Clubbed to Death

I was doing a try out gig at the biggest club in comedy. Walking towards the venue, shaking with fear, I kept repeating to myself a story I had recently heard about my grandad. During the Irish War of Independence, he found himself in the corner of an old farm, surrounded by British soldiers. Outnumbered and outgunned, he thought he was finally out of luck. Luckily for him though, the soldiers firing at him, mistook the sound of their own bullets ricocheting off the metal sheds, for enemy fire. They fled, grandad survived, and I now exist. The tale gave me a strangely reassuring secret pocket of confidence as I walked into what felt like enemy territory. I could sneak up on this room full of 300 drunk Englishmen and not feel scared. Like my grandad, I could kill too. Perhaps even blow the roof off the place. I knew, as a former Irish Republican soldier, he’d appreciate it.

Try out spots at big clubs are terrifying. In a very short period of time, squeezed between established and experienced acts, you have to hold your own, entertain the crowd, stick to time and do well enough to get asked back. It’s like being shot out of a cannon. Sometimes you soar like an eagle, other times you nosedive like Eddie the Eagle.

This particular time, it was not great. They hated me almost immediately. The MC may as well have introduced me as “Ladies and gentlemen, the woman your dad left your mother for - Gráinne Maguire!” Everything that had previously worked seemed to curdle in my mouth. It was like standing on stage reading out a will, to a family of mourners slowly realising they were getting nothing.

I was more frustrated than humiliated. What had happened? So, when the owner of the club emerged from the back of the audience to give me feedback, I felt grateful. The gift of self-awareness, the relief of answers, maybe all I needed to do was talk slower or stop fidgeting? When the other comics gave me commiserating looks as they left the green room, I thought, how immature, who doesn’t appreciate constructive feedback? I was going to shock this patriarch of punchlines with my level-headed attitude. Give me your worst pops, I will wow you with my pragmatism.

“I’m trying to understand,” he began, “Are you an actress?”

Time slowed down. It was as if the phrase was slowly hurtling towards me and I was trying to figure out if it was a compliment or an insult before it hit. Was I an actress? Was this his way of saying he thought I was good looking? 

“No” I said evenly, still hoping this might lead somewhere practical like, I need to hold the microphone nearer to my mouth. 

“Oh” he continued, shaking his head sadly, “I thought maybe you were and that was why you thought you could do stand up. I just feel so bad for you.”

Now, normally I love pity, it is a much underappreciated human interaction. When people say “I don’t want your pity” I think great - more for me. Every party should be a pity party. So why was this making me feel like I might vomit at any moment?

He suddenly looked into the middle distance, like a medium getting a message from beyond the grave. “Somebody is making money off the back of tricking you into doing stand up, you are being exploited and I feel a duty of care to find out who and put you out of your misery.”

I had thought naively, maybe the worst feedback I’d get is, you need stronger punchlines. I didn’t think my night would end with the manager of the club worrying I was a victim of human trafficking. His only way of explaining my set was that some pimp had realised life on the streets wouldn’t be profitable for a gal with a resting face as tragic as mine. What could he do with me? How could he make his money back? He’d already paid my ferry fare from Dublin. I know, he thought, I’ll push her into a life of open mike gigs, new material nights and occasional paid tens. I was another tragic victim of the white female comedian slave trade. What other explanation could there be? 

“Or...” I paused, “maybe I’m just not that good at club gigs?”

He reacted like I’d slapped him in the face.

“What? This isn’t a club gig. This is the home of alternative comedy. We created comedy in the 80s, we are not a mainstream club.”

Reader, with the best will in the world, this was nine years ago at a gig in Central London. The line-up that weekend was basically a convention for straight white middle-aged men who hate their wives. 

But his reaction was enough to slap me awake. It was like when the girl in Labyrinth realised the Goblin King had no hold over her. 

He thinks this is an alternative comedy night. He’s clearly mad. I don’t need to listen to anything else he says.

I was free! I was positively flirting with him now. Nothing he said meant anything. The crueller he got, to his obvious frustration, the more I happily agreed with him. It was like listening to a toddler describe a dinosaur he met in the park. “Yes!” I nodded beaming, ‘maybe I should just learn typing!”. The other comics shuffled back into the room expecting to find a corpse, while instead we were kissing each other on the cheek goodbye, laughing like old friends. I had the exhilaration of a near death experience. He had tried to kill me, and it hadn’t worked. He thought he was firing bullets, but I realised in the nick of time, it was just a lot of noise.