Week 3

Gordo: A little boy grows up in a city full of British people. The little boy therefore grows up British. The little boy then becomes a man. The city he grew up in is no longer full of British people. What does the new man think of his new city?

Me: Are you asking me what I think about immigration?

Gordo: Well, yes…

Me: Ok. Well what I think is… Wait. Hang on. I’m still confused by that last bit. Why didn’t you just ask me what I think about immigration?

Gordo: I was trying to be come at the issue from a slightly different angle. Like you would.

Me: Yeah ok....I’m not sure I would do anything like that though.

Gordo: Let’s forget the whole little boy backstory. Just tell me – do you think we have either too few or too many Somali internet cafes in London?

Me: I’m not quite sure how much my answer to that question would tell you about my views on immigration compared to how much it would about my views on the most economically efficient way to watch pornography in public.

Gordo: Ok, look. Let’s look at this from a different perspective entirely.

Ten green bottles hanging on the wall, Ten green bottles hanging on the wall, And if one green bottle should accidentally fall, There'll be nine green bottles and one Romanian bottle hanging on the wall.

How does that make you feel?

Me: Hmm. I’m still not quite getting the point of framing the question that way. Anyway, I am not really interested in making an express political point either way. I am doing something a bit different. In my play. In my whole body of work.

Gordo:

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends, Make it last forever, even if they’re Lithuanian.

How would you respond to directions like that?

Me: Well I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. I want to tell you a story. A true story. This happened just last Tuesday. I think this story probably tells you more about the subject than I could alone.

So I was on the train. The evening South Western from Basingstoke to Waterloo. I had a can of beer wrapped up in a Tesco carrier bag, which I had planned to sip from surreptitiously whilst taking in the splendid passing scenery. I was actually on my way back into town following a productive meeting of the professional variety. I had a sense that a fresh offer of employment was likely to follow from it, yet I felt trapped somehow. Like a can of beer wrapped up in a Tesco carrier bag.

As the train began to gather momentum, I noticed a Nigerian lady sitting opposite me watching me in horror and seeming to mouth words to herself in disgust.

Being both sullen and weary of mood, I turned to face the window on my left and admire the beautiful surroundings before being interrupted. By her.

She tapped me on the shoulder and said. “Excuse me. Can you please stop touching yourself?”

At this moment I panicked. In the instant I momentarily doubted myself but remembered I was clutching my travelcard in my left hand, which I then proceeded to raise and wave in disbelief. I scanned the anxious faces of nearby passengers ashamed and hopeful that they had not heard what the Nigerian lady had said.

I then said to her quietly, “I am sorry. I think you are mistaken. I have no idea what you are talking about. Please Madam be about your own business.” and sat back in my seat feeling both shaken and, to a degree, strangely wistful of the recent English past.

I thought back to my comedy heroes. They were mysterious but fundamentally tragic figures like Peter Sellers and Peter Cook. They were giants of 20th Century comedy and they were both very English. Peter Sellers was born in Southsea wasn’t he? Yes. And Peter Cook was born in Torquay. My favourite part of the UK.

But even these places are changing now. Like Basingstoke is. Changing so quickly and so fundamentally in fact that one wonders whether this country will ever have the necessary environment and culture to produce another Peter Sellers or another Peter Cook.

There was that peculiar quintessentially English eccentricity about them about wasn’t there?

Where eccentric really becomes a code word for depressed.

So Wikipedia today says of Peter Sellers: “An enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played.” And of Peter Cook Wikipedia says: “On his death some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years.”

So they were prodigiously talented. Sublimely talented. But there was always that sort of melancholic undertone to their complicated personalities. Some would say that was a byproduct of their English private school educations.

In many ways when I think about my own education I almost think they were both a bit like m-

And then the Nigerian lady stopped my thoughts by gesturing wildly and shaking her head in disbelief.

“Excuse me. What do you think you are doing? You can’t do that in public!”

And I waved the travelcard at her again with my left hand and said.

“Look. Seriously now. I am a practising lawyer. I am not sure what your problem is but please just leave me alone. If I have to take this further with legal action I will do.”

And I thought back to the strange lives of Peter Sellers and Peter Cook and the vanishing genius of England. I know we are all the same underneath. But at the same time, there was a special quality about that brand of English humour, wasn’t there? A sort of typically English mixture of the high brow with the low brow, yeah? That mixture of ruthless intellectualism and the absurd, yeah? Like Monty Python. And I just wondered whether this new UK is still capable of producing that brand of humour. It is a major hallmark of British culture.

But men like Sellers and Cook. They were such naturals. It was almost as if they had that otherworldy quality, innit? Like they were British but not truly of this world. And although they only demonstrated their majestic gifts fleetingly and sporadically, that almost made their work more compelling, yeah? Like witnessing an eclipse and knowing that you have to just enjoy the moment before it passes.

I mean when you think about it, it’s not completely dissimilar to m-

And then the Nigerian lady began shouting at the top of her voice.

“Can someone please call the police? Can someone please call the police? This man is touching himself! On the train. And he refuses to stop.”

And I held the travelcard over my head, waving my left hand. And said

“No. I am not touching anything. As you can see. Apart from my travelcard. I think I am going to have to take this further myself. You, Madam, leave me with little choice in the circumstances. Can someone please notify the train attendant? In good haste!”

And I thought back to Peter Sellers and Peter Cook. The two Peters. Cook effectively brought British comedy into the 20th century. You know. He basically launched modern British satire. And then he basically launched modern British alternative comedy. Before he was 30. And then he squandered his talents afterwards. Too much drinking. For both of them.

But when Cook became Eric Daley on Clive Anderson in 1993 after years of alcoholism and self imposed seclusion had crippled his health and fucked up his looks, he was still funnier than anyone else had been on British television for the past 15 years. And to witness that - an old master at work – who was still the master – without even trying. Without even writing and rehearsing a script. It was sort of thrilling wasn’t it? It was thrilling! Because you knew it was the sort of ad libbed improvisational performance that only Peter Cook could deliver.

It was George Best.

It was Miles Davis.

It was Kurt Cobain.

It was Rock and Roll.

And it was a thing of pure unadulterated beauty.

But there was always that prevailing weary existential ennui for both of them really. Their gifts were their curse, innit? Like they became so masterful in their art that in the end even that didn’t make them happy anymore. Isn’t it? And that proved their undoing.

Again a bit like…You know! I’m just saying that there are similarities. Obvious similarities. If you look for them. I mean obviously my own parents are Brazilian. 80% Spanish, 20% Russian. But even so they both remind me of mys-

And then the Nigerian lady started shouting to the train attendant who gave me a bewildered look of amazement.

I felt a tapping on my thighs and remembered that on Tuesdays I wank with my right hand.

I said “Oops. I’m sorry. I honestly had no idea.”

But as I continued my journey on the evening South Western Railway from Basingstoke to Waterloo and thought about Peter Sellers and Peter Cook, and of Southsea and Torquay, whilst I was pointing to the stars without either hand, I strangely felt flat like a can of beer in wrapped up in a Tesco carrier bag and I thought to myself:

“Why didn’t just say she meant my right hand? Is it because she could not speak English? God. I can see why people voted for Brexit.”"