Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #16

Today I want to talk about driving.

Not in a Jeremy Clarkson sense; I’m not going to make some largely generalised comments about different nationalities and pass it off as ‘irony’. Nor am I going to sit in the front seat of a Citroen AX and complain about the tacky gunmetal-grey interior or the poor handling of it’s unruly gear knob. I’m just going to talk about driving.

The Beatles, once sang; “Baby, you can drive my car”. And it’s understandable that they should be so keen to foist this responsibility onto their child.

Being a comedian, a large part of my “job” is driving – driving to gigs, driving from gigs and driving to and from gigs that I’m not performing at, in the vain hope that someone will pity me and stick me on stage. (It never works.)

I’ll tell you something about driving; I hate it. Hate it. Every time I sit in that cockpit – and it is a cockpit – I’m transported back to those iconic Beatles lyrics, and wish that I too, had a baby to whom I could hand over the keys. But I don’t. “Beep, beep, beep, beep, yeah!” the Fab Four sing, mentally mocking me. We can only assume that their baby-of-choice was of a legal driving age.

My relationship with driving has always been a bit of a struggle, ever since I took lessons. I’m not saying I was a bad driver, but nerves overtook me in a way I cannot explain.

I was once driving across a bridge and was so terrified of moving to the outside lane, I thought the safest option would be to plunge 200ft into icy cold water. I still maintain to this day that if my instructor hadn’t grabbed the wheel at the last possible moment then we would have been fine.

I’m sure the car would have turned into a boat eventually – if it worked for Chitty (Chitty, Bang, Bang) then it could work with my instructor’s Renault Clio. Alas we will never know, because he refused to teach me after that. Hardly Dead Poet Society, is it?

I never had any inclination to drive, it didn’t interest me. While other little boys were playing with their toy cars and Scalextric, I was distributing tickets and parking fines to the ones that were badly parked. I had more important things going on in my life – like comedy.

When I reached 17 I was more concerned with the power of inflections and speech patterns in a Two Ronnies’ sketch. OK, I didn’t have friends, but I didn’t have to buy a tax disc either. I only learnt to drive because I was guaranteed that any car would be a ‘pussy wagon’. I had no idea what this meant, but I later found out the bloke who told me that, was fired by the RSPCA for smuggling kittens.

So, imagine my dismay, when I realised that my enthusiasm for comedy had led me to here – spending my evenings driving up and down the country. Now that’s irony, Mr. Clarkson. (At least, I think it is. It might not be.) My feelings towards driving to gigs, ebb and flow like a particularly complex episode of JAG.

Sometimes, I begin to settle into my role as the travelling vagabond, plying his comic wears around the country – I grab a bag of Haribo Starmix, tune the jukebox to Radio 2, turn the air-con up to 3 or 4 (depending on current weather conditions) and hit the open road.

However, this dream never lasts long. I’ll be belting out the lyrics to a Joan Armatrading classic, when I miss a turning, or veer into two lanes of traffic because I’ve been doing dance moves again. And all at once; my confidence is gone, Janice Long has been turned down and I’m clinging onto the wheel with both hands, crawling along at a gentle 12mph.

“Megabus!” You’re probably shouting at me – “Megabus”. But it’s not that simple; I’m afraid. I’ve tried gigging by public transport but it turns every gig into a hybrid of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and 24. I find that no sooner have I minded the gap, than I’m already planning my return journey.

If you’re new to an area or a club then you have to allow 20-30 minutes to find the bugger, and the same again for retracing your steps. Once you’ve factored those in, you need to add another hour on for delays or cancellations.

By the time you’ve added it all up, it leaves you with 7 minutes of stage time, and when you’re performing a tight 15, you can’t get much tighter than that. While people are wiping the excess saliva off their bottom lip after my performance, I’m already back at Nottingham station having my ticket perforated.

I could always hire a chauffeur, I suppose. But then you’re into the awkward situation of having to pay a man who’s worked harder than you have, and I don’t fancy that.

I guess I’m stuck with driving; stuck with clinging to the middle lane, while waving people past and crying; stuck with trying to appear casual, while desperately unscrewing a petrol cap; stuck with endless nights at Woodall services. There’s nothing I can do about it, apart from quitting comedy and I’m in no hurry to do that.

Unless of course BP up the price of Haribo again, in which case I might have to seriously reconsider.