Where And When It All Began

1987 was a good year for me.  It was when I first started making steps towards being a "somebody".  I'd survived the travails and traumas of childhood by using my odd talent for humour and mimicry, often earning rebukes from teachers but saving me from a beating from my peers because I could always reduce them to laughter with my impressions and dirty jokes.  Of course, it had never entered my mind that I could turn such abilities to make a profit, that I could actually make a career out of this.

And then I watched a video called Billy And Albert.  

I'd seen Billy Connolly a couple of times on the Kenny Everett show but I'd never seen any of his concert performances.  What I saw on that video on that fateful night in 1987 left me helpless with laughter and would prove to have a profound effect on my life.  By the time I went to school the following day, I had perfected my impression of The Big Yin and knew the material well enough to spend most of my first lesson regaling my pals with routines about baby monitors, sharks and expensive carpets.

And that's how it was for the next few years.  Every time I bought an album or a video by the great man, so my repertoire grew.  It still had yet to occur to me that I might take the act onto the stage - comedy tribute acts did not exist then - but it was something I could pull out of the bag at a party or social event and be guaranteed a few laughs.

It wasn't until 1994, when I was working as a reporter for a local newspaper, that I was given the opportunity to take my impersonation to the next level.

Mixie's Men are a punk/rockabilly band with an outrageous stageshow and when I interviewed them I wasted no time in telling them that the first time I saw them, I thought they were crap - something which amuses Mixie to this day.  Despite that, when I told them during our meeting that I did an impression of Billy Connolly, they gave me the chance to try the act out at their next gig.  

The following Saturday, I went along to The Halfway House in Prenton and, when the band finished their first half, I got up and did ten minutes of material.  It wasn't exactly the "secomd coming" but I also didn't die on my arse.  More importantly, though, I felt comfortable up there.  I liked the stage and the stage liked me.

Over the next twelve months, I became the band's unofficial support act, performing at their gigs whenever time and circumstance allowed.  Of course, it was inevitable that the time would come when they would have to say to me "Go west, young man" which is what I did, finding audiences on the comedy circuit in the North West.  Mixie and I remain friends to this day.  I will never forget that he was the one who gave me my first break in the business that we call "show".