Recently on Dear Dowdy I was asked if it was true I once compered a gig with blood streaming out of my nose. This is absolutely true. I sent an audience member to get me some tissue shoved it up my nose and carried on. This tale is only one of many provided by the hells-mouth gig that was the Fulmar and Firkin.
The gig was a free gig on a saturday. When the gig is free the audience has no investment in the show. When it works it is a thing of beauty. When the audience doesn't appreciate you disturbing their drinking, the free gig is a battle to the end. To be honest bad free gigs are a fantastic training ground, they armour the comic to be able to deal with anything. They get boring after a while, but its always good to go back and deal with a room full of drunks who don't give a toss, every now and again.
What made the venue evil? Well you could do unbelievably well there, lulling you into a relaxed state. Then odd shit would happen. A comic I knew was attacked by a woman outside the venue with a pair of scissors. Nosebleed aside, the gig nearly killed me twice. Once I was watching some friends of mine The Cosmic Tambourine's perform, got drunk on 9% beer and then got knocked down by a double-decker bus outside the venue. The only thing that saved me was the fact that I was so drunk I didn't even see it coning. For the litigious among you, the fact that your new glasses did not save you cannot used as a reason that the optician should replace your glasses for free. I actually tried this technique.
On the day of Princess Diana's funeral I didn't even make it to the venue. The car I was in got wiped out and I ended up strapped to a guerney doing a bizzare Diana tribute in a neck collar at the same hospital I went to after the bus crash. It was here I learned you can pee while lying on your back, it just doesn't go very well. I also learned if you are going to attempt the recumbent pee, its best to wear a black t-shirt. The police asked me if I wanted anyone called, i said yes could you tell the Fulmar and Firkin I'm not coming. My replacement went on and said I was dead.
Did the gig cause this? Honestly? Maybe. I do know having failed to actually kill any comics, although we did get a heckler on stage, made him strip, and then flushed his clothes down the loo, the pub ceased to exist. Last time I looked it was empty a shell awaiting new victims.
Don't get me wrong I loved the Firkin it was one of the most fun gigs on the circuit while it existed. I just have the feeling it might of been built on a dodgy ley-line or the site of the grave of a spirit who had had a couple of centuries to get really pissed off.
So, here's to you Fulmar and Firkin, the most fun dangerous pub I ever played.
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