Free (2003) Overtaken by Alexei Sayle Page B

Old Vic School think our dream is a lifetime of
playing Titania or Cordelia in the theatre.’
    ‘If
we’re lucky!’ said the other one.
    ‘Or
third prostitute with weeping head wound in Casualty.’
    ‘Do you
know we’ve spent the last two weeks making puppets out of fag packets?’
    ‘I mean
what is that all about?’
    ‘They
should be teaching us stand-up comedy not bloody fencing.’
    ‘There’s
all these great comedy clubs opening now.’
    ‘And
there’s all these great women comedians coming along.’
    ‘Nelly
Shank, Beth Coil, Jenny LeBute, Mrs Patel—’
    ‘I
think she’s a man.’
    ‘Still,
it’s not a boy’s game any more.’
    ‘No
way!’
    ‘Yes
way!’
    ‘Party
on, dude!’
    The
upstairs room of the pub where once earnest mechanics had studied The
Communist Manifesto had now become the Giggle Room. Seated at small round
tables, the audience were students and the young clerks who spent their days in
the insurance offices around the city and needed an easy laugh when they went
out for the night. I thought of all the great laughs we had on the sites and
felt sorry for them; I didn’t have to pay for it.
    I stood
at the back leaning against the sweating wall. The lights dimmed and on to the
spotlit stage came the three drama students. The third girl sat at a
war-ravaged upright piano and while she played all three sang a song about
Tampax and periods. Then the redhead did a routine about periods and boyfriends
and Tampax, then Siggi sang a song about cakes and periods, then they performed
a sketch about a boyfriend buying Tampax for his girlfriend who was having PMT
because it was nearly her period, then there was another sketch about what a
wimp your boyfriend is when he has a cold, then there was another song about Mrs
Thatcher having her period, then Siggi read a poem about ‘The Disappeared’ of
the fascist junta in Argentina, then they finished with a song and dance
routine about Tampax.
    Throughout
the show I experienced a rising sense of discomfort. Not because I was
disconcerted by the stuff they were doing: I wasn’t entirely sure whether it
was funny or not but I’d laughed along with everybody else. No, what had caused
me increasing trouble was Siggi.
    From
the moment she had stepped on to the shabby stage I had not been able to take
my eyes off her. I’d always thought that phrase was just an expression that
didn’t mean anything, like stuff people said about ravens in pies and plucking
motes out of the eyes of Pharisees or whatever, but for me and for the rest of
the audience it was a literal truth, we could look only at her. The entire
crowd were joined in an unspoken conspiracy and the only ones who weren’t in on
it were the other two girls on the stage. Indeed if anything the other two got
more laughs than Siggi did and received more applause because we, the audience,
felt awfully sorry for them, so they must have thought that they were doing
better than she was and treated her with a certain patronising hauteur.
    As the
applause died down, after they’d left the stage, I said to the young guy in the
overcoat tied with string who was promoting the show and who had been standing right
at the back twitching as promoters have always done throughout history, ‘Mate,
can you tell Siggi’
    ‘Which
one’s she again?’ he interrupted. ‘The one with the talent.’
    ‘Oh
yeah, her.’
    ‘Right,
well, can you tell her I can’t stay like I thought I could and I’m sorry I’ve
got to get back home because I’ve completely forgotten an important meeting
I’ve got early tomorrow morning.’ Then I left.
    Driving
north along the empty motorways, I thought of how crystal clear this day had
been, how every detail sparkled and glinted and was fixed in my memory for
ever. If I’d had to, I knew that in six years’ time I would be able to tell
some detectives which shelf the parmesan cheese had been on in the student
girl’s fridge, how many buttons were missing from