Free Can't Stand Up for Sitting Down by Jo Brand

and then invite
various comics to go over and perform at their festival. At the time I went,
there was a comedy programme linked to it which was shown on Channel Four,
called Just for Laughs.
    I was
invited following an Edinburgh performance and despite my dislike of flying I
decided to grit my teeth and go for it. Rumour had it that some of the big
American agents wandered around Montreal, which was obviously easier for them
to travel to, rather than coming to England, and you might get yourself an HBO
(Home Box Office — big comedy channel) special or something even better.
    I
didn’t really want to go to America and work, but decided it would do no harm
to my career if I at least showed up. So I found myself queuing at Heathrow,
somewhat anxious about the nine-hour flight but determined to mitigate the
nerves with a bout of extreme smoking. (There is more about smoking later; it
gets its very own chapter. See A Nasty Habit, page 244).
    This
was in the early nineties, and at that point everyone was still smoking their
heads off on planes, so as I reached the desk with my friend Sue, I confidently
requested a smoking seat up the back, just like being at the back of the school
bus.
    The
woman on the desk — sneeringly I thought —informed me that it was a No Smoking
flight and at that instant I hated her more than I have ever hated anyone. In
the few seconds I had, the idea ran through my head that I might just as well
go home and forget the whole bloody thing. However, I reasoned I had got this
far, and decided to batten down the emotional hatches and go for it.
    It
wasn’t a pleasant experience; there was a fair bit of turbulence and I arrived
at the other end feeling jaded and thrown about. Montreal seemed like a
slightly smaller, nicer version of America with its glass towers gleaming in
the sun, the centrepiece being a huge pink tower which was immediately named by
one wag ‘The Jolly Pink Penis’. On the flight with me were Frank Skinner, Jerry
Sadowitz and Craig Charles … all ready to fire a handful of jokes at the
Canadians and see if they laughed.
    We were
put up in what I considered, with my limited experience, to be a very flash
hotel and immediately set to what comics are famous for — a lot of drinking.
    In
order to crank ourselves up for the Comedy Gala (in Canada it is pronounced
‘Gayla’) we had the opportunity to try out our material in smaller clubs to
see if it worked. I found myself in one show called The Nasty Show (in
Canada pronounced ‘Nair-sty’) and it couldn’t have been more apt, making me seem
very mild. It displayed the talents of some most unpalatable racist, misogynist
comedians, and when one of them vomited out a really horrible joke about Oprah
Winfrey I began to wonder if I was in the right place.
    That
night, pissed and fuelled by righteous indignation, I picked up my phone about
two o’clock in the morning and called the room of the comic in question to
protest about his material. I’m afraid I only managed the two words, ‘You’re
shit,’ and then put the phone down. Yes, not exactly a well-reasoned academic argument,
I know, and much as I’d like to apologise for my appalling behaviour, I’m not
going to. He was a deeply unsavoury man and I hope Oprah appreciates all my
efforts on her behalf. I do realise I could have been more grown up about it,
but I’m not very grown up when I’ve had a few — or when I haven’t.
    Incidentally
my material wasn’t going down all that well either. It was around the time of
the Gulf War and I was doing some stuff about Saddam Hussein. When the audience
looked blankly at me as if to say ‘Who the hell is Saddam Hussein?’ I gave up
and went back to the fat jokes, which they seemed to like.
    During
this trip we attempted to do some sociable things to get to know our
surroundings, and apparently one of the must-dos was a trip on the rapids. We
all arrived down at the riverside one morning and were kitted out in
life-jackets and