction I've ever witnessed. They were that offended that I actually started thinking they were prostitutes and were obviously offended by their occupation being outed so publicly. The ladies doth protest too much! Whatever was going on in their heads, there seemed to be an underlying reason they were so annoyed.
I'm hoping they don't read this and then make a complaint to myspace about me. Although they're probably too busy having sex for money to use the internet so I shouldn't worry about it.
Then came the final section in which the very funny headliner who again i won't name was doing an extended set. Before bringing him on, the compere amusingly addressed the episode that had happened before and during the interval so the atmosphere was back to fun, all seemed fine and we all kicked back and relaxed.
When I say "we all kicked back and relaxed" I am referring to myself, the other acts an 99% of the crowd. However, the two prostitutes were still sitting there looking like someone had just run out of their brothel without paying up. They couldn't have looked less like you should at a comedy night.
The headliner went on and couldn't help but address the fact that these two prostitutes were sitting stony faced at the front. Its one of those things that some comics (myself included) can't help but talk about. This then caused an argument at various times during which, he offered to refund the pair out of his own pocket if they just left. It was clear they weren't going to laugh at anything anyone said so it did seem completely pointless them being there. The argument continued with them refusing to leave.
Then came the big reveal. he continued to question why they were so offended by what the previous act had said and after a heated exchange the most vocal whore shouted:
"Because I don't like being called a prostitute by some paki"
That was it ladies and gents. She was a stupid racist idiot who objected to a joke not because of what was said but simply because of the person saying it.
Then the headliner did something that I will respect him for forever. He walked. Just like that he said "The gig's over unless she goes". The manager went and spoke to her but at no point seemed too bothered about actually removing her so true to his word the headliner walked off the stage, got his stuff and left letting the manager know what he thought of the situation on the way out.
We soon followed and got the f*ck out of dodge! That was after a few of the people from the crowd came up and apologised on behalf of Chatham to the act who had been racially abused though. That doesn't make it any better but at least its good to know they weren't all racist pricks!
He took it better than I could ever imagine myself taking it if I was in that position. He also told me about previous times it had happened which made it all the more depressing.
And that was the end of that. Another night spent in Kent questioning whether or not the people are a fair representation of the English or has it somehow become like Mecca for bell-ends!
I want to end of this blog by making a vow that on the basis of these events that I am officially giving up going to Kent and I think that if you have had similar experiences there then you should join me.
Just in case anyone tries to point out the irony in me making a generalisation about all people from Kent, I'm not suggesting that everyone there is an idiot but I'm yet to go there and not meet some proper c*nts so as a gambling man I don't like them averages!
Carl
