50 Shades of Grey - Routine

This is a routine I performed recently at Working Title Comedy at the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, North London. It went down rather well, so I thought I'd put it up here for anyone that would be interested.

Bookshops are now becoming known as "Purveyors of FILTH". All because of 50 Shades of Grey. Which everyone's reading. And I mean everyone. There's something slightly odd about a woman in a full burqa reading pornography on the tube.

Even my Mum's reading it. This is my Mum, who writes period Irish romantic fiction, and whose had a few novels published. After her first one, I read it, doing the sonly duty, told her how much I enjoyed it, and then I engaged wind-up mode, and I referenced the (mild) sex scenes she'd written, and I said "Well, obviously, the characters and plot are really good, but I have to ask, what's all this about heaving bosoms and straining erections?

And she says to me “Christopher…watch your language!”

Well, she’s tried to read it, but she ended up giving up. Not because of the sex, but because it’s really badly written. And I mean really badly written. Here’s an example.

"Oh my... He wants me. Christian Grey, Greek God, wants me, and I want him, here....now. In the elevator."

Now, I’m not saying that everyone should be reading Anais Nin, but this is just not good writing. It’s a bit like… wait, there’s more.

"Why won't he kiss me again? I pout at the thought. I don't understand. Honestly, his surname should be Cryptic, not Grey."

That’s not even real human dialogue. That’s fucking Dougal from Father Ted.

“Why won’t he kiss me again, Ted? I don’t understand. Honestly, his surname should be Cryptic, not Grey!”

Look, I’m not one of these people that thinks you should only read erotic poetry. This isn’t for erotic self-exploration in the bath with candles going on, this is for doing the kit-kat shuffle quickly before you go to bed, I get it. But it’s just….it’s….

There’s a girl at work who described it as “It’s really powerfully erotic. She’s created the perfect man.”

What are his perfect qualities? Well….he’s a billionaire and…no, that’s basically it. All his other qualities are loathsome.

Wait, we have more writing from this fucking book.

"This is the only sort of relationship I'm interested in."

"Why?"

He shrugs.

"It's the way I am."

"How did you become this way?"

"Why is anyone the way they are? That's kind of hard to answer. Why do some people like cheese and other people hate it? Do you like cheese? Mrs. Jones - my housekeeper - has left this for supper." He takes some large, white plates from a cupboard and places one in front of me.

In the name of holy Garth Marenghi, what the actual fuck?

There’s this weird thing going throughout where he keeps buying her food. It’s really weird. But she’s fine with it, because it’s always exactly what she wants.

And it’s appealing to people because you’ve got this idea of someone who always knows exactly what you want, even if you don’t know it’s what you want. He goes “I have ordered you food”, and she goes “Oh God, this is my favourite food!” Every. Fucking. Time.

That doesn’t work in real life. Here’s how it goes in real life with my girlfiend.

“Hello, sit. I have ordered you food.”

“Oh. What did you order?”

“Omelette and tea. And some cheese.”

“I hate omelettes.”

“Oh.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I thought it would be sexy.”

“What?”

I thought it would be sexy to… order you omelette.”

"You thought it would be sexy to order me omelette?"

"And cheese. Baby."

I’ve not even got to the sex, by the way. The sex is crap as well, not least because…okay, I can get the cold aloof thing that’s going on. He only refers to her by her full first name or Miss Steele. That’s fine. But the SECOND they start fucking? “Oh baby, yeah baby, I’m going to fuck you now, baby.” Turning into Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing all of a second, while he JACKHAMMERS HIS WAY THROUGH THAT HYMEN.

There are presumably some women in the audience, and I don’t know if any of you have ever been a virgin, but if you were, would you recommend that you treat the girl slowly and tenderly, since it may really fucking hurt, or do you recommend punching your way through that shit like it’s a plank of wood at a karate exhibition?

Oh, and when she wakes up the next morning, she’s all “There was a mild throbbing, but it was pleasurable remembering”, and not doing what she should be doing which is going “FUCKING OUCH! SOMEONE GET ME SOME GERMALINE. I’VE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.”

Someone on facebook suggested that maybe I’m just not comfortable with sex that’s not totally vanilla. That maybe I’m scared of experimenting.  Because the book has some fisting and anal. Oh *please*.

I’m a 32 year old man with access to the internet. My sexual tastes have grown so cynical, jaded and downright bizarre that I can’t even masturbate to regular porn anymore. It has to involve a Nun, at least three Brazilian transsexuals, a gas mask and a Shetland pony.

There’s also the fact that this whole idea just doesn’t work in Britain. First of all, if you want to fantasise about a famous businessman, you’re basically on at best, Richard Branson, and at worst, Alan Sugar… “he ground on top of me like a sexy shaved gnome”.

One final thing you may have heard is that the main character in 50 Shades of Grey keeps saying the same stuff. “Oh my. Oh wow.” Stuff like that, but the weirdest one is “Holy hell. Holy crap. Holy God.” She says “Holy something” 157 times in this fucking book.

Now, here’s where I destroy it for you. Every time you read her say “Holy” something, just think of Burt Ward playing Robin in the 1960s Batman with Adam West. Because there are parallels. Anastasia is younger, Christian is a billionaire…he’s training her. They put on costumes and fight crime…oh, like anyone’s read the third book. But maybe that’s what she should have written. 50 Shades of Batman.

And depressingly, if she had written that, this blog post would be saying  “You know, it’s actually pretty good".

David Cameron and the British Film Industry

This is a routine I performed at Working Title Comedy at the Big Green Bookshop on January 20th. It went down well, but because it's topical, it's one I may not reuse any time too soon - so I thought I'd stick it up here.


David Cameron said the British Film Industry should concentrate on making commercial successes. Because they're obviously not managing to do so without his help.

It reminded me of a quote by the famous screenwriter William Goldman - he wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All The President's Men, the Princess Bride...films like that, and he said "When it comes to the movie industry, nobody knows anything", and what he meant by that was that everyone's trying to make a hit, and they're trying to, but everyone makes mistakes.

But I went back to the book where he wrote that, "Adventures in the screen trade", because I was aware that sometimes quotes leave off half of what was actually said. Like in Richard III, where the line is famously "Now is the winter of our discontent", meaning now, things are bad. But what he actually says is "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York", meaning that things were bad, but are now good. And I looked at it, and it's the same thing. William Goldman didn't say "When it comes to the movie industry, nobody knows anything. William Goldman actually says "In the movie industry, nobody knows anything...except David Cameron. He does."

Back in the eighties, Stephen Spielberg made a run of three of the biggest movies made at that point in time. Jaws, ET, Indiana Jones....then he made 1941, which was a complete flop. If only he'd spoken to David Cameron before making that film, and he'd have said "No, Stephen, know your limits and make Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Michael Cimino made The Deer Hunter for the studio United Artists, one of the oldest, most respected film studios in the world, and he followed it up with one of the most expensive films of all time, Heaven's Gate, which ended up being terrible. Left with no options, United Artists gave it a huge, expensive promotion campaign to try and
recoup their massive losses...if it wasn't a hit, the studio would go under, but try what they might...it made no money, and thousands of people lost their jobs.

If only they had called David Cameron. He would have said "Michael, I respect your intention to fulfil your artistic calling, but this film needs a very special dog."

John Travolta, in the mid nineties was in the worst career period of his life. He'd just finished making "Look Who's Talking Now"...(the dogs were talking)...and things were going badly enough that he was grateful for the work. Then, he bumped into David Cameron, who said to him "Have you seen Reservoir Dogs? You should get in touch with the director. Sure thing there, mate". And the two of them remained friends for years, and Travolta had a second spring....and then they fell out and we got Battlefield Earth.

If only he'd continued to listen to David Cameron.

We can presumably look forward to films like "Four Weddings and a Terminator", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Predator", "Don't look now, but Justin Bieber is right over there" and "Corialanus 2 - The Dark of the Moon".

The British Film industry has responded in kind to David Cameron, and they've said "What David Cameron needs to do is to just make more jobs and just fix the economy. Rather than tell us that we need to make more commercial films while his government kills off the UK Film Council and blocks a Pinewood Studios extension.
Arsehole."