The virus has left me with an identity crisis

Shappi Khorsandi, The Independent

Never have I been so grateful to have this column. It is literally the only work I have at the moment; I’m typing really slowly to make it last. Overnight, I have gone from every single moment of my day being dominated by work, travelling, writing, to everything suddenly being cancelled. All of my work has disappeared. Money I thought I could depend on has vanished. I know there are people far worse off than me, so my chin is up, my faith intact and my house, after hours of therapeutic decluttering, is spotless.

Ah, the life of a creative freelancer. We thought we could get away with it but it seems we have met our match. My income has always depended on groups of people gathering tightly in a room. Even my “day job” before comedy paid the bills was life modelling, which is a bit like stand-up comedy but with less sound (and less nudity, if you remember some of the more colourful corners of the Nineties comedy circuit).

BCV (before coronavirus) I made most of my living from touring shows and hosting award ceremonies. I am lucky that most of those can be rescheduled. What I am faced with now, however, is the fact that, without my job, I’m not entirely sure who I am. In my routine I have a joke which, like all jokes, comes from truth: “Stand-up comedy is a compulsion: if a week goes by and I haven’t done a gig, I get very friendly at bus stops.” And now who knows how long it will be until I have a gig. I can’t even hang out at bus stops.

My poor children are stuck with a mother who is decompressing after being in a whirl of stand-up comedy for more than two decades. I’m learning to slow down. I have to remind myself that I don’t need to hurry them up because now, I have nowhere to be, no train to catch. I instinctively say “in a minute” to them when they call for me, then remember I’m not actually in the middle of anything. Money worries aside, it’s actually quite incredible to have this “normal time” with them that I have missed out on. As every single parent or freelancer knows, “free time” is not a thing.

I’m gutted, however, that the performing arts have shut down, leaving so many skint. Now before you accuse me of being self-indulgent at a time of crisis – after all, there are people on the front lines whose jobs choices are saving lives – hear me out. I know entertainers might seem to have chosen a frivolous profession, but people turn to comedy in times of crisis; as long as we can still laugh together, there is hope.

But of course, this enemy forces us to isolate, and comedians are taking a massive hit. Most don’t have something to fall back on. Believe me, I know – few would be any good at anything else. No one puts themselves through what it takes to be a stand-up comedian if they’d have been just as happy being a lawyer or plumber. You do it because you can’t not do it. Despite years of uncertainty, insecurity and the crushing rejections, you stick at it because there was no other way to live life. In my twenties, my friends got proper jobs and had the money for holidays and dinners out. What fools! I thought as I stuffed down my dinner of Weetabix and banana then pounded the streets, rushing from club to club, begging surly club promoters to give me a five-minute “open spot”, spots that you do for free, travel for miles in the quest for stage-time. There is no way to learn how to be a stand-up comedian other than to do it. The lack of money was hard but I was young, had no children and hung out with other comedians. Now circuit comedians are in danger of being ruined. Why should anyone care? Let me tell you.

The circuit is where every stand-up learns how to be one. No comic you enjoy on Live At The Apollo or on panel shows just hatched out of an egg and bounced into a TV studio, chirping “mama!” at Graham Norton. Everyone grafts on the circuit first. There are stand-ups who perform in clubs all over the country who never do TV, or haven’t yet, but are, nonetheless brilliant professionals. They have had every scrap of work cancelled and don’t have the savings TV comedians have to see them through.

TV comedians are only a tiny handful of our industry. A GoFundMe has been set up for circuit comedians who are going to really struggle. If you love comedy, take a look and bung in a tenner. When all this is over, go and find your local club, go and see live stand-up, and you’ll see why the circuit comics and the clubs they work in are the lifeblood of Britain’s comedy industry. In the meantime, I have to figure out a way of being a teacher and how to hide from my children the fact that I never learned my times tables.