So Why UK?

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

This coming August will mark the 15th anniversary of my first performance in UK, and that in itself was a culmination of a good 35 years of wanting to be here, just not knowing how to do it. My first thoughts in that direction were triggered, like so many of us Yanks/music freaks, by the initial British invasion in 1964. Back then, I remember being curious about what sort of culture could create music that seemed so incredibly superior to so much of what the US was creating, without even thinking that much of it was reinterpretations of America’s own creations of years before. In the ensuing decade, I also discovered British humor, OK, HUMOUR, that spoke to me as well. Enough so that I remember suggesting, in the earliest of Rick & Ruby’s cabaret days, that our act might go over really well in England. Even today, I still believe that, though we never had the money or the time to take that sort of gamble.

Flash forward to the year 2000. My second marriage was now a year since over, and though I had little career boosts here and there, most of it was spent hanging around LA under the delusion that someone was going to see me onstage at 12:30 or 1 AM at The Comedy Store or Laugh Factory and say, ” I know EXACTLY what to do with you, and it’ll make us all very rich.” Then I would wake myself up and say, “No, the industry here is such that if you haven’t made it by age 30, you probably won’t.” I was by then 49. It was time to wake up and smell the toast, or some other well-used cliché. To make ends meet, I was working part-time at a yoga studio (a job I got because my ex worked there), freelancing as a stage manager at the Zephyr Theatre on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood (a gig I inherited from my ex), and doing phone sales for my dad’s business (she had nothing to do with that).

Then came the inspiration, in the form of a comic named Steven Alan Green. He had always been supportive of my act and me personally, and had in the previous year become independently wealthy, enough so that he could have residences in LA, New York, and London. He had chosen to further his comedy career in England, at a time when only a handful of US comics were discovering the grass was greener over there. UK has continued to be gracious towards Rich Hall and Greg Proops, among the ones to profit most from the international exchange. Steven suggested I give it a try, and in August of 2000 he was producing a comedy extravaganza at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which he invited me to participate in. He wouldn’t be able to pay me for the Edinburgh show, but he found me some gigs in Manchester and London that would put some cash in my pocket.

I want to save the story of my aborted attempt to enter UK under Steven’s suggestion in 1996 for another time, because it is a major story unto itself, maybe on the 20th anniversary sometime early next year. Suffice to say in the 90’s I wasn’t ready to drop everything and pursue an international career. I had only gotten my first passport two years before that, when I started working US Army bases in Korea and Japan. I was married and fully committed to life in LA, for better or worse, and by the mid-90’s most of it was the worse. Once we divorced, it all changed.

BUT, I digress. The gigs in Manchester were fantastic, as were the Edinburgh and London gigs. I met wonderful supportive people, and one man paid me the ultimate compliment when he said, “You’re a Yank, but your humour is very British.” That was enough for me. It was a major downer when, after two lovely weeks getting stroked and adored, to go back to pushing a broom at an LA yoga studio! I needed a way to get back to UK and work legally where it appeared I was more appreciated. Steven mentioned an agent whose specialty, or as they spell/say it here SPECIALITY, was booking foreign acts, and the guy was in enough with customs that it was no problem getting the necessary work papers.

I sent him an e-mail, and he requested I send him a video. Fortunately, I’d done a fine set at Pasadena’s Ice House and had recorded it for posterity. Long story short, from my first e-mail to my first gig in UK under his auspices was a mere six weeks. I gave notice at both the yoga studio and the theatre, and my dad was understanding, though his frame of mind was still, “Why do you want to go back there? Didn’t we fight a war to get INDEPENDENT from them?” My only response was, “Hey, they seem to understand me better than my own country does.”

What truly cemented my commitment to being part of the British comedy scene was in 2001, when I did my last extended US road trip. I was working for Comedy Zone, based in Charlotte, NC, and they had a series of one-nighters that took me through Georgia, The Carolinas, and Kentucky. At the time, I’d just started doing a bit that I would close my act with for the next, oh screw it, I’m STILL doing it! It was a simple premise of Hard Rock songs re-interpreted in Country style. The bit had come out of musical jamming with some friends. We started with a Country version of “Wild Thing,” then came up with versions of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I had debuted that bit in England, and it was very successful. In Kentucky, by contrast, someone came up to me after the show, and in total seriousness, and a pronounced Southern drawl, opined, “Ah don’t git it. Queen never did no Country songs!” I didn’t need any more of a sign than that!

And here I am nearly 15 years later. I’m coming back to US to work at the end of this month, and the first week of February, I’m back at The Tropicana in Las Vegas. This really wasn’t a multi-paragraphed attempt at plugging that gig, but what the hell, let’s say it was and live with it! I’m very much looking forward to being there, as the one aspect of UK life I still have trouble with is its winter, so if I can miss three weeks of it, all the better.

January 15th, 2015



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