A Solution
I decide to speak to Bob Slayer. I go to Bob’s Comedy Bus. Bob is having a snooze on the lower deck. He wakes up.
“Beer, Stephen?”
“Yes, why not Bob?”
Bob opens a bottle of Badger. “that’ll be £4 please Stephen.”
“Sorry, I don’t have any money.”
“Why did you order a beer then?”
“I thought you were giving me a drink for free”
“Why would you think that? I’m running a bar!”
“I thought you were being nice to me?”
“Why would I be nice to you Stephen?”
Good point Bob. “Because I was kicked out of your venue”
“Why have I been kicked out of my PBH venue?”
And this is how Bob Slayer offers me a slot at Bob’s Heroes of the Fringe. I am now playing The Hive at 10.10pm on weekdays but I still need to find a venue for the weekend. I feel restless with no show tonight. A load of adrenalin and nowhere to go. I often fantasise about a night off. What I would do, what I would see. The reality is not so good. All this energy and nowhere to go.
The Result
Laughing Horse, Freestival and Bob Slayer all came through with offers of venues.
From comedians there were kind of three schools of thought.
- You have been treated outrageously. This is a ridiculous a rule.
- You did break the rules but the punishment seems excessive, particularly in the last week of the fringe. This is counterproductive.
- You broke the rules. What did you expect? Of course PBH was right to throw you out.
I found people to be very kind and utterly unpredictable in their opinion.
Many people got in touch to express support or offer their own stories of clashes with PBH. Some people told me frankly that I was wrong. But everybody was unfailingly polite and courteous about it.
I received both support and criticism from unusual places: There were self-confessed rebels who were quick to tell me that rules are rules. Other, apparently more conservative figures, were wholeheartedly behind me. Neither did the support necessarily split into predictable camps. I had very strong support from some PBH people and criticism from others outside the PBH organisation. I also had assistance from people who thought I was the architect of my own downfall but who wanted to help me nonetheless. I met some people who were frightened to express their real opinion in public lest they damage their future bookability with PBH.
Overall I experienced a greater sense of camaraderie than at any other time in stand up.
Some thoughts: PBH has done a great service to comedy in setting up the free fringe. The free fringe was set up to allow artists to take back control of their careers. If they are now hidebound by restrictive practices then it is not in artists interests. This rule of exclusivity does not serve artists and needs to be scrapped.
The feud between PBH and other branches of the free fringe is utterly ridiculous and is of no interest to the public and relatively few performers. In any case this feud is a one way street and is not reciprocated by Laughing Horse, Bob Slayer or Freestival.
Without getting into the rights and wrongs of incidents like mine or Cowgatehead, these incidents create an impression of amateurism on the free fringe and damage the overall free fringe movement. Again, regardless of the rights and wrongs, these incidents have been bad PR for PBH free fringe.
