AliceFraser

Backstage Bants and Salon 65

Added 2022-07-04 16:15:48 +0000 UTC

On Thursday night I was in Oxford MCing a gig in the taproom of a brewery, which is to say… a large echoing warehouse with menacing big vats that smells like hops, and then a weird island of craft beer styled lights and tables.

Backstage, I had an experience I haven’t had for a while, and in recognising and remembering it, realised that it’s been a while. A familiar sensation from the past. It was a bunch of road comics and two out of three of them made it very clear they had no interest in me as a human being or as a colleague. They basically just talked to each other about women and also gigs and people I didn’t know, and ignored me when I tried to chip in. It wasn’t deliberate meanness - I just wasn’t an entity in their sphere. I realised it hasn’t happened for a while but I can’t peg whether that’s a feature of not hanging out in many green rooms with people since the pandemic began, or if the vibe has been changing for a while, or if just more people know me now, so they make more effort.

Saturday night, on the very other hand, I was in leeds headlining a lineup show. The show was MC’d by the very talented and lovely Hayley Ellis, who has a two year old, and we were talking about cosleeping, and how handy it was to not have to get up to feed a restless baby, I said something like “you just roll over and flip a boob out”. In that moment I realised that the other acts - a young man and the older man in the greenroom were sitting in silent discomfiture. In that moment I realised that in more than a decade of comedy, this was the first time I’d experienced that reversal. I apologised and we changed the subject, but I have to say it was a little thrill.

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Tea With Alice Salon 65