Gagging for it
There are lot of things I’m bad at. I’m a terrible cook, I can’t swim and I’m not very good with confined spaces. If someone was starving to death while drowning in a tiny cupboard, I’d be the last person you’d want to call for help. One of the few things, however, that does manage to float my upturned coracle, is cracking a gag. Raising a titter. ‘Aaaaving a laaaaaugh. In many a social situation, I’ll be the annoying person regaling anybody prepared to listen with an anecdote about someone hilariously falling flat on their arse. Or at other times I’ll be ‘that’ woman, the one making an unsavoury comment (often involving bodily functions) in a desperate attempt to glean the adulation of others through humour. Pathetic, unattractive, but true.
My love of the comedic probably began somewhere in childhood, along with my obsessive nature and the polyps in my gallbladder, although I’d be hard pressed to pinpoint exactly when. My earliest memory of creating mirth in front of an assembled crowd would probably have been one day in the school library when I was about 14. The class had been given the arduous task of silently trawling through a bit of light Chekhov for the excruciating duration of a double lesson. Naturally, boredom, fidgeting and the graffitiing of pencil cases ensued, until the tedium was suddenly relieved by the unfathomable excitement of the handle of the library door being turned… from the outside. Begging for the relief that an intruder might bring, all eyes lifted to see the small, slightly hunched figure of maths mistress Miss Bennett, brow furrowed, head hunched, notebook and pen in hand, gradually being revealed as the door slowly opened.
Miss Bennett was otherwise known as Scabman. Exactly why, I can’t remember. Something to do with a cold sore and her unfortunate disposition of having less than delicate features. She shuffled across the worn blue Axminster in her comfortable brown brogues to a position that allowed her to gain the full attention of the class. She was on a mission. It would seem that numbers for the school orchestra were dwindling and consequently Scabman was on a musical recruitment drive. She coughed slightly before making her opening gambit: ‘Girls, can anyone here play the violin, the cello, the flute, the clarinet and the oboe?’. And there it was – potential comedy gold.
I had the perfect retort. One I was sure would result in hilarity from my classmates. I had to say it. I had to get a laugh. God knows, after an hour and 40 minutes of turgid 19th-century Russian literature, they deserved it. As the thought of how dangerous, and yet how monumentally funny, an act that would be, I began to feel a ball of excited anticipation building up in my stomach. As we all know, the secret to comedy is…
…timing. The timing was perfect. As was my response. It was now or never. The moment was ripe for picking and my window of opportunity would be shut for ever if I didn’t do it now. In a split second I had to weigh up the consequences – blurt it out, get a laugh and be in serious, possibly detention-level trouble with Scabman and her unpleasant skin condition, or keep schtum, for ever hold my peace and continue to go about my daily business with my school record unblemished but my basest jocular urge suppressed.
My inner Catherine wheel was effervescently whirling ever faster, gaining momentum, moving up into my throat and forming into tangible words. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could contain it or if I even wanted to. It had to come out. I had to say it!
‘What, all at once?’
I said it.
Time stopped for a moment. I held my breath and found myself under the steely gaze of Scabman Bennett. In the suspended animation, from behind me I suddenly heard a couple of muffled giggles, a few titters and one or two snortles. Not quite the uncontrollable guffaws, rapturous applause and BAFTA nominations I’d hoped for, but laughs nonetheless. I’d done it. I’d done a funny. I’d made them laugh.
As I look back, I’m not quite sure how I avoided being kept behind after school, taken to Scabman’s secret lair and told to write out 100 times ‘I shall not have delusions of hilarity and try to make my friends laugh in class’. Miss Bennett got her own back not long after though, when she called up me, Clarissa Wainwright and Harriet Snudge in front of the whole class and proudly informed the other two that they’d be handpicked by a panel of teachers to represent the school in an upcoming television broadcast. She then proceeded to publicly ridicule me by pointing out that I absolutely hadn’t been handpicked for anything and that the only reason she’d called me up was for me to explain where my geometry homework was. I couldn’t explain. I hadn’t done it. I think it was fair to say Scabman and I were now even.
The school orchestra, however, continued to flourish and trumpet-player Susan Otterly went on to become the unfortunately titled ‘BBC Young Brass of the Year’.
As for my library gag, to an extent, I owe Miss Bennett a debt of thanks. She did all the heavy lifting. She, unwittingly, set it up. She dribbled the ball, I just booted it in. Never underestimate the straight man. Wise to Morecambe, Abbott to Costello, Bennett to Woollett. It’s got a nice ring. Perhaps I should call her agent.
To this day, to the annoyance of those around me, I still love a gag. A quick quip, a funny retort. Not from any sense of one-upmanry or arrogance, but simply because that’s the way my brain works. I see the absurdness of life. The small things that jar delightfully with the solemnity of our existence. I have no idea how to construct a lasagne or do the front crawl, but if you come back from the hairdressers looking like a Yorkshire terrier that’s just lost a fight with a Flymo, I’m going to point that out. And why shouldn’t I? In these troubling times, let’s find the funny. Let’s ridicule ourselves and each other. It’s fun. Try it. I dare you.