What Would Beyoncé Do?! Read online

  A comedian I half knew called Juice had also been invited to play Singapore and had had the same thoughts about a holiday beforehand. (Remember Juice, he was the one who was nice to me after I got my bad review a few years back.) He was going to Thailand but he didn’t wanna spend the money on a nice hotel, and because I didn’t really know him, I decided it would be better if I just stayed on my own and left him to it. I had four days in the honeymoon suite, by myself. I think Beyoncé would do that.

  I think it’s really important to take time out by yourself, give yourself a chance to reflect on what you are doing and how far you have come. I am used to being on my own but I love company. By the time I got to Singapore I had been on my own for a week, so it was nice to see a familiar face.

  I’d never really warmed to Juice before. I’d known him for a few years on the open mic circuit when I first started and hadn’t thought much of him. Katerina said he’d got really good recently, but I just remembered him as a rudeboy who spoke in this stupid accent and did jokes about poo.

  He was staying at the same hotel as me in Singapore and we shared our experiences of Thailand. I told him about my amazing open-air shower and honeymoon suite for one. And he told me about how he did magic mushrooms and saw ladyboys. We were so different, but actually he was refreshing. I was kinda grateful for the relief. It was either hang with him or be on my own.

  He basically has no filter, he puts his foot in it and always says the wrong things and people sometimes mistake him for a child. I’d had training in working with children, I liked it.

  Juice quickly got himself fired from the festival. On the opening night there was a big gig in front of the promoters, lots of reps from Magners were there and Juice decided to open his set with ‘I love Bulmers.’ The promoter dragged him off stage and they got into a punch-up. He’s an idiot, and for some reason I felt sorry for him and reached out.

  As he got kicked off the festival, he had to move into a mate’s room, two grown men sharing a small bed. I called up and offered Juice some respite by coming with me to get my nails done instead.

  I met this five-year-old man in the lobby and he came with me to town.

  ‘Why do they drive on this side of the road?’

  ‘Because they do.’

  ‘Yeah but why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why do they have trees like that in the pavement?’

  ‘To swallow up the rain.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jesus you’re annoying.’

  We walked into the local shopping centre and found a nail salon.

  Me: Hello, can I get a shellac please?

  Nail lady: Shellac for two?

  Me: Er no, just for me please.

  Juice: Yeah, I want shellac.

  Me: No you don’t.

  Juice: Yeah I do, what is it? I wanna see what she does with the shellac. So what is this shellac?

  Me: It’s just like a manicure but it’s paint that doesn’t budge.

  Juice (to the nail technician): So what else is there to do in Singapore that’s a must-see tourist destination?

  Nail lady: Shellac?

  Juice: Yes, the shellac is very nice but I have not travelled across the globe to see shellac nails.

  Nail lady: You want shellac nails?

  Juice: Yes they are very nice but I don’t recall going on the tourist-board website and seeing shellac nails. My dad owns kebab shops . . .

  I howled. I don’t know why; in hindsight, it wasn’t even that funny. But I liked him and felt very comfortable viewing the world with him.

  I had a ball performing my show in Singapore. The audiences were quiet and it was weird playing to a crowd who would be eating or getting up and ordering food halfway through, but I liked it. I had learnt after my American experiences to just run with it.

  My stepbrother Paul was living in Singapore with his wife. They came and saw my show and were really proud. Last time I’d seen them I was a spotty teenager with dreams of being an actress, and here I was getting flown out to Singapore to perform. It was a nice moment.

  Nela, Paul’s wife, invited me to this private members’ bar in Singapore. So after the show, I changed my sweaty, humid top and got a cab over to this hotel. The club was amazing, like a boat that went across these two large high-rises. Nela had put my name at the door, and as I walked through the club, I came out on to the balcony and there was a VIP section and a VVIP section. Holy shit, I’d never seen anything like it.

  Nela called me over. She was with her Singapore friends and they were gorgeous. This was a Tuesday night; they were dressed up to the nines, slammin’ figures, big hair, stilettos and designer handbags. I rocked up in my woolly trousers, fake Isabel Marant hi-tops and an ‘I New York’ ripped T-shirt. I could see as Nela introduced me that her friends were judging me; they looked at my cheap clothes and ratty sneakers and I didn’t belong with them in the VVIP section. But I didn’t care, I was like, well let them judge. I’d been flown out to Singapore to go ‘Moo’, I was in a pretty good place, but at the same time, I wished Juice or someone was out there with me to enjoy the spectacle of being in a bar where they clearly think I don’t belong.

  One of the women ordered a bottle of vodka. A small Filipino woman came over with a bottle half the size of her. It cost $6,000. $6,000!!! That’s like six fridges, bitches. I was in complete shock. But also ecstatic: look how my life has changed, here I am, wearing fake Isabel Marant trainers, at a rooftop bar overlooking the whole of Singapore with a $6,000 bottle of vodka. I don’t know how I sneaked in, but I liked it.

  The next night it was the closing night of the festival. Before the end-of-festival party, I’d had a gig called Joke Thieves. I love Joke Thieves, it’s where you do a five-minute set and then you swap with another comedian. They do your material and you do theirs. I have a knack for it. I love mimicry and essentially that’s what you do with this. I always play safe and easy and physical on my material, making me easy to mimic.

  The other comics on the night hadn’t seen me before and only knew about my Beyoncé show. You see, as I started playing these festivals, I was put on the bill with much more experienced comics, who hadn’t seen me come up through the club circuit. I just came out of nowhere with a solo show. I constantly felt the need to prove myself. I wasn’t feeling part of the circuit I’d started on as I was travelling with gigs, but I hadn’t earned my place with my peers on these circuits either. I got a guy called Alan Anderson, an unabashedly shameless comic who other comedians either love or hate. He can be a knob but I like him.

  I did my set and Alan went up and just took the piss out of me calling me some dumb bitch. Everyone laughed and applauded his piss-take of my accent and material; he made me sound really common and stupid, basically playground mocking me being a girl. It was almost hurtful. The audience would look over to see how I was responding. And normally I would laugh along and they’d see that it was all in jest. But this didn’t feel like jest. This one was taking the piss, so when people looked over to see my response, I just didn’t look impressed. I was too stubborn to laugh; besides, I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of me laughing at a man who was mocking me.

  It got to my turn to do Alan. I took his material and ripped it to shreds, mocked his jokes, mocked his accent, mocked his attitude. Annihilated him, annihilated the room, got the best response of the night. After that Alan shook my hand and has been nice to me ever since. We get on really well now. It’s like that as a woman in comedy. Sometimes dudes will use that you’re a girl as a way to patronise or belittle you, but when you prove yourself, you’re part of the team.

  Later, at the party, I saw the promoter, who came and chewed my ear off about how he hated Juice and what an obnoxious arse he was. I said that was unfair and Juice was just doing his job. He’d told a joke that was funny and it was unfair how the festival had treated him. I was sticking up for my new best friend.

  The promoter didn’t like m
e sticking up for Juice, but he wasn’t in a position to be horrible to me. I had one of the most popular shows at the festival, so he kinda listened to me and nodded but I could see he completely disagreed. It was weird seeing someone bite their tongue around me. Who would have thought, a fully grown man biting his tongue and respecting my opinion. What a difference a good show makes.

  I met Juice and he asked me if I had ever been in love, as he was worried because he hadn’t. He had started seeing two girls he liked, both at the same time, and now he couldn’t decide which one to drop. He had inadvertently got into a situation where two women think he is their boyfriend and now doesn’t know what to do. It was possibly the first time he had opened up. I laughed so hard: ‘You’re a fucking idiot!’

  ‘I know, but it’s not my fault.’

  Then the promoter came in. I got all protective over Juice, but Juice stood up and walked over to the promoter. I saw him offer his hand and they chatted, shook hands and Juice came back. Wow, I thought, that was impressive, he acted like a complete adult. No fighting, no punch-up, no drama, just a good man. What a beautiful quality.

  The bar asked everyone to come in from inside or leave. I went to leave but Juice said let’s dance for one more song. OK, I said, whatever the next song is, that’s our song. (You know how much I love this game!) The band played ‘Free Fallin’’. I was like, what the fuck is this song? Juice was like, oh my God, this is my favourite song ever! And sang all the words at me.

  We walked home in the humidity, and as we got to the lift and I pressed the button for my floor, I was really tempted to ask him to come and stay with me and we could just talk, but I panicked and just barked, ‘See you tomorrow, dickhead.’ I’m really quite charming.

  As I went to my room, I was annoyed that I didn’t have him to talk to. I had a shower, put on my knickers and admired myself half naked. I wondered whether he’d like me naked. Eurgh, quickly get rid of that thought, why would I want an emotionally stunted, immature guy like Juice to see me naked? Gross. I convinced myself I had done the right thing. I didn’t want Juice; besides, he can’t decide between two girls. I went to sleep alone, again.

  At 4 a.m. my phone rang.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Why are you still awake?’

  ‘Oh my God, what; because you called me. What do you want?’

  ‘Can I come and stay with you please?!’

  ‘What? No. Go away, it’s four a.m.’

  ‘I know and I’m sorry but my mate has brought a girl back and they are having sex in the bed and it’s really awkward for me sat here watching them.’

  ‘Haha, you’re unwanted in a threesome,’ I sang at him, and then hated myself because I’d clearly spent too much time with this man child and was now regressing myself.

  He knocked on my door and I answered topless, holding my boobs, wearing nothing but a pair of pants. I had been dying to show someone my tan. I go golden. He came in and got into my bed. I was nervous and needed a wee but didn’t want him to hear me weeing so I made him sing really loudly whilst I weed with the tap on. That’s the thing about idiots, they will do whatever you ask them to. That’s kinda nice.

  I got into bed and marked his side of the bed and mine, he ignored it, grabbed me and spooned me. A storm kicked off outside and the thunder made me jump. He held me tighter, and we lay there laughing at how weird it was that of all the people we would find ourselves with, it was me and him in a thunderstorm in a hotel in Singapore. We put on my iPhone and played ‘Free Fallin’’ and that song ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’.

  I was conscious that he had his arms around me and I didn’t want to breathe in, just be natural Luisa, never apologise for your body. I couldn’t help myself and said, ‘I’m sorry for my fatness.’ Now people have different ways of complimenting you. Juice went with ‘I don’t think you are fat at all, I think you feel really nice and soft, you are like a Premiership footballer . . . who’s retired.’

  Awww, I thought. He said Premiership.

  As I tried to sleep, Juice held on to me but kept his waist away from me. I said, ‘That’s cute. You’re not pushing your penis into me.’

  He said, ‘Well I haven’t got an erection now, but if you needed me to have one, I could get one for you.’

  Charming. Shakespeare must be shitting himself.

  The following morning Juice had to get an early-morning flight; I was still in bed when I got a phone call.

  ‘Hi, did I leave my Rolex in your room last night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did my mate leave his wallet or his Ray-Bans or his Rolex?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Oh because he brought a prostitute back to the hotel last night and I think she robbed us.’

  23.

  IF I WERE A BOY . . . I’D BE BETTER AT IT THAN YOU

  Time came around for me to start working on a second show. I had a title, ‘Am I Right Ladies?!’ It’s a follow-on from ‘WWBD’ and it’s a line in Beyoncé that audiences would always quote back at me, so it made sense. The only problem now I was writing it was that I didn’t know how anything was going to top the magic of the first one. Beyoncé was so incredible and everything was changing and I really felt excited about my life. But the pressure of writing a new show felt quite overwhelming. ‘WWBD’ had been touring for three years; how was I going to deliver something as good? The by-product of travelling so much and doing my solo show meant that I had lost touch with the community spirit of the gigging comedy circuit. I wasn’t gigging with other people and was on my own a lot. I had my gorgeous friends outside of comedy, Delia, Pas, Zoe, but they all had regular jobs or didn’t live in the city. Suzi and I would always miss each other because of touring and Katerina had moved back to Greece, and I found my new timetable quite lonely.

  Turns out Juice actually lived ten minutes down the road from me. With him being unemployed, I had a new friend to hang out with. He was impressed with what I had achieved in my career, he wasn’t at all competitive or jealous, he was really supportive. I got asked to do an interview in the Guardian. I read the comments when it came out online. Readers, men, commenting things like ‘Dumb bitch, why don’t you try and work on being funny, women aren’t funny.’ I got really upset and clicked on the replies. There from KebabJuice81: ‘Go fuck yourself, she’s amazing, and funny, hilarious, go back and work in Tesco you sad little closed-minded twat of a human being.’

  Ahh, he did it on every negative one. Any bad comment, there was a reply from Juice telling them to go fuck themselves. He not only read my interview, but he stuck up for me in the Guardian. Yes, he had two girlfriends, but he stuck up for me. I’d not had that before. I liked it. I liked hanging out with Juice. He became a good friend. I got all the attention of a man without the pressure of a relationship, all the fun without any of the potential disaster. *Cue haunting music*

  He would talk to me about his girl problems and I had someone to call my friend. I liked him. I also liked his comedy, which was weird because I never laugh at comedians – well I do, but not often.

  I started coming up with material for my new show and I would run it past him; he never berated or judged me for it. And I needed that freedom. I mean, I had an audience that was coming to my shows and I needed to work on something to give them. Something that would make them want to stand up at the end. The test of my new show was making it good enough to receive a standing ovation.

  What I love about my audiences is their loyalty. I know my audiences and I knew what I wanted to talk to them about. I wanted to say to them everything I wanted to say to myself. I wanted to tackle body image, not being over an ex, having one-night stands and going on antidepressants. Beyoncé was all about being depressed and hopeless in a narrative; this time I was stronger, happier and wanted to write a manifesto. A manifesto with jokes.

  I booked in my first preview in the tunnels at Waterloo. I felt so much pressure to deliver; I didn’t want to let my audience down. Katerina was over from Greece, so I go
t her over a few hours beforehand and we started coming up with a rough running order. I knew I wanted to open with my thigh gap joke and be like, look, here is my body, deal with it. Also Spanx are funny, what if I added a layer and as I took my trousers down, I had Spanx on first and then took them off. This would all be more fun if I did it to a song, so Katerina pressed shuffle on my iPhone and we agreed that whatever song came up was the one I was going to strip to. It was Mariah Carey, ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’. Perfect!

  I arrived at the tunnels and to my amazement the show was sold out. I could have shat myself. But my audiences being as gorgeous as they are, they were so supportive. I did the show and got a standing ovation, on my first preview of my second show. Phew, I felt good, the comedy gods were smiling on me.

  The show evolved really quickly. I liked incorporating music into my shows, and the second was no different, but instead of a particular artist I decided to use more movie references and quotes. I also started talking about my desire for a boyfriend.

  I was bored of always getting asked about women in comedy and what it was like to be a woman in comedy. There is the cliché that female comedians dress frumpily, and I’m not frumpy, I’m glamorous. I wanted to be myself on stage.

  In the previews, my difficulty was that by taking all my clothes off at the beginning, I had created a real high. Then it becomes how do you top that high? Where do you go from there? Some comics suggested I should end on the stripping. But that felt so wrong and why should me being half naked be the punchline, why is my body the punchline to a joke? No, this was about more than just being stripped back on stage; it’s metaphorical, stripping down to my bra and Spanx and being like, look, I am a woman, here are my boobs, this is my body, can we get over it and on with the jokes now please? And then I’d strip bare my soul on stage. Why should nudity be the climax? I am smarter than that. I set myself a high bar, a hill if you like, then previewed the life out of the show as a means to figure out how to climb it.