Lady stand-up comedienne

Well, it’s time I started writing a blog. It will be a great and momentous way of cataloguing the events, thoughts and crucial opinions of a lifetime, both on and off the stage. Ideally my lifetime, unless I get it very wrong. And unless I have better things to do. In which case, it won’t be as good as I’m making out. Of course, by the time I’ve finished (my life, that is – and that is how I plan to end it, “right, I think that wraps it up for now”) blogs will be obsolete and we’ll have devised an even more efficient medium to communicate our thoughts, show off in public and embarrass ourselves.

Until then – here is the latest. I got some anachronistic, Music Hall-ish thrills at the Norwich Playhouse last night. Backstage, I was referred to as a “comedienne”, twice! I was introduced onstage as a “special guest”! I shared that stage with a female jazz quartet called ‘The Stilhouettes’! (though not at the same time; that would have made us “The Stilhouettes and Some Girl who is Unfathomably less Well Dressed”) I made a gallant joke about the rakishness of the evening’s host and star attraction! Variety isn’t dead – we revived it last night, and although I tried to use my set to stuff its head back underwater and hold it there til it went limp, it just wasn’t in me – as I stared out at the expectant, friendly faces, many of whom were of pensionable age and on what looked like an unaccustomed night out, most of me thought, ooh, you all look lovely, let’s try to be ‘simply delightful’, while the rest of me busied itself at editing my material.
I don’t know what that “division of labour” arrangement I have with myself says about us. I mean me.

I hate being called a ‘comedienne’ – it feels like you’ve been dragged against your will into another era, and the next thing he’s going to say is “you know, I’m all for you chapesses having the vote”. Because yes, in answer to the navy blazer wearing, Rotary Club members who normally get really insistent about it - “but that’s what you are, aren’t you, you are female so you’re a comedienne” - I am aware that I’m a girl and everything, but times have moved on since the word ‘comedienne’ was coined, and it refers to a very different style of comedy from today’s stand-up. It’s like being a writer and having to deal with people that keep calling you an “authoress”.

Not really sure how I should end these blog sections. It feels like having a massive rant and then metaphorically sweeping out of the room going “good day to YOU, sir.” I’m going to try and suggest a more consensual climbdown where we both (at a rough estimate of the number of readers) just calmly leave the computer, and perhaps wander off into the kitchen and make a coffee or something.