This Is Your Life (2 page)

The prospect made me wonder what it would be like to be a librarian. That must be a nice job, I thought. Surrounded by books all day; warm and quiet, occasionally stamping the return date on a Catherine Cookson novel, smiling at the old lady and handing the book back to her. ‘Due back on the twenty-fourth, Edna.' Yes, I could live with that. There must be some stresses and personal pressures I suppose, having to
stay late when there was 5 pence missing from the fines box or whatever, but I bet you don't often have to go out and perform a stand-up comedy routine live in front of millions of people.

I pulled myself upright and looked in the long mirror. I was wearing an immaculate light grey suit, my shoes were polished, my face was clean-shaven and I'd now removed the tiny bits of torn-off toilet paper that had been placed on all the cuts. There was a small speck of fluff on my jacket and I carefully picked it off. ‘Time to go and knock 'em dead, Jimmy,' I said to myself, slightly unconvincingly. ‘Jimmy Conway to the stage please!' replied the tannoy, slightly more insistently. There must be some other preparation required, I thought; some other avoidance task I could invent just to keep me in this private cocoon for another few seconds. I know, I should gargle. It's very good for your voice, gargling; everyone knows that actors gargle before they go on stage. I picked up a plastic cup on the side of the washbasin and turned on the tap. At which point a high-pressure jet of cold water shot out of the tap with such powerful fire-hose force that it ricocheted off the bottom of the sink and out all over me.

‘Shit!' I said. I looked down to see that my groin was completely soaked: a large soggy dark grey patch spread outwards and downwards from the epicentre of my flies. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!' I repeated. I grabbed a towel and tried to dab my trousers dry.

Comedy is all about making your audience feel comfortable, about reassuring them that they are in safe hands; they need to believe that you are relaxed, not the slightest bit nervous or on edge. I knew my routine off by heart, I had a flashy suit; the only slight imperfection that might make an audience feel I was not completely comfortable about being up on stage was the fact that I'd obviously wet my pants. When you're looking
for signs of nervousness in a comic, I'd say that a big damp patch around his groin was probably a bit of a giveaway.

I threw the towel to one side and ran out of my dressing room. Maybe there was an electric hand-dryer I could use in the gents' toilets. The stairs down from the dressing room were austere uncarpeted concrete and the bricks on the walls had long ago been painted with nicotine-yellow gloss paint. In theatreland every effort is made to present a glittering spectacle before the paying audience, while the parts of the building they don't see are inversely utilitarian and tatty. When I reached the floor below, I burst into the gents' to see a large electric hand-blower on the wall in front of me.

‘Thank you, God!' I said to the ceiling and I pressed the big metal button. Nothing happened. I stabbed at it again several times but it was completely dead. There was a switch on the wall that I flicked on and off but it made no difference. I heard an electrical crackle which for a split second I hoped was some sign of life but then a voice bellowed through the speaker. ‘Jimmy Conway to the stage now PLEASE. You are on in two minutes. Jimmy Conway to the stage immediately!'

There was no escape. I ran out into the corridor, now in a state of uncontrolled panic. Maybe they had hand-dryers in the big star dressing rooms down here on the first floor. I hammered on the door of Dressing Room One but there was no reply so I pushed open the door and there lying on the table before me I spotted the Holy Grail – an electric hairdryer. Salvation was at hand. It was already plugged in so I switched it to the maximum setting and directed it at the big wet patch between my legs. The dark grey of wet cloth quickly dried to light grey, but I could still feel the dampness in the lining of my pockets underneath, and since there was not a second to spare, I undid the buttons of the trousers and attempted to
dry my crotch from the inside, wiggling the hair dryer, jumping slightly as the hot air scalded my skin. It was at this moment that the door to Dressing Room One opened.

I'd always wanted to meet Dame Judi Dench. I'd say she was one of my all-time favourite actors and I'd always hoped that one day our paths might cross.

‘Hello,' said Judi Dench looking at me, apparently only slightly surprised to see a man in her dressing room with her hairdryer on full blast down inside his trousers.

‘Um, hello,' I replied. ‘Sorry, is this your dressing room?'

‘Yes.'

‘Look, I'm really sorry, but I splashed water all over myself and I'm on stage in two minutes and I was desperate.'

‘Two minutes? Was that you the SM was just calling on the tannoy?'

‘That's me, yes, Jimmy Conway,' I said, offering the wrong hand to shake because the other one was still fiddling around in front of my pants.

‘Judi Dench.'

‘Yes, I know. I thought you were brilliant in
Iris
by the way. And
Mrs Brown
for that matter.'

‘Thank you.'

‘What's Billy Connolly like?' I said, hoping that casual theatrical chit-chat might distract slightly from what I was doing with Dame Judi's personal hairdryer.

‘Billy's lovely. Hadn't you better get a move on?'

‘Well, yes, it's just I didn't want to go on stage with a big damp patch on my trousers . . .'

She laughed. I made Judi Dench laugh.

‘Jimmy Conway? You're the comic that everyone is talking about, aren't you?'

‘Oh. Well, not everyone – um – just some people,' I
stuttered, trying to sound modest but secretly delighted that the reigning queen of British theatre had heard of me.

‘I've not seen your act, I'm afraid, but I've heard you're very good.'

‘Well, fewer people have seen me than you'd think . . .' I said.

‘Until tonight, that is.'

‘Oh my God, they said two minutes about two minutes ago, didn't they?'

‘Don't worry. I'm sure the stage manager's allowing a few minutes spare, especially with this going out on the telly as well'

‘Do you think so?' I said.

‘Look, why don't I go and tell him you're just coming while you sort yourself out in here?'

‘Oh, thank you so much, I really can't thank you enough. Tell him I'm in your dressing room, and I'll be there as soon as I've done my trousers up.'

‘Well, I might not put it quite like that,' said Judi Dench with a smile, and then she was gone.

What a nice lady, I thought. She really was very nice indeed.

Judi (as I felt I could now rightfully call her) had been quite right, of course. The panicky cry of ‘Jimmy Conway, you are on stage in two minutes!' had meant more like ten minutes, although the stage manager still mimed a mock heart attack when he saw me and called back the runner he had sent out to search the local pubs.

The trouser crisis had at least allowed me briefly to forget the next stage of the evening, but having got myself into a state of extreme anxiety about one problem, I was denied the opportunity to use that wave of adrenalin to surf right out onto the stage. I had to build myself up all over again.
Through a crack in the curtain at the side of the stage I could see the audience staring as one straight ahead of them. In a few minutes all those telescopic sights would be aimed at me. They seemed in quite a jolly mood until the dear compère started talking about the dreadful suffering their ticket money would go a tiny way towards alleviating. Did he not realize that a comedian was about to take the stage? What better way to warm up an audience than to talk about disabled children living in poverty in Britain's inner-cities? ‘Honestly!' I said to the stage manager. ‘Why doesn't he flash up some pictures of neglected kids to make them feel really miserable and guilty?'

‘They are flashing up pictures of neglected kids,' he replied. ‘You just can't see the monitors from back here.'

‘Oh. Spiffing.'

I watched from the sides for a few more minutes, feeling numb and totally alone. At one point I got out my script and glanced over the opening paragraphs, but it was ridiculous; I knew it so well I was in danger of forgetting the meaning of the words.

‘Haven't you learnt it yet?' teased the stage manager in a whisper loud enough to be pointless.

‘Of course I have,' I said, a little too defensively. ‘I couldn't be better prepared.' A boast that was rather undermined by my mobile phone suddenly ringing loudly in my breast pocket. I decided on balance not to take the call. I always think it's a bit rude to talk into mobiles when other people can overhear you, like when you're on a train, in a café or walking out to perform in front of two thousand people at the London Palladium. ‘Hiya, I'm on a stage!' It would be hard for the audience to pretend not to be listening.

‘Sorry!' I whispered as I turned the phone off. The
compère was introducing me and I tightened my tie and checked that my hair wasn't all sticking up.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, it's the moment you have all been waiting for . . .' roared the compère. ‘You've heard so much about him, but now, making his BBC debut, put your hands together for a very, very funny man, the one and only . . . JIMMY CONWAY!'

The applause was louder than I had expected, and there was some whistling and a lone cheer. My senses were highly tuned, seeing, hearing, smelling everything; absorbing it all at once. The compère gave an exaggerated gesture to welcome me on stage and I stepped out from that shady sanctuary into the exposed bright open space of the vast arena, like a nervous rabbit thinking about crossing the motorway. The compère skipped offstage patting me matily on the back as if we knew each other well. For a moment I thought I must seem rude for not remembering ever having met him before.

The microphone stand lay ahead like a solitary blade of grass on a World War One battlefield. I walked towards it. What the fuck am I doing here? I thought to myself. The applause of two thousand people was dying down as they waited for my first words. I thought about all those millions of people watching me on their televisions at home, including just about everybody I knew. And as the applause finally gave way to an electrified tightrope of silence, I wondered if I should perhaps have shared my little secret with someone else by now.

That I'd never performed any stand-up comedy ever before.

27 Elms Crescent,
East Grinstead,
West Sussex,
England

Dear James,

Please find enclosed the script for your appearance on This Is Your Life. Of course it may not be exactly like this when it happens – it's just a rough plan.

I have decided to write it all down and put it in a safe place for you to find when you are a grown-up just in case you have forgotten to become successful and rich and famous. Because most adults seem to just let it slip their mind. Then they suddenly remember and laugh and say, oh yes, that's right, when I was young I wanted to be a pop star or a football player or whatever, but now they're all working in the bank or something and, well, how can you forget to do something like that? Obviously I know they can't all be famous – I'm not
stupid; I am nearly fourteen, which is virtually an adult anyway. For example, yesterday when Nicholas was dealing at cards I waited until he'd put down all seven before I picked them up to look at them. But by the time I am 100$ grown-up with a car and proper facial hair and everything, I do not intend to settle for anything other than being a rich and famous comedian, actor and entertainer, so I have taken the trouble to plan it all in advance.

It's like everyone else in my class gets their homework and starts writing an essay straight away without doing a plan first, and surprise, surprise, they get a C+. But I do a plan beforehand on a separate piece of paper like Mr Stock says and I always get an A or A- (except one D- which doesn't count because I wasn't there when we did ‘Lord of the Flies'). And then everyone leaves school and they don't do a plan of what they are going to do any more than they ever planned their essays and so it's no wonder they have lives that are only C+. So I am now going to write a plan of everything I am going to do on a separate piece of paper, and that is why in my life I think I am going to get an A or A- unless something really terrible that's not my fault happens, like I get bitten by a dog in France and catch rabies.

I should say that I only want to be really successful so that I can help those who through no fault of their own are less fortunate than myself. It's not for my sake that I want to be a celebrity or anything. I only want to be really famous for doing good for others, not for shooting John Lennon or something like that. And if I was really rich I'd be able to give some of my money away to charities and stop people pouring lots of oil into the sea near where there are lots of gannets. Instead they should be made to give that oil away to people in the third world who probably don't have any oil of their own.

The important thing, Jimmy, James (people call you James now like you always wanted them to), is how you use your good fortune, although it won't just be good fortune, you will have worked very hard for it as well. I mean, OK, so you're fabulously rich and everything but at least you earned every single penny through your own efforts. Just because you are really important now does not mean you have to be all pompous and stuffy. On the contrary, it means you can be the kind of adult who still wears jeans, for example. And when a group of sixth-formers come to hear you give a lecture about all your work for animal charities, you could turn the chair the wrong way round and sit on it back to front when you are talking to them.

But I've been going on too long again (just like my homework!!) and so I will stop now and write again in a few days' time.
When I've finished all these letters I'll put them in a shoebox in the attic, so if you've forgotten where you put this letter twenty years ago and you can't find it, that's where it will be.