I do shows and most of the time I don’t know what type of audience it’s going to be, or who’s going to be in it.
No two audiences are the same. Except this week.
It started off in Birmingham where I performed to 200 lesbians. As I walked to the stage they shouted, “Can you do some lesbian material? We’re lesbians you know!” The front row was full of women wearing linen and sandals, with silver hair and glasses, it was like the Oxford University’s Chemistry Department summer outing.
They were a great audience and at the end one of them gave me some homemade vegetarian cottage pie that she had made especially for me.
People must think comedians are poor and starving.
Next night I performed in Hebden Bridge. I arrived at the B&B where the receptionist said, “Oh Miss.Mirza- you’re performing at The Trades Club- lots of lesbians in there, so it’s always a riot. She was right.
They started asking me questions in the middle of my show. One woman shouted out, “Are you a vegetarian?” I said, “No, but a lesbian in B’ham gave me some vegetarian cottage pie last night”. “We love vegetarians” she shouted back.
I thought things couldn’t get any stranger, when a woman came up to me at the end and said, “Thanks for a great night; I’d like to give you my lumberjack shirt as a present”. It was actually quite nice, so I took it, and said, “Thanks, I’ll wear it when I’m eating my cottage pie”.
Next night I went to Otley. This was a mixed crowd but at the end, four lesbians approached me, “We’re the lesbians in this village. Thanks for coming” As I left one of them gave me a bag, in it it said, “Great show, and there was an umbrella with ‘Fitness First’ written on it, and a pair of knickers with ‘Tuesday’ emblazoned across the front.
I felt confused and somehow seduced.