Dream 37: Betrayed By Song
In the dream I was in a ‘backstage’ area which was basically a small vestibule at the bottom of some stairs. I was working on a script and some new jokes I was going to try out as my character K. P had just gone on stage. He was going to try out some new bits too and instead of doing our normal act together we had agreed to do bits separately tonight. It was going well for P and I was pleased. Then he started doing a bit about songs. He sang a well known line from a popular song, but it was in the wrong style and voice. He made some joke about but what if they were from ... he said something inappropriate (eg the North or another country). Next thing this woman got up and sang in the style he just said (ie with a Northern/foreign accent). The crowd loved it. She was another comedy act, but also a really good singer. In fact she was more of a singer than comedian, so even though they were doing the song in a daft accent she was singing it very well, belting it out. Then P did another one.
I was backstage dumbfounded. My friend J was sitting further up the stairs, she was busy writing herself. I went up to sit next to her, I needed to talk about what was happening on stage. I explained that I was meant to be doing the singing with P. I told her we’d had a rehearsal planned. As I was telling her, the story of what I was saying played out like a film. I was narrating while I saw P drinking. It was around his birthday and he’d been drinking heavily for a few days. We’d scheduled a rehearsal at the venue we were now in and turned up at about 3pm. He was very reluctant, complaining about being there and saying he was drunk and tired and so on. I said that he was the one who wanted the rehearsal and that it was his idea we were working on. I wasn’t that convinced about his idea. I explained to J that it didn’t seem like much of a joke. It was an excuse to sing and show off accents and seemed a cheap, easy way to get the crowd on side. Also once you’d done one song, the joke was done and doing it over an over with different songs again seemed a cheap way of entertaining the crowd. Besides it was sort of the same joke twice within the one song. P sang it ‘wrong’ then the woman did too. I thought it would be better if he sang it straight then they did the silly accent/style or whatever. It seemed to be just the sort of thing he disliked in other acts. Still I had turned up at the rehearsal to give it a go and to set the keys for the songs, but he was so reluctant and grumpy, in the end I said we'd better forget it and he went back to ‘celebrating his birthday’ by drinking some more Guinness (this was about 3 days after his birthday).
By now on stage they were up to around their sixth song. They kept doing the same thing, P would start off with a really well known lyric, he was doing Johnny Cash in his JC voice, then he'd say but what if, and she would belt it out in another accent. The crown went mad first when P sang as they recognised the song then even more so when she did it. It was more like a pop concert. J and I listened from backstage. I knew she was a far better singer than me, but I was annoyed he’d gone ahead without me. If we’d had the rehearsal we could have maybe improved it or found another way. I was saying to J that I wouldn’t be able to tell him what I thought of the act because it had gone so well and he’d be all excited and very pleased. I was also upset that he had used this other woman. She was a great singer, but he hadn’t told me, he hadn’t given me a chance to do it with him and we were supposed to either work together as a double-act or try bits on our own. Now to bring in someone else was just confusing the issue and taking us off in a different direction. Because it was such a crowd pleaser it was going to be impossible to criticise it without looking like I had a bad case of sour grapes. Which I did, as well as being legitimately critical of the act! While I was talking to J, they were still doing songs on stage, the same joke over and over and it wasn’t even a real joke. I looked up the stairs and out onto a small balcony/landing which led to other stairs and buildings. They had Chinese style lanterns hanging and large Guinness effigies which sort of glowed, but also looked like real oversized pints of Guinness decorating the banisters. I thought it was ironic as it seemed to be the Guinness which had got me in this mess in the first place. Then the front door buzzer went so I woke.... pity, would have been interesting to see what happened when they came off stage!