A SHOW OF BRAVADO

Whether I like it or not, it would appear that I am destined to become a household name. I don t just mean in my own house, although this is the only level of celebrity or notoriety to which I have ever really aspired. No, I m going to be huge, a veritable megastar.
How do I know this? Because I recently recorded my very own embarrassing snippet for Before They Were Famous, that show with the self-explanatory title in which an acerbic presenter, usually Angus Deayton, digs out, dusts off and broadcasts footage of well known celebrities making ill-advised appearances on television shows a very long time ago: the entire cast of Eastenders on Grange Hill, for example, a pre-pubescent Dennis Wise on Blue Peter, or a quite frankly old-enough-to-know-better Jean Claude Van Damme dancing in some soft-porn skin flick that can only be described as GAY.
Of course, with the possible exception of The Muscles From Brussels (who, ironically, would probably jump at the chance of a bit part in a porn movie these days, if only he could pass the audition) such appearances weren t actually ill-advised at the time. Dennis Wise appeared on Blue Peter when he was 11 because he was a prodigious footballing talent, and the entire cast of Eastenders appeared on Blue Peter in their pre-pubescent years because they were good actors on a quality children s drama, and Eastenders hadn t been invented yet.
The difference between them and me is that I recently turned 27 and was therefore old enough to know that the TV show I was booked to appear on was likely to be utter rubbish. The fact that I was proved right means that as sure as night follows day, my two minute performance of stand-up comedy on Bravado will come back to haunt me in the not too distant future.
Like most such debacles, it began with a phone call out of the blue. A charming, persuasive researcher (they always are, the fuckers) for a television production company had seen me doing stand-up at a London comedy club, got my number from somebody or other and rung to enquire if I d be interested in performing on the show she was working on. It was a men s magazine show broadcast weekly on an obscure cable channel, the money was shit and the viewing figures were low. Nevertheless, she d liked my laddish material about sex and drugs and thought I d be ideal. How could I refuse? There was just one snag, though: because the show was repeated approximately 365 times a year, often before the watershed, I wouldn t be allowed swear. Or talk about sex. Or drugs. Or be too topical. Would that be a problem?
I went through the vaults and reckoned that if I did the few bits of material in my repertoire that I could happily perform in front of a priest v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, I d probably be safe. No problem.
On the day of the recording, I turned up at the television studios and was ushered into the most pitifully stocked Green Room I have ever seen. Booze was conspicuous by its absence and the only nibbles on offer were water biscuits, cream cheese and slices of cucumber. To make matters worse, upon lighting up a cigarette I was ushered out of the building and made smoke it on the street. Among the other guests on the show was the editor of Melody Maker, four scantily clad English girls who have chosen to live in a house where their every move is recorded by cameras and broadcast live on the internet and . . . and that was it. There would also, I was informed, be a few pre-recorded inserts by DJ Judge Jules, who would be talking about his car, as well as a bartender who would giving a demonstration on how to make cocktails. Needless to say, the presenters of the show were a pair of complete rides, one of whom kept calling me Brian.
What transpired was a shambles. I was the closing act on a television programme which made The Word look like The South Bank Show. The audience (a bemused couple who had been dragged in off the street, the equally bemused editor of Melody Maker, numerous cameramen, researchers, floor managers and several gorgeous women) didn t so much laugh as cackle maniacally out of necessity, as if their very futures in the broadcasting industry depended on it. It would have been funny except that I got the distinct impression that their futures in the broadcasting industry probably did depend on it. With this in mind, I struggled through it manfully, got to the end of my mercifully short set and fucked off home for a lie down.
I chose not to watch the show that night, and would prefer not to see it at all unless Angus drags it out in 10 years time for some cheap laughs at the expense of internationally renowned comedian and chat show host Barry Glendenning. Alternatively, this farrago could well prove to be the pinnacle of my career, a state of affairs that simply doesn t bear thinking about.