Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
There were only a few cars in the theatre car park when Bets pulled in, and the place looked deserted. This was a mad idea but ever since that initial conversation with George and the recent one with Ella, it had wormed its way into her head and refused to worm its way out again.
She sat staring through the windscreen, arguing with herself whether to get out of the car. If she drove away now, no one would ever know. From the back of the car, she heard Tiggy squeak, as if to say, Well, at least let me out if you’re going to sit here and have an attack of the cowards.
This was silly. Bets opened the car door and forced herself to step out. She rounded the back of the car and let the dog out. Tiggy shook herself and gave Bets a reproachful look as if she’d been incarcerated for months instead of a mere fifteen minutes.
‘Honestly, you’re such a drama queen.’ Bets bent to tickle her under her chin.
‘You here for the stand-up comedy training?’ boomed a voice, startling her.
She turned to find a middle-aged woman dressed entirely in garments made of crocheted squares in various shades of purple, complete with matching purple-suede platform boots. It took a minute for her to lift her eyes to the woman’s face.
‘Mmm, yes, I think so,’ replied Bets, a little nonplussed, trying not to stare at the hand-crafted ensemble.
‘Me too, or at least I think so, too. I’m having second thoughts now.’
‘They’re awesome boots,’ said Bets, regaining a touch of equilibrium.
‘Supposed to give me confidence,’ said the woman with a scowl.
‘Not ruddy working. I’m Harriet, by the way.
My husband’s left me for the stereotypical younger woman, so’—she paused and pushed up her sleeves as if the physical action would give her a corresponding metaphorical boost—‘thought I’d step out of my comfort zone.
Try something new. Can’t make any more of a fool of myself than moping over a man who clearly thinks I’m well past my sell-by date, can I? ’
Bets immediately liked her and gave her a grin. ‘I’m Bets, and here for much the same reason. Boyfriend of nine years dumped me.’
‘Bastard,’ said Harriet with feeling.
‘Except he’s not. Not really,’ explained Bets.
They weren’t married and he hadn’t cheated on her …
had he? For some reason that thought almost felled her.
What if there had been someone else? She’d been so tied up in the hurt of him not wanting her anymore and the bleak, flat landscape of a future without him, it hadn’t occurred to her that there might have been someone else.
Usually people broke up because there’d been some sort of catalyst. Now she felt sick with jealousy.
Harriet nudged her arm gently. ‘Shall we do this together? Sisterhood and all that.’
Bets linked her arm through Harriet’s and the two of them marched up to the double doors of the small theatre. There was no one on the doors but through them, in the bar area, was a small group of people sitting in the bar seats, all looking anywhere but at each other.
‘Hi, is this the right place for the stand-up comedy course?’ asked Bets.
‘No!’ said one balding guy in his mid-thirties with dismay. ‘I thought I was here to have me prostate checked.’ He laughed uproariously at his own joke. ‘Yes, duck, we’re the comedians. Come on in. Who’s doing the course, you or the dog?’
Bets gave him a polite smile. He’d clearly designated himself the joker of the class.
A number of leather tub chairs were arranged in a circle and it was notable that none of the six people already there had sat next to each other, as if the buffer of an empty seat on either side of them would protect them in some way.
Bets deliberately sat down next to Harriet, while Tiggy strained at the lead, her nose quivering, ready to hoover up any stray crumbs from the floor.
‘I’m Bets,’ she said. ‘And this is Tiggy. She’s a rescue and I’ve only just got her, so I didn’t want to leave her behind.’
‘More the merrier, as far as I’m concerned, duck,’ said the balding man. ‘I’m Frank.’
One by one the others introduced themselves and Bets tried to take in the names.
Will – tall, blond, virtually still a teenager; Kevin, possibly sixty, with trendy glasses at odds with his knitted cardigan and baggy jeans; Minzi, young, yellow dungarees with red buttons, green Doc Martens and lots of curly hair tied in a pineapple ponytail on top of her head, whose wide-mouthed smile outshone Julia Roberts’ by several dozen kilowatts.
There was a flurry at the door and a man ran in, reminding Bets of the White Rabbit, ‘I’m late.
I’m late. Sorry, chaps,’ Except unlike the dapper Alice in Wonderland character, this man was dishevelled from the top of his reddish hair standing on end down to his mismatched holey shoes.
‘And chapesses,’ he added, skidding to a stop.
He spotted Tiggy. ‘And pooches. First time I’ve had a canine friend on the course.
I’m Harry, your erstwhile teacher of the art of stand-up comedy.
’ He took a showy bow and everyone laughed.
‘Excellent, you all think I’m funny already. Excuse the attire. The washing machine ate my dog.’ He grinned at them encouragingly and, on cue, they laughed again – partly, Bets thought, because it was expected of them. ‘Sorry, little dog. It didn’t really.’
He paused and then straightened up, his whole posture changing as he brushed down his hair and removed the outsized baggy jacket. Beneath he wore a clean T-shirt and black jeans. Suddenly he looked like a casually dressed young professional.
‘And that, ladies and gents, is lesson number one. It takes seven seconds to make an impression on someone. Body language is one of your most powerful tools. That, appearance and voice are all things we’re going to consider today.
You can have the best material in the world but the way you deliver it, how you appear on stage and whether the audience warms to you all determine your success.
’ Already his voice had taken on an authoritative tone completely at odds with his earlier manic outburst.
‘But more of that later.’ His eyes crinkled at the corners as he made eye contact with each of them. Even Will managed to lift his head and give him a nod.
‘Today’—he left another enticing pause, his eyes sweeping across his audience, making sure everyone was tuned in before he continued—‘we’re going to get you started on your material. That’s the thing that makes you different from all the other hundreds of stand-ups out there.’
Bets realised that they were in the hands of a consummate professional and it immediately made her feel a little more engaged and a lot more confident, especially when Harriet exchanged a smile and an approving this-is-going-to-be-good nod with her.
‘Now this might seem like a bit of fun to kick off the comedy festival but no one wants you to die on stage, and’—another of his arresting pauses—‘I have a reputation to keep, so you’re going to have to do the hard yards.
’ He eyed everyone, although by this stage they were all hanging on his every word, mesmerised by the sudden transformation from geeky professor to expert teacher.
‘There. Will. Be. Homework.’ His voice was firm.
‘And deadlines. Stand-up is hard’—he paused yet again, and then his face broke into a wide beam—‘but boy, what a ride. There’s nothing quite like the buzz when you’ve got the audience eating out of your hand, lapping up your act.
But not everyone has the balls or the resilience to keep going.
I can tell you that successful stand-ups are the ones that never gave up. ’
During the next twenty minutes, he had them each introduce themselves and what they did for a living.
Among them were a train driver (Frank), a secondary-school teacher (although Bets thought Will looked far too young), a teaching assistant (Harriet), a retired engineer (Kevin) and finally a hospital pharmacist (Minzi).
Once they’d introduced themselves, he asked them to do it again in a specific style.
Bets was told to do hers in the style of a sergeant major addressing new recruits and making sure they knew who was boss.
It was funny: the minute she thought of it in that way, how she spoke and presented herself completely changed.
Suddenly she was a couple of inches taller and her voice far more commanding.
As each person spoke, Harry critiqued them, but in a positive way, pointing out the difference between what they’d just said and their previous introduction.
Bets found it incredibly empowering. She’d always thought that on the surface she was reasonably confident.
Walking into a room of strangers never fazed her; what worried her was when people got to know her better and realised that it was all surface and there really wasn’t much to her.
Maybe she should pretend to be someone else all the time.
It felt as if Harry had tapped into each of their hidden weaknesses and found a way for each of them to make themselves bigger.
Even Will, definitely the shyest member of the group, stepped up once he was given the persona of a winning football manager.
‘The audience needs to feel confident in you,’ explained Harry.
‘Feel that you can deliver. You have to believe – otherwise you lose them early on. One thing you must always remember is that you, and only you, have the power to decide how you project yourself. You can decide how you want people to view you. It’s up to you to make that work.
It won’t always, but if you don’t know, then how can you achieve it? ’
It wasn’t something that Bets had ever considered, let alone consciously thought about. Her initial reaction was that it all sounded a bit self-helpy, but the more Harry spoke, the more his words started to resonate.
Over the rest of the hour, they played a couple of games that broke down the barriers between them and he taught them various techniques of body language as well as voice exercises, showing them how varying the pitch of their voices could change their delivery.
Bets was pleasantly surprised by how physical and interactive the session was.
She’d assumed there’d be a lot of sitting and listening, like being at a lecture, but instead it had been a lot more fun than she’d expected, as well as being very thought-provoking.
Just how had she been projecting herself for the last few years?
She shelved the question because she wasn’t sure she wanted to examine the answer too closely.
* * *
‘Well,’ said Harriet as they made their way to their cars at the end of the session. ‘That was an eye-opener.’
‘Or blindingly obvious,’ said Frank, with a touch of know-it-all-itis. ‘Business psychology 101.’
‘I’ve never worked in business,’ she replied tartly. ‘I found it very interesting.’ She looked down at herself and shook her head. ‘Never thought appearances mattered. Great believer in what’s inside that counts.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Bets, ruminating on what they’d learned. ‘Now the hard stuff, we’ve got to write some material and send it to him by Sunday night.’
‘I know, right,’ said Harriet.
‘Don’t tell me you started this course without having anything ready,’ said Frank as if scandalised. ‘I’ve been working on stuff for years.’
‘You have?’ Harriet looked horrified.
‘’Course,’ said Frank.
‘Well, I haven’t,’ said Bets. ‘I’ve got no idea where I’m going to start.
’ Now that she had to write something, she wasn’t even sure she knew how to be funny on paper.
It hadn’t occurred to her that comedy was about the writing.
She thought it was about standing up and being funny, maybe cracking a few jokes.
Something she’d been doing all her life, diverting attention away from who she really was, and it had been a handy tactic for dealing with her mum’s uncertain temper.
Harry had explained that their material was where it all started and that it had to be revised and revised, polished and perfected.
Now she was worried she’d bitten off more than she could chew.
Writing funny was a whole different ball game.
Being funny had always come naturally to her; this seemed quite different.
Harry had suggested that each of them take a funny anecdote about something that had happened to them and then retell it in great detail, exaggerating the minutiae. He’d looked at Bets and Harriet. ‘You two. Working with animals and small children, you should have some comedy gold in your arsenal.’
Bets had nodded, wondering just how much mileage she could get out of animal poo and vomit.
‘Nice to meet you, Bets. See you next week,’ said Harriet as she zapped open her huge 4x4. Bets blinked at the Range Rover.
Harriet gave her a naughty smile. ‘The early bird with the car keys gets to keep the car.’ She winked and hopped up into the driver’s seat before winding down the window.
‘He’s driving my clapped-out Ford Fiesta.
’ She laughed. ‘I suppose I’d better up my game on the costume, too.
I was aiming for eccentric but I suspect I’ve nailed the lost-her-marbles look. ’
‘Keep the boots,’ said Bets.
‘You betcha.’ With that she fired up the engine with a couple of loud revs and drove off.
Bets grinned after her. She rather liked Harriet’s style.
She had a feeling they were going to become friends.
Now all she had to do was create three minutes’ worth of stand-up material.
Where the heck was she going to start? She was on her own with this one.
There was no way she was going to tell anyone in the village what she was doing.
They’d all have an opinion and, quite frankly, she wanted something completely her own to prove that she was a person in her own right.
The big question that was still to be answered was whether stand-up comedy was going to be that thing.
And just who was she going to be on stage?
Because she’d come to the stark realisation that she had no idea who she was off stage.