What Would Beyoncé Do?! Page 7

  I would Skype Klaus and tell him all about it and he would be genuinely delighted that I was out and about doing stand-up. I felt the happiest I had been in ages.

  My stepdad was proud of me for working and gigging in the evening and he helped me buy a car. I saw this gorgeous MGF convertible for sale in an Asda car park for £3k. Wow, I thought. Only £3k for a convertible. I started doing some research and found one for £2k. Johnny looked at it with me, and made sure it was safe; it was Tahiti blue with cream leather seats, gorgeous!

  I had savings of £1k and Johnny paid the rest and my insurance. He wanted to motivate me, and thought maybe the car would help me with my travelling. Him and my mum were breaking up at the time. I think they had been unhappy for years but stayed together for Asia’s benefit. To be honest, I don’t think my mum ever recovered after my dad got custody of the boys, but she loved Johnny and he had helped her so much, they just weren’t good together, they were making each other miserable.

  It was a stressful time, and my mum had no financial security of her own. Her side of the house was in a mortgage with my dad’s name which he transferred into a trust fund. As far as I understood, my father had never taken his name off it, and when they broke up, he took out a second mortgage on the house and used the money to set himself up in Bristol. So the 20 years she had been paying off the mortgage, she was paying off my father’s debt. Now, with the prospect of breaking up with Johnny, what would happen to the house, the children, where would we live? Johnny is kind though, he moved out and let my mum and my little brother and Asia live in the house for as long as she needed.

  I never want to be in that position, I want everything in my own name, so no one can ever hold any contract over my head and use it against me. I never want to pay off someone else’s debt. I like having my own money and my own things, I don’t like loans and I don’t like credit cards, have never had one. Obviously I love an overdraft, but that’s different. When I buy a home, it will be in my name, married or not, I will make sure I am secure.

  As I got older, I stopped speaking to my dad. He would never call me either. I used to make the effort to call him regularly, I didn’t mind. Before mobile phones, he didn’t want to call the house phone in case my mum answered, but ever since mobile phones, well, I’m not sure what his reasons are.

  My dad would always say he loves us very much. Whenever we see him, I can see he cares and that he wants a relationship when I am stood right in front of him. But after a while, I got so tired of what felt like chasing him, and when I would look at the situation objectively, there was no valid reason for him to not stay in touch. So I stopped running after him. If I don’t call, I just don’t hear from him. I have learnt to be OK with that now.

  But coming to that conclusion took a lot of learning. After the whole falling in love with Klaus thing, I was annoyed at myself for chasing someone unavailable again. I wanted to get to the root and try and fix it, so I called my father.

  A therapist said that if your father is unavailable, you are attracted to men who are also unavailable, because that’s what you think love is. Well I didn’t want love like that, not any more. I wanted to fix my future and not be destined to be the child of divorced parents who never had success in love.

  So I decided to go and visit him. It was time I cleared the ghosts with him. I was engaging in shit relationships and surely he was partly responsible for that. I was bored of having ‘daddy issues’ and I would keep telling myself that everything that had happened happened years ago so it was time to move on. However as much as I repeated this rhetoric, it didn’t affect my actions, as my daily behaviour was a reflection of those past hurts. Maybe if I could get some clarity I could get some control.

  I went to visit him for the day. He was back on speaking terms with my brothers, and they were gonna meet me at his house. I had spent so long planning what I was going to say when I saw him. I wanted to sit him down and have a good, healthy, calm conversation about all the ways I felt let down and tell him that I would like to start a relationship with him.

  I pulled up in my sexy new car. I had the roof down, hoping to impress him, hoping he would see that even though I wasn’t a lawyer, I was doing all right. He came out to meet me and the first thing he asked was about my car and how could I afford it. I mumbled something guiltily about Johnny helping me out, and my dad made a snide remark. I quickly sniped back, ‘Well at least he’s been there. So he paid for a car, good, I needed a car. You’ve got four kids and I’ve never seen you so much as pay child support for one of them.’

  And that was the beginning of the end. The ‘good, healthy, calm’ intention went out the window and I started crying. I couldn’t stop; we weren’t even through the front door and I was shouting at him, asking him why he was never there, why he never called, why he didn’t seem to care or love us.

  He just looked at me stone-faced. I could see him taking all of me in. I was the spitting image of my mum when she was in her twenties. As he stood in his doorway, in a low and quiet and very calm tone he said, ‘You are nothing more than a common harlot wailing in the street. You look and sound like a prostitute, so much like your mother, how very proud I am of you. Stop yourself before someone tries to pick you up.’

  I was distraught.

  My brother pulled up and saw me in tears. He grabbed me and gave me a cuddle and told my dad to fuck off. Half an hour later, we were all sat in the living room and the gloves were off. I looked around and he had pictures of his other children, pictures of him being at key events in their lives, birthdays, sports days, graduations, not even key events, some pictures were just of days, regular, normal days. So he was capable of being there for his other kids, just not me and my brothers. I don’t get it, why them and not us?

  My dad said he was ashamed and it wasn’t too late for me to go and study law. I told him I didn’t want to do law; I wanted to be a comedian. He laughed and made some quip about being the fool whilst the kings laughed. I used to always switch off when he spoke in riddles; to this day I am really good at zoning out. It must have been a self-preservation feature, as I knew that if I processed it it would probably hurt. But in that moment as my dad was going on about what a dumb bitch I must be to ‘be a laughing stock’ all I could do was zone out, and as I did I visualised myself so clearly on stage.

  I was stood in a bright spotlight in a beautiful old theatre, with gold lint all around the edges of the audience’s red velvet seats, the room was packed and people were just clapping and cheering and laughing and they were doing it all for me, with me. I held on to that image, I took a snapshot of it in my head like a photograph and used it to protect myself from the negativity. I didn’t want to absorb any of it, it just looked like I wasn’t listening. I was, just to myself.

  I left soon after that and drove my little car home. I didn’t have the roof down on the way back, I felt embarrassed, I didn’t want anyone to see me. I drove back to Farnborough and ran straight into the arms of my mother. I cried for hours and told her everything; she laid me on her lap and stroked my hair, saying ‘My darling, you are very capable of anything you set your mind to, you will achieve everything you have ever dreamed of’ and she held me until I slept.

  9.

  I’M NOT A GIRL . . . NOT YET A WOMAN

  I felt driven and encouraged by my mother’s support. I was going to be the one to give us both a better life. My first year of comedy quickly passed and I was itching to get back to Edinburgh. I learnt so much from being in touch with Klaus and Patrice. How much you have to fight to get what you want and never let a rainy day stop you. I started going to Edinburgh every year. How could you not want to go? It was the only time of the year when I could get up on a stage and perform every day and no one could tell me otherwise. If I was shit, I owned it and I learnt from it. If I was great, it fuelled me to keep going. Edinburgh became the place where I could follow my dreams; the rest of the year didn’t really matter.

  For my second Edinburgh, I went
with another comic and we did 25 minutes each. It was a massive deal for both of us: how was I ever going to handle being funny on stage every day for 25 whole minutes?

  But something about doing the free show and having control over it meant that I stepped up. I loved every detail: organising the photo shoot for the posters, putting the posters up, flyering for my own audiences. Every aspect I adored but most of all I loved performing my set, whatever it would be. We would often get a crowd of around 20 people and I could just stand up and talk to them. I learnt so much in my first year. It didn’t matter if you were shit, you had to go straight back up and do it again. Also it didn’t matter if you killed it; you could get straight back up and die the next day. All that mattered was that I was doing it.

  I invited every newspaper and agent and PR I could think of, but no one came. That was OK, but to be honest, I wasn’t ready to be showcased, I needed time to cook. I still need time to cook. I just relished the freedom of finally doing what I loved.

  I spent the next three years temping from my mum’s house, regularly in touch with Klaus, and playing the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I got involved in a children’s play where I was a tree. An improvisation show for kids, an improvisation show for adults. One year I did four shows a day and learnt so much. It killed me, but I loved it. Every year I would continue to be in touch with Klaus. It was so nice to see him regularly at the festival. I could hang out with him every day, as outside of Edinburgh he would either be back in Germany or touring with his artists. He had a different girlfriend this time around but she was pretty much a carbon copy of all the others. I affectionately called them ‘Paint Dries’, because they were about as interesting.

  By 2011 I was gigging regularly, about four or five nights a week. Now most people in comedy are the kindest, loveliest, salt-of-the-earth people. But every now and then it can feel a little bit intimidating. I remember one time these open mic’ers asked me to go for a drink after a show. Open mic’ers are comics that are still new and on the unpaid circuit. The two males started waxing lyrical about joke construction and ‘what you need to be a great comedian’. They then started congratulating themselves on their knowledge of American comedians, dissecting and analysing famous people’s jokes and explaining to me why it was funny.

  I just sat there trying to keep my Smirnoff Ice straw out of my eye. Then one of them turned to me and asked me who I liked. I said I love Whoopi Goldberg. They laughed and one of them said, ‘You’re not a comedian, Luisa.’

  ‘What? Where has that come from?’

  ‘You can’t call what you do comedy.’

  ‘Oh. I like it.’

  ‘Haha yeah, you clearly don’t know comedy. You are awful, you need proper jokes, you just screech on stage. Listen, send me your stuff and I can write some punchlines in for you, because you don’t know what you are doing.’

  Both of them laughed and I went home and cried my eyes out. I was too embarrassed to mention it to other comics in case they thought the same. I called Klaus. He said, ‘Luisa, no comedian worth their salt would ever say anything like that to you or anybody, fuck them, they are not comics, trust me when I say comedians on the circuit do not behave like that.’

  It made me fall in love with Klaus a little bit more, to see he was supportive. As for those two guys, I haven’t heard of them being on the circuit since.

  Comedians are pretty special people, there is a beautiful solidarity amongst comics, it’s an isolating job, being alone on stage, so it’s nice that off stage most comics are absolutely lovely. One of the loveliest is Rachel Anderson. Rachel has the voice and face of an angel and would do killer jokes and amazingly funny songs, my favourite being ‘Shit on my Tits and Feel no Shame’. It is genius.

  In stand-up, when deciding a line-up and running order, you always open with a strong act. In the middle, when the audience has settled in and warmed up a little, you have a newer act; the middle spot is often a really nice one as the audience are more receptive. Then you close the gate with a headliner, someone who’s on at the end because they are difficult to follow.

  In February Rachel asked me if I wanted to do a show with her at Edinburgh, sharing an hour together. I had already booked myself in to do a Whose Line Is It Anyway?-style improvisation show, and the timing of Rachel’s slot meant that if I was to do a show with her, I would have to go on after her as I wouldn’t make it across from my venue in time to open. The decision to say yes took for ever. I felt so honoured, because Rachel was amazing, she was one of the best, I would learn so much from doing a show with her, but at the same time, the thought of following her scared the shit out of me. I hated the idea of turning down something performance-wise because I was scared, and the whole point of this festival was to challenge yourself, so I accepted. I am so glad I did, as Rachel became one of my closest friends and is one of the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful women I know.

  So it’s August 2011, myself and Rachel were booked into my favourite Laughing Horse venue, the Meadow Bar. Zac, the chef there, would make my usual meal: a veggie burger with a fried egg instead of salsa, and cheesy wedges instead of chips. Clare and Michael from downstairs would just ring the kitchen and tell him that Luisa was in, and my burger would come down the hatch. I felt at home here with these guys.

  Rachel’s sister mocked up a poster using Photoshop and some old Facebook photos, we got them printed up and we were in! We would both do the improv show half a mile down the road, then Rachel would leave before the last improv game and run across the bridge for our two-hander, which we called ‘All Over Your Face’. She would set the room up as the previous show was exiting, clear the glasses, rearrange the chairs, open the windows for some air, stick some music on the iPad and start letting the second audience in. Meanwhile I would finish off the improv show and arrive just in time to welcome Rachel on stage.

  Like I mentioned before, when you do paid shows, the venue has staff who do all this for you: the sound equipment is tested, there is a technician throughout the show, the room is cleaned and set up, there is someone taking tickets at the door. In free shows, you are the venue staff, the ticketing staff, the cleaner, the musician, the sound tech, the bouncer, and the performer. And I loved it. I loved doing things for myself. I loved the pressure and stress of setting up your own room, I loved running from one venue to the next. I loved all of it.

  Now with free shows, you have no idea how many people are going to turn up. My improv show was attracting anything from zero to 50 people. With our two-hander, I always arrived late, so missed out on seeing the queue outside the door. You can tell a lot about how a show is gonna go by the length of the queue. Also, you can get a feel for the energy of the audience before they’ve even entered the room.

  My show with Rachel was a lot of fun. Rachel is one of the most talented comedians I know. The prospect of playing with her, let alone following her, was daunting. As soon as we had done a few shows together, though, I started to relax. It became a joy to follow Rachel because she got the audience so hyped. I would often arrive dishevelled, soaking wet from rain or sweat, and would introduce her with a straightforward ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage . . .’ One of my favourite memories from the run was Rachel’s face at one of the introductions. It was the last Tuesday of an exhausting festival run, I was really late, the room was full and I was flustered as I ran on stage. I wanted to say ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome one of my favourite comedians’ but my brain panicked. Instead of ‘favourite’, I started to say ‘female’, and I didn’t want to say ‘female comedian’ because she is a comedian, ‘female’ is annoying unless I say ‘male comedian’, so instead my mouth quickly changed ‘female’ to ‘finest’, and then I was spewing words before my brain knew what I was saying and I came out with: ‘Please welcome to the stage one of the femaaaa . . . ffeee . . . finest comedians of our generation, Rachel Anderson!’

  Rachel’s face was a picture, I found it hilarious. To me she absolutely is one of the fin
est comedians of our generation. But she is also incredibly humble and would never allow herself to be referred to as such. There we were, in a sweaty room above a pub, where our stage was opposite the toilets and we got interrupted by the hand dryer every ten minutes, here in this magical room the audience could see, for free, one of the finest comedians of our generation. If that’s not an incentive to visit the festival, I don’t know what is.

  So what did Edinburgh teach me this time? I learnt that I loved improvising and interacting with the audience, I was beginning to get comfortable calling myself a comedian, a new one yes, but a comedian as opposed to someone just doing comedy. The question now was how to make this feeling last for the rest of the year.

  Speaking of Rachel, I helped her get married. I wrote a dating profile for her on MySingleFriend.com. How it works is you write your friend’s profile and they write yours.

  Here is the profile I wrote for Rachel. It has been proven to work, so feel free to copy and paste:

  Rachel is sexually aggressive and seldom washes. By all means try and be the man to tame her, but do so at your own peril, she is not a woman to listen.

  Rachel then wrote a witty reply, something along the lines of ‘Haha, thank you Luisa for that lovely introduction.’ She got several dates and a boyfriend who then became her fiancé and is now her beloved husband.