Ten Gigs

I’ve got an idea.

I’m going to write a whole book, and publish it here, one chapter at a time, once a month, for a year.

TEN GIGS is a memoir. Selective, of course. The story of my life, told in ten gigs. One per chapter. Mostly, but not entirely, gigs that I did. All of them, though, gigs that shaped me - for good and for bad. Each one left a lifelong impact - it might be a lesson learned, a beautiful memory created, or a scar left - but they all contributed to the me that is writing this.

Next month we’ll start properly with chapter one, and talk about the singular moment and person that unknowingly turned me to face the life I’ve since lived, and gave me a push. But first, I’m going to give some thought to a few of the things that I’d already seen by that point, the gigs that happened before that moment, that left little easter eggs in my mind that would make sense later.

My dad was a librarian. One of my earliest memories is of sitting up on the counter of Enfield Highway Library and being allowed to stamp out books. Both my parents had jobs, so when a grandma wasn’t around to look after me, I’d get taken to work with one of them. It would either be sitting quietly in the corner of my mums office while I coloured in the spiderman comic pages that she had photocopied, or it was sitting in my dads little staff room reading whatever books I wanted. Both options weren’t too bad. But the library won out because sometimes we’d get chips for lunch and climb out of the staff kitchen window to go sit on the roof to eat them.

So my dad was a librarian, but also he was a medieval knight. Only on weekends in summer, though. His passion was swords, and stage fight choreography. If it was now, we’d almost certainly say that this was his autistic special interest, but back then, I guess, it was just kinda accepted as one of those weird dad things. Could have been train sets, could have been World War II, but it turned out to be, basically, Errol Flynn.

He designed and made swords in his shed. Drew heraldry. Mastered unblockable rapier and dagger combinations. And, together with his friends, formed THE KNIGHTS OF THE DRAGON. A troupe of swaggering knights, who fought each other to the death at a succession of London Council Summer Fetes in the 70’s. There were good guys and bad guys, cheering and booing, and sporadic broken noses and nearly cut off fingers, but show me a Summer fete in 1970’s London that didn’t have those.

My dad played the bad guy. Toward the end of the show, after the climactic melee, it came down to the young hero, and my evil dad, dressed all in black, with a snake on his shield. At the moment when all seemed lost, when my evil dad stood over his downed opponent and raised his sword for the killing blow, I would appear. Yes. The five year old me - curly blonde hair, Red and blue tabard, black tights and all - would run out, jump onto my evil dad’s back and stick him with a dagger.

The show would end with me hoisted up on the hero’s shoulders as the crowd cheered the kid who had just done the deed that would be brought up on several occasions in therapy in a few decades time.

It’s fine. I’m fine. And you absolutely shouldnt read anything into the number of times I used the phrase “evil dad”.

My mum also performed. The Risley Operatic Society never did any opera, despite the name. But a couple of times a year, they did put on amateur productions of musicals, at the Intimate Theatre, Wood Green. I loved the weeks when my mum was doing a show there. I’d get to hang out during the day, explore every dusty corner of the theatre, then sit in the dressing room - all warm mirror lights and the smell of Elnett hairspray. When I work burlesque shows these days, occasionally that combination still hits me and I get a little proustian tickle. Then it would be time to go and sit in the audience. Ideally in the front row of the circle, where I could rest my chin on the smooth wood in front of me and watch the show while getting fruit gums stuck in my teeth.

Once they put on a producion of Fiddler on the Roof. My mum played Yente, the matchmaker. One night, as she left the stage after her big scene, she got applause. I’d never seen her so happy. “Exit applause!”, she’d say, her embarassment at her pride offset by a grin.

Roger Moore acted on the stage of the Intimate Theatre. And David Bowie. And as a kid I saw The Great Kovari do magic tricks there. You can’t see shows there any more - it got bought by the church next door, and they plan to demolish it. I visited it a few years ago, and convinced a curmudgeonly vicar to let me look around it one last time. I managed to get rid of him just long enough to scatter my mum’s ashes under the stage. Exit applause, indeed.

There were other gigs from my childhood that I find myself thinking about often as an adult. I got taken to see Max Wall do his one man show in 1981. I’m not sure if I knew who - or really, what - he was, but I remember being transfixed by this oddly menacing man who, even then, was trading comedically on being a performer out of time. A vaudevillian looking askance at a modern world with a glint that could power a city, his voice like a sawtooth wave, vowels mangled, all the esses becoming zeds.

And, of course, my christmas present from my uncle and auntie in 1982. Tickets to see The Kids From Fame live at the Royal Albert Hall. To see the people that I idolised on TV, but in real life? Inconceiveable. And I did idolise them. I wanted to be Bruno Martelli with his basement full of synthesizers, where he could soothe his worries with pop music therapy. I wanted to date Doris Schwartz - the loyal, enthusiastic, best friend anyone could have. In the show - set in the new york school for performing arts, of course - there was a lunchroom. This was where everyone hung out, sung songs to each other, hatched plans, fell in love, broke up. The shy little loner that I was dreamt of having somewhere like that one day, of having a gang of brilliant, funny, talented friends. Only recently have I realised that, in busking pitch cafes and burlesque backstages, my dream got delivered.

Those are some of the gigs that didn’t make the cut, but, over the next year, month by month, I’ll tell you about the ten that made me. One life in ten gigs. And we’ll start, next month, with the person who put the damn fool idea of a life in the arts, into my head, and how I never got to thank him.

I made this introduction free for everyone, but all the forthcoming chapters will be for paid subscribers only. This is a pretty huge project, so it would mean a lot if you’d sign up. I’ve set the subscription rates as low as it’s possible to set them. Your support - both in sharing my work, and in subscribing - is the thing that keeps me going, so thanks in advance.

See you next month, and happy new year.