Full Mooning

There is a bit of a unproven theory in the comedy world that when its a full moon, gigs tend to be more than a little odd. Its not an uncommon theory that people go a bit bonkers when the moon's all big, round and shiny like Wayne Rooney's face. For a start the Met and Sussex police employ more officers on full moons (see here: http://bit.ly/2QB7Wv), because they say people are a tad more violent and aggressive. I think it may well be that they are just as drunk as usual, but can see each other better. Similarly, burglaries are easier to do without torches, and should you need to kidnap your best alien friend and cycle away from the coppers, there are fewer better nights. Full moons also affects women's periods. They had a particularly hard time in the 16th century due to continuous full moons. Then of course there are werewolves. And personally, when I see some idiot mooning out a limo, I feel more violent and angry than usual.


In terms of comedy though, its general knowledge that audiences are weird on that one day a month. Not necessarily bad, unlikely to be great, but definitely weird. Is it a fact? Well no. And skeptics, such as Nick Doody, would say 'such a thing has not been proved and therefore cannot be true.' I'd say to you skeptics that there is no proof that ghostly ninja boy scouts exist, but then who comes into my flat at night and ties knots in all my electrical wires and headphones? Huh? There is some sort of full moon proof. The staff at the Komedia recently recalled to me a particularly rowdy gig a few weeks back that happened to be on a full moon. Pete Graham at the Kings Head makes a note of any gigs that seemed a bit off and goes back and checks them against full moon charts and 9 times out of 10, they match. The other time it's just an annual dickhead outing. They have those and you must be careful not to confuse the two. If you do, just remember, Neil Armstrong didn't fly and land on a dickhead. Well he might have done, but it wasn't on camera. I'm not suggesting anything.


In terms of personal proof, I've only ever gigged on a full moon a few times and some of them have been mad, some have been fine, one was cancelled and one was a Comedy 4 Kids show where a child told me vampires didn't exist. Little prick. But then there was last night. If last night wasn't caused by the full moon then I'm not sure what it was. The audience weren't all dickheads, only some. So unless the annual dickhead outing allowed friends and partners, I'm assuming it can't be that. At first, all involved assumed it was because it was openly advertised that Noel Fielding was on. When such things happen, you know the audience will be only Noel fans and will therefore give less than a shit about the acts beforehand. It wasn't actually that they gave less of a shit, but during the first half there was general chatting, laughter in some very odd places and a man in the very front row who decided to pretend he worked at Butlins and kept getting up in the middle of jokes to get more booze. I was compereing and nobody really wanted to give me any information at all when I talked to them. So I did material. They also didn't like that. If I knew how to juggle I'd have done that instead, but I guess they would have remained unfazed. By the second half they were more lively, but still a tad weird though Tiffany Stevenson did a great set and got them onboard a bit more.


Then Noel went on and we quickly realised that while they may well be Noel fans, they are possibly the weirdest fans he has. He started his set brilliantly, but was constantly heckled by shouts asking what he had done to his now blonde hair. He had about 6 or 7 jokes to retort with about the very same subject, but this did not stop them asking repeatedly throughout the 40 mins he was onstage and even at one point, tell him they preferred him with brown hair. Several of them acted as though they were on some sort of a date with him, just constantly asking questions such as 'How's Julian?' and generally making every attempt to not let Noel actually do a set. As Tiff rightly put it, it was like the live version of the Heat 'Spotted' section with one girl pointing out very loudly that she had seen him in her local 24 hour store. When he finally got going, much of his material, whilst keeping us backstage highly amused, seemed to confuse them and fairplay to Noel, he just had fun with it. Afterwards as I spoke to one of the more sensible audience members out front, two of the girls managed to get backstage and berate Noel about his hair till he left. People are lovely.


So why were they like that? Well you might say, its because they knew Noel Fielding (who's name means he has to sift through Christmas wishes. They didn't like that joke yesterday) was on and therefore all the loon balls were attracted to the gig in the first place. Yeah that's reasonable. But you are still wrong. It was the bloody moon wasn't it? Full bloody moon. Hence why they were all lupey. See that wordplay? Eat that wordplay. EAT IT! As Nick Doody said to me last night, if I am to blame such things on the moon, then I will have to blame all gig results on the status of the moon that evening. I'm not if status is the right word. I can't imagine the moon updates its facebook with things like 'got another crater on my face. OMG!' or something. Well, Doody, I think such things can be done. I'm in Wolverhampton tonight and I will bet you that along with the moon, whilst I'm on, the audience's attention will definitely wane.