| Collection | Andy de la Tour Collection |
| Description | Performance by Combo Passe (a jazz collective) and Jim Barclay, for the Alternative Cabaret collective in Cambridge, 29 May 1981.
Side B: [50:19] Applause and music from Combo Passe. [5:30] Audience applause as band finishes playing, the band thanks the audience. Band introduces next song. [13:40] Band states they have time for one more song. [18:08] Audience applause. Band thanks audience and wishes them good night. Audience laughter and background noise. Jim Barclay [JB] remarks that he laughed when the audience came in (in response to their laughter). Starts shouting in what sounds like Spanish whilst making spitting noises. Audience laughs. JB asks if he covered everybody. [20:55] JB refers to himself as a Marxist-Leninist comedian that tells jokes to precipitate the downfall of capitalist society. Makes a series of quick fire jokes about politics and parliament. [23:30] Talks about how to become part of the elite, stealing suckling pigs from their dinner parties. Tells a joke for the elite using a pint glass and 10p, audience laugh and applause. Says the only reason he included a visual stimulus to his joke was because he's a closet clencher, audience laugh. [25:24] JB does what he calls 'some wacky and zany animal impressions' for the audience. First impression - a rhinoceros, refers to them as stupid and stubborn animals. Second impression - a seal, mostly visual, audience laugh. [28:15] Talks about being wacky and zany like the Community Liaison Officer for Brixton from the Metropolitan Police. The idea of Police taking people into custody and using physical violence on them - last 10 years, 500,000 people taken into custody, 276 died. Visual aid to make the picture clearer. Glass jar representing the last ten years, peppercorns representing people that died, shaking the jar, not very many. [31:40] Came across 'street theatre' performing a piece called 'Today's Pigs are Tomorrow's Bacon'. [33:00] Suggests that he and the audience are wacky and zany together, audience cheer at the prospect - W and Z, bright yellow tights and a nail through the head. [35:01] Wants to be a supply teacher because of the social life. Jokes about going to parties and beware of the dog signs. Sketch about a ten year old kid who answers the door and spouts socialist rhetoric. [36:30] Confused about the phrase 'get your shit together'. Says to the audience that he's only got ten minutes left to look like a berk. Audience laughter, JB says the audience can't help but liking his stuff. [38:35] Analogy about going into a house and a 50k mortgage for a tunnel. Talks about the line from a song 'we don't want no education', JB says he does. The only time it's quiet in a school is first thing in the morning, the low murmur of 1500 kids singing school hymns. Talks about the stereotype of a school headmaster. [42:55] No sermons anymore at school - topics preferred, in rotation. Introduces himself to a class as their supply teacher, bad smell necessitates opening a window, writing their names on a piece of paper and something they find interesting. Paper used to spell out the word 'bollox' on the window - remarks how it was spelt wrong. Every kid seems to have a hat on - whatever clique they're part of, one kid has a Viking helmet on his head. [46:35] Analogy about finding a piece of paper with a Doc Martens footprint on it. JB remarks the audience always goes for the subtle jokes, three types of audience - the cynical Ladbroke Grove style and then there's his audience. Their idea of political action is to sign, apologetically, in invisible ink, about vegetarians vs juggernauts. [49:18] Finally, JB reflects on the last type of audience you can play to, pub type audience, five 'contestants'. Tape cuts off. |