I get some strange requests. This week I received a letter from a man in Manchester saying, “It’s my wife’s birthday, we haven’t been married long, and I have been really nasty to her. I’ve been threatening to divorce her and marry our neighbour. I was wondering if you could come up to Manchester and do some stand up comedy at her surprise birthday party I’m organising, to cheer her up?
So I got on the train with my best jokes, nervously hoping I wouldn’t be the last straw to cause the divorce. I sat on the train and prepared my set, leaving out all my anal sex jokes.
I arrived at the Indian restaurant where a section had been cordoned off for the party and the rest of the place was in full operation with passing public. I walked in to find the wife having a full on argument with her mother, the argument ending with the wife shouting “You nosey cow!”
The guilty husband arrives and tells me, “I want 30 mins of jokes, nothing rude, don’t upset anyone”
There was no microphone, no stage, and behind me I could smell a selection of lamb and chicken Tikka masala.
I had to stand behind a table and shout my jokes at the audience. The husband stood by the chapattis with a pen and notepad making notes.
After each joke I looked at the husband and mouthed, “Is that ok? Is it going well?”
He looked like he wasn’t understanding a word I was saying. The wife was eating rice pudding throughout my act, and asking her mother very loudly weather the baby had ‘done one yet’. My set ended with the wife shouting to me, “Are you having an affair with my husband?”
I know it went well, because the husband came up to me at the end and said, “I will be paying you. And can you autograph my bus pass?”