The Sixth Form Revue
I was the youngest and most obnoxious kid in the year, basically an irritating little fuzzy-haired shit who often did things to show off but rarely even got a laugh from my peers because, frankly, I wasn't funny.

Aged sixteen I included myself in the cast of the end-of-year sixth form revue: a collection of sketches, impersonations and general school in-jokes that only occasionally held any humour to anyone else. Having written several terrible sketches, most of which were rejected, I decided I needed my moment of fame some other way. I wrote a sketch in which the leading character gets electrocuted off-stage and runs across the stage with his head on fire. Like all my other sketches it was rubbish, but the stunt appealed to the upper-sixth producers and it was accepted.

Because I usually got in the way of things and there were plenty of actually funny things to prepare for the stage, my sketch was never rehearsed. Thus, on the night, we all realised it was my sketch but nobody knew their lines. The curtains opened, there was a pause and the others involved decided to abandon the sketch.

Undeterred and ever attention-seeking, I promptly poured about half a can of lighter fluid on the top of my head, soaking my fluffy hedge of hair, put a match to it and ran shouting across the stage.

Apparently it was quite a spectacle. The audience genuinely screamed at the sight of a short spotty, be-spectacled kid with four-foot flames (lighter fluid) and black smoke (burning hair) billowing from the top of his head, and I earnt my few seconds of infamy running around the stage in a state of very convincingly growing terror. The watching teachers were completely aghast but I ran off-stage before anyone attempted to intervene.

Mercifully, we had plenty of fire extinguishers backstage and I grabbed a CO2 can and promptly froze my remaining hair to my scalp. Through another miracle of fate, my remaining hair was booked to be cut the next day (a Saturday) and the barber somehow managed to produce a messy style that covered my bald spots and burned blisters.

Monday morning, I ambled into my form room and was greeted by a massive round of applause for probably the only time in my school career. The later bollocking for irresponsibly using fire on-stage was probably harsher because I didn't appear to show any injuries, however it was worth it for the few moments of utter panic I appear to have caused.
( sanityclause is waiting until, Thu 19 Jul 2007, 17:13, Reply)