Cognito
I saw him at Glastonbury a few years ago, very late on Sunday. He was quite, quite wasted. He performed what I guess was the first 10 minutes or so of a 20 minute routine, got a bit confused at some point after chastising David Beckham for some transgression or other, lost his bearings, and started back at the beginning again: "Bought a bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil the other day - got it home, someone'd only gone and fucked it..."

As the olive oil gag restarted the material for the 3rd time, I was beginning to think it was some kind of genius meta-performance - impossible for anyone to really be that hammered, surely?

A 4th repetition of the olive oil gave me some doubts, and by this time he was mostly grumbling about how the audience didn't deserve him, very much in the classic style of Embittered Comic, but still quite amusing generally. The stage manager was hovering near the edge, obviously wondering whether to cut him short, but as people were generally enjoying the spectacle, the act continued (by and large).

Then he decided he needed to get closer to someone in the audience to discuss some point or borrow a hat or something, and rather misjudged how easy it would be to stride out into mid-air over the metal barrier. He basically fell forward in mid air and landed, on his neck, on the barrier, briefly seeming to have knocked him out cold... for a moment he could quite easily have been dead, but shortly after he came to and continued with the set, after the organiser had failed to persuade him to seek medical attention. He did about another 10-15 minutes of material, presumably having remembered the bits he'd forgotten the first 3 or 4 times.

So I guess he'd given up flouncing by 2010 - I can't say it was great comedy, but definitely a highlight of a very weird evening for me!
(Treacle Cock, Sun 28 Jul 2013, 16:41, Reply)