Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #33

This week’s been a funny one. Funny-odd, as opposed to Funny-ha ha.

Don’t get me wrong; there have been some laughs. Oh my, how I’ve laughed. Like on Monday, I was tying my shoelace, then a minute later, it had come undone again.

OK, it doesn’t look like much written down but believe me; I’m tittering just thinking about it.

Honestly, it could only have been a matter of seconds. Crackers.

However, this week also saw some incredibly sad news on the comedy circuit. Mark Rough, a comic who, it’s probably fair to say, divided some people’s opinions, passed away after a difficult struggle with cancer.

The reason I bring it up is not to come across as Mr. Best-Friend-to-Mark-Rough, because I wasn’t. I mention it because Mark is the first person I’ve met on the circuit that has passed away.

While that may not seem like a big deal, after all it’s a person I’ve met a handful of times, often in backrooms in pubs, drinking stale beer and frantically trying to remember my shoelace zingers. Yet when I was told that he’d passed away, I was struck with a real sense of loss.

For Mark, obviously, but also for someone that I hadn’t had enough time to get to know.

It still amazes me that, despite the huge numbers of people all performing comedy, you can travel two hundred miles to a disused Wacky Warehouse in Wisbech and yet still bump into people you know.

It’s like Kevin Bacon has always said – there’s just six degrees of separation between us all.

Granted, he twists that rule to suit his evil phone-selling schemes, but it is incredible that this profession – I prefer the term ‘obsession’ – leads us to travel all around the country meeting different people all the time.

Some comics like to act like the social recluse, unable to handle situations in which they need to make small talk, but actually we are required to do it on an almost constant basis. We’re the hairdressers of the arts.

It goes without saying that you perform with some people enough times and they automatically become part of a circle of friends – although that excuse doesn’t stand up in a court of law, trust me.

You end up bumping into these friends every so often, having a chat and a drink with them, laying your dignity and sanity on the line in front of a room full of strangers before parting ways and doing it again another time.

In most circles this would be seen as some sort of illicit affair, usually taking place in an Ibis Budget or layby on the A184. For comics this is our water cooler moment. A chance to have a gossip and a bitch (let’s face it) before moving on to the Komedy Kabin, Stoke.

It’s nice to see friendly faces, especially when you’ve left your car parked in a shady NCP that looks like the setting for Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ video.

But of all these friendly faces, who do we actually know? Once the gig’s over, we often go back to our separate lives and interests. There’s something about that which is a shame.

This is what I felt when I found out about Mark. Yes, I’d met him a few times but I didn’t actually know him. Not really.

And while we may never have got on – he didn’t seem like a ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’ type of guy – now we’ll never know.

I found out about Mark just before a gig in Bradford. It is a local gig for me and one Mark would often frequent.

Sometimes he was there to see the talent on display, sometimes to jeer at them and sometimes to hit on the bar staff, but he was usually there. Not this time.

The first time I met Mark was during a particularly rowdy gig. Billed as his ‘final performance in Sunderland’ and packed with die-hard Rough fans, it is fair to say that no one on the bill stood a chance of matching his prowess, particularly because the bulk of the other acts we decidedly ‘student-y’.

I’m not saying the audience weren’t clever enough, they just weren’t as interested in wry protest song parodies or scene-specific references to Back to the Future.

The gig was a struggle and, to be honest, apart from a handshake and a couple of words, I didn’t really speak to Mark.

Fast forward (huh, it’s like Sky+ this) about six months and I was gigging in Keighley, Mark was compering.

I decided to take the stance that he wouldn’t remember me. Nothing against him, it’s just that I’m not the most memorable act on the circuit.

I’ve had several close friends openly admit that they don’t recognise me when I’m not wearing a hat. It’s OK, I’ve come to terms with it.

So I introduced myself to Mark and, as expected, he didn’t recognise me.

I did my thing on stage – mainly long-winded shoelace anecdotes by this point – and came off to Mark, hugely apologetic and incredibly complimentary.

He hadn’t twigged it was me but remembered my act from Sunderland. He went on to tell me how much he enjoyed it and how terrible he felt not recognising me. He shook my hand and hugged me.

Now I’m not naïve; most of this was probably down to the fact the gig was selling real ale at £1 a pint, but it was nice to see someone so friendly.

A week later I gigged with him again and he had no idea who I was.

It’s hard to warm to someone if you have to keep reintroducing yourself – unless they’ve got amnesia then it’s fine, provided they have a doctor’s note – but warm to him, I did.

Yes, he wasn’t perfect, but he was chatty, opinionated and always fascinating company.

I bumped into him two or three more times and got the feeling that he started to know who I was.

The last time I saw him – about two months ago – not only did he call me Rob but he booked me for one of his gigs. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t honoured.

I won’t be able to do that gig with him now but worse than that, I won’t be able to see him again and build on what was, admittedly, a slow-burning acquaintance. That’s a real shame.

Now I’m not saying that these events have conspired to make me befriend every comic on the circuit – Lord knows that’s impossible, and some of them are horrible – but it has made me realise how nice it is to have people you know, especially if they find shoelaces as funny as I do.

RIP Mark Rough, from the one in the hat.

Rob can be seen next as part of Jolly Mixtures at The Cluny 2, Newcastle, on Wednesday 4 December and again at The Caroline Street Social Club, Saltaire, on 19 December.