What Would Beyoncé Do?! Read online

  There was talk about the nominations for the Edinburgh awards, and because of the buzz my show was getting, people kept telling me I would be a shoo-in. I got a phone call from someone from the awards panel who said one of their judges had tried to come in but had been turned away. They must have got there late then. Normally with a paid show, the judges get a ticket and show up as it starts, but they hadn’t thought it through with free shows.

  You see, at the time, there was snobbery around doing free shows, and industry didn’t take it too seriously. The previous year two acts were nominated from the free shows. This was a first, acts were proving themselves to be good enough, bypassing the paid-venue system. These nominations started to shift the balance, but bias towards free shows still existed, agents were always telling their clients to avoid it. I would hear it all the time, ‘Only shit shows are free.’

  Fuck them. I loved being part of the movement that was showing off the free festival in all its richness, its all-inclusive, salt-of-the-earth, underdog, accessible, grass-roots, talented, heart-of-gold richness. And I was killing it.

  It didn’t really surprise me that the judges couldn’t get in; typical that they just assumed they could show up. To arrive for a popular free show at the last minute and just hope to get a seat is short-sighted. Of course they may have been running across town from other shows, but I actually found it quite funny that they got turned away, even if it was at the risk of a nomination.

  The lady from the panel asked me to reserve someone a seat for the following day, so from then on I started managing the queue a bit more. I would arrive at 10 p.m. and walk up and down the waiting queue shouting, ‘Press and industry, any press and industry?’ People would reply and say, ‘Er, I’m here.’ And I would be like ‘And who are you?!’ And they would say, ‘Oh we are from blah blah blah’ and I would be like ‘OK, wait there.’ They were shocked that it was me – they didn’t expect me to perform the show and also be my own bouncer/ticket master.

  The show was fast becoming a runaway hit. Ten days in, guess who walked in. The PR who had ignored all 13 of my emails. ‘Listen Luisa, your show is good, and I have contacts. I’ll do you a deal if you promise to sign to me and no one else. I will send my contact in but only if you do a handshake now, because listen, there are a few things you are doing wrong. First off, you don’t need the music, and the title, it’s not good, you should have your name, like a pun. Luisa the Teaser? I don’t know, you think of something, you’re the comedian.’

  I laughed. Probably a bit too hard, as she didn’t get what was funny. But I didn’t have much choice and this was someone offering to help, so I skimmed over removing the two elements that were intrinsic to making my show the success it was becoming and I shook her hand. Sometimes you gotta play the game, so I shook it and waited to see what she came back with.

  Give her her due, over the following days, more and more agents came along. I met with a woman called Debi Allen, who punched the air for the whole show, she loved it. She waited around afterwards to grab me and we spoke for about an hour, she wanted to sign me. I hadn’t heard of Debi before, but then I hadn’t heard of most agents apart from the really massive ones. But I hadn’t met an agent before who was this excited about my show.

  I met with Debi a few times and really got on with her. She’s down-to-earth and such a hustler. The first time I met her, we went and sat in a bar and Beyoncé was playing in the background and I took that as a sign. Debi wasn’t the most powerful agent and she had a massive roster of clients, but she really seemed to get me. Debi hadn’t come from money, she had built her company up from scratch, nothing was handed to her. I liked her and she seemed to like me. She started coming to every show.

  Day 20 of the festival, I’d come to the Meadow Bar to check in, and as I went to get my pint of Coke and blackcurrant (it was my signature stage drink, it’s delicious, you should totally try it, and yes, it all goes in the same glass, you donkey), that was when I saw her. A woman I had never met but who I recognised instantly, and she looked at me with the same ‘Oh I recognise you from social media but shit just realised we have never met and so I shouldn’t have recognised you’ face.

  We said hello at the same time, but the air caught in my chest and my hello came out a bit swallowed and so to make up for it, I got friendly.

  ‘Oh hi!! You’re Klaus’s girlfriend, aren’t you?’

  ‘Hello Luisa.’

  ‘Yeah! That’s me! So what are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh I just came with my friend for a drink, but he’s not here. We wanted to go for a quiet drink.’ *Gets jostled by people at the bar*

  ‘Oh great, well my show’s upstairs.’

  ‘Is it here? I didn’t know.’

  ‘Yeah, the er poster’s outside.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I guess you can come if you want, I er I’m starting in ten minutes.’

  ‘Great I will get a glass of wine and come.’

  Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Why the fuck did I just invite Klaus’s new girlfriend to come and see my show all about Klaus and his new girlfriend? Fuck. This was possibly the most nerve-racking gig of my entire life. The girlfriend, the new girlfriend that I talk about in my beautiful, artistic, heart-breaking show, is here and she is coming to watch. Hey, here are my jokes about how he left me because he wasn’t ready and now he is dating you. And worst of all? I have a packed room, the queue is going around the corner of the pub, so now I have to let her in first with industry to make sure she gets a seat. FFS.

  This is so embarrassing. Imagine writing your diary after a break-up, imagine pouring out your heartache and depression and how your brother tried to kill himself and you were jealous. Now imagine reading that diary entry out loud to the woman who is dating your ex-boyfriend. Then imagine doing that whilst wearing a second-hand sequinned top and thick woolly ski trousers, badly replicating the single ladies dance whilst standing on a crate in a room above a pub next to the toilets where the hand dryers go off every 10 minutes. Imagine having to do that. Fuck. What do you do? If only there was some kind of uplifting, empowering mantra that could help a person at such a moment . . .

  As I was about to open house I quickly caught a moment with my back up against the door and I prayed: ‘Please, please God, please, I beg you Jesus, of all the gigs I die at, please do not let it be this one, please, you can have me die at every other gig for the rest of the year, every one, I don’t mind, but not tonight, please, please, please, don’t let me die tonight.’ Then I let the audience in.

  I did it, I did the show, I didn’t cry, I held my own and I did it. I actually had a great show, well the audience did. My show carried me through on autopilot. And she was kind, and laughed and clapped and cheered in all the right places. She was actually rather lovely.

  There is a moment in the show where, after talking about Klaus and his new singer girlfriend, I sing Alanis Morissette’s ‘You Oughta Know’ and get the audience to join in with the chorus. As I was singing it, she joined in, and I thought, ahh that’s really nice of you, and at the same time, mate you are killing me.

  I came off stage and stood at the door waiting for people to come out. I could not have felt more depleted, but the adrenaline high was keeping me standing. She came past and put a tenner in the bucket, more than most people put in, then she hugged me and said I deserved to win all the awards. She was lovely and pretty and not like Paint Dries at all. I actually kinda liked her, or at least, I liked her as much as I could, only now I guess I just didn’t hate her. She was nice, really nice, just a nice, regular girl. We were quite similar in a way, the sort of girl who in any other situation you go shit, we would be really good friends.

  After the rest of the room cleared and I came downstairs, she came over all excited.

  ‘Oh goodness, I tell Klaus I saw your show, he was so surprised!’

  ‘Great!’

  ‘Honestly babe, it was amazing.’

  ‘What did he say?’


  ‘Just asked if you were weird with me. I said no, you are nice.’

  The compliment was weird coming from her, but rather than listening to the fact that she’d called me nice, I just thought ‘Aww, she spoke to Klaus.’

  I had made myself proud, I’d taken a hit and I’d done my best, and now as I walked home, I just felt numb.

  The next day I slept until 3 p.m., then ordered Chinese food and got ready. I hadn’t wanted to go out all day and was still in a state of shock from the night before but amazed it hadn’t affected me. That evening Katerina rocked up to help me with the queue. She wasn’t doing a show in Edinburgh that year so she’d come up to visit for a week. Thank God she did, her timing was perfect.

  Now have you ever suppressed frustration so much that you act completely fine but then will randomly punch a wall if you can’t find your keys, even though they were in your pocket the whole time? Well the night after Klaus’s new girlfriend came to see me, I was feeling this level of misplaced frustration. I went on stage. My audience were quieter than usual, and didn’t laugh particularly loudly at the jokes. Rather than just going with it and trying to adapt my energy to their level, I found myself taking what I can only call the road of no return.

  ‘So you didn’t like that joke either, eh? I have an idea. You know what you could do, come to a fucking free comedy show and just sit there in fucking silence. And here’s a better idea, why don’t you all fuck yourselves, bucket’s there, pay what you want, I don’t care, you’re all dicks.’

  And I stormed off stage. Amazing, completely unsalvageable, unforgivable, amazing. As I flew past Katerina she gave me a look that said ‘Oh you’re doing this, are you? Yep, yes she’s doing it! OK! OK! OK? I am here!’ She took the bucket for donations and I ran downstairs and slumped at the bar, heart pounding and out of breath.

  The audience came out and one by one apologised for being quiet and hugged me, and I felt awful and thanked them for being so nice. Katerina walked me home. I told her all about the night before and how it hadn’t bothered me the whole day, and then the tears came. I cried and cried and cried. I cried for the first time since being on antidepressants. I cried and wailed for the first time in months and it was exactly what I needed. It felt good.

  Katerina just held me and listened and was amazing. I love Katerina, she is so funny and smart and insightful and she drops these truth bombs that are pretty epic. As I sobbed into her lap, she started laughing. ‘It’s not funny,’ I moaned like a five-year-old.

  ‘Luisa, his girlfriend came to see you do a solo show about her current boyfriend. You literally sang one of the best break-up songs in history to her face and despite this, despite you writing a whole show about their relationship, she still comes out and calls him to tell him how amazing the show is. Don’t you get it Luisa, his girlfriend thinks you are brilliant even when you slag her off on stage and vent about her boyfriend. You have won, well done, take it!’

  And I had won, because that girl did me a massive favour. If I could do that show at that time in front of her, I could do it in front of anyone. To this day whenever I go on stage and am particularly nervous about who is watching, I just think to myself, remember when Klaus’s girlfriend came to see What Would Beyoncé Do?! in Edinburgh and she loved it and you nailed it, if you can do that, you can do this. Even when I die at the gig I’m nervous at, it doesn’t matter, I can die and I can get up and do it again.

  I was feeling really excited about what was happening. I was getting a lot of buzz from the festival. A comic stopped me on the street and said, ‘Oh my gosh Luisa, congratulations, I hear your show is like the best of the festival, and I overheard an agent talking about it, saying that this show could be bigger than Mamma Mia.’ My heart sang.

  One morning I was in the living room chatting jokes with Jason, and Marc came running in. ‘Luisa, Luisa! Have you seen Chortle?! You got four stars!!!’ Steve Bennett had given me the best review: ‘Only one word for it, Bootylicious!’ Yes Steve! Icing on cake! I was done, Edinburgh was officially perfect. I’d got four stars from Chortle. I mean it reads like a five-star, but fuck it, I got four stars!!!

  18.

  ALMA . . . *FOOT STOMP TWICE* . . . CHECK YOUR BATTERY

  It’s night 23, and I meet this suave-looking older dude at the bottom of the stairs. He stood out like a sore thumb in Edinburgh so I asked if he was industry. He nodded, and so I brought him upstairs. On the way out, he threw £20 and his card into my bucket, said ‘You girl are phenomenal, let me take you for lunch, we can talk’ and left. Ahh he seems nice, I thought.

  That night as I did my ritual of counting my money out, I told Katerina about the guy. ‘Yeah, he gave me his card, hang on.’ I took the card out of my bag of coins and notes. ‘His name is Mick Perrin, for Just for Laughs.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’

  ‘What? Is that good?!’

  ‘Mick fucking Perrin?! You got Mick fucking Perrin?!!’

  ‘Yeah, who is he?’

  ‘He is Eddie Izzard’s tour promoter, one of the biggest promoters in the country and a fucking legend!!’

  ‘Ahh!’ I squealed. ‘And he said I was phenomenal! Wahooo!!’ I slept very well that night.

  The next morning the nominations came out, and I wasn’t nominated. I was really disheartened. I’d thought with all the heat and love I was getting from the audiences, I might get a nod. But it didn’t happen.

  My show went on to become one of the most successful solo shows to ever come out of Edinburgh, so who needs awards? (Apart from my ego.) For a moment I was upset, as I thought it would mean something. But it didn’t knock me for long, as the love I was getting for the show was overwhelming. Powerful even. I took Mick’s card and went to meet him for lunch. I apologised for not getting nominated. I felt like a nomination would have given me the gravitas I needed to meet him. He laughed so hard and told me they were idiots. I warmed to Mick immediately. In fact it’s pretty safe to say I loved him.

  In a weird way I felt like I had won Edinburgh. I had my choice of agents, four- and five-star reviews and was performing the show of my dreams. It had only taken me till the age of 28, but I finally felt like I was being me and fulfilling my destiny. Destiny’s Child.

  After Edinburgh, I went back home and everything had changed – my new plot point. I moved out of my mum’s house and found a room in London, living with two Polish girls in a two-bed house in Lambeth North. We turned the living room into a bedroom, and the living room faced the front door, so it meant every time you came in, you walked into this girl’s bedroom. But it was central, £550 a month and I could walk home after gigs. It wasn’t perfect, but it was perfect for now.

  I stopped teaching my comedy classes as I started doing more and more shows. I went to meetings with different agents. I was in love with Mick and signed with him as my promoter, and as I walked around Debi’s central London office, I fell a little bit in love with her too. She has this amazing three-floor central London office space. She has worked hard, hustled and built herself an empire. And that’s the kind of person I wanted on my team, someone to help me build my empire.

  It was a bit confusing for me having several agents, but it’s the way it works. I got my mate Della, to help me get little stand-up gigs in clubs, while Debi and Mick looked after the big stuff. My own mini team.

  I decided to put on a six-week run of my show. Mick wanted me to do a paid theatre, but I didn’t want to. I rang around venues and the Comedy Café were the first to offer a midweek slot. Amazing how a good festival can turn things around. I couldn’t get booked at the Comedy Café before August, and now they were trusting me with their club every Tuesday for six weeks. Against everyone’s suggestion, I put it on for free. The club would make money from drinks at the bar and I could do my bucket donations at the end.

  I have this weird tradition before I go on stage. I hate it when people say to you, ‘Mate, you’re going to be amazing, you’re going to smash it.’ I feel like that immediately puts me u
nder pressure, so I prefer if they say something like ‘You’re awful, I don’t know why you are doing comedy, the audience are so disappointed already.’ Sounds odd, but it takes the pressure off. Maybe it’s coming back to that ‘have to win’ feeling from dance classes and competitions. This way there’s no pressure. In fact whenever people do say ‘You will kill it and be amazing!!!’ I always find I have the worst gigs.

  The first Tuesday of the Comedy Café, my mum was coming to watch. I had gathered a mailing list from my previews and had used social media to get 140 names on the guest list. I was hoping at least half would show up. It was a Tuesday after all. Katerina was on the door marking the names off and then she was on the DJ decks doing my sound check. I’d cried on the train there, and I bit everyone’s head off then cried again. Katerina said, ‘I don’t know why you are doing comedy, they all think you’re shit, hugs, now get up there.’

  I had the best show. It was oversubscribed and a packed house. They laughed and clapped and cheered. The show still worked out of Edinburgh. I said my goodbye speech and people at the side stood up, then people in the middle, then the whole room. I got my first standing ovation. It was epic. And humbling and amazing and powerful and generous and fucking awesome. I never get tired of them. I love standing ovations.

  I caught the bus home, sneaked in through my roommate’s bedroom and got into bed. It was freezing outside and the heating didn’t work, we only had old single-pane windows. So I put on my coat and hat and slept in them. I felt so proud and delighted, I got a standing ovation. I was sleeping in a coat and hat but I didn’t care. I got a standing ovation, baby.

  Whilst at the café, I met a guy called Lee Griffith who worked at the Soho Theatre. He said he loved the show and would I be interested in coming to perform? I nearly wet myself. Soho Theatre, Soho Theatre!!!! One of the most prestigious venues in London, where all the award-nominated comedy shows go, and they were offering me the chance to come and play.