It was difficult for some of us at Funny Women to remain ‘cool as cucumbers’ in the green room at The Hay Festival last week.. well ok, it was difficult for me. I can’t help but react when surrounded by ‘celebs’ of the literary and political world, especially when they are actually proper ‘celebs’, (not just Dan from Big Brother 9, easy enough to spot in any Costa Coffee off the high streets of London.) Try as I may, I couldn’t sup tea in laid-back fashion as I came to terms with the reality that Alastair Campbell definitely is a real person, not just someone playing out the role of political badboy for japes behind my TV set.
Attempts not to burrow a fixed stare into Chris Evans’ skull also failed; as we glided nonchalantly past him (yeah right) I think I gave him a look about as unassuming as a nun on acid. Our brilliant headliner Suzy Bennett was also guilty of this, which she referenced later in her set – “you know when you’re trying to stay really cool in front of a celebrity and you end up giving them a really dirty look?”
Chris Evans entertained crowds at The Hay
Oh sigh, it’s not easy to be cool.. when you’re but five feet away from Stephen Fry’s helicopter pad. “What, you mean, he landed there?!” I know.. like some sort of Apollo Mission part deux.
Celebrity gawps aside, The Hay Festival was a wonderful place to do our next competition heat, not least because of the extremely helpful and friendly staff who helped ensure the gig went as smoothly as possible. (I almost fainted with shock at how nice they were, but then I don’t leave London very often!) At first, I did think the venue was rather worryingly similar to a wedding marquee and that someone would attempt some drunk-dad dancing halfway through, however, the audience (of which we had a full house) were incredible – if a little surprisingly bawdy for a ‘literary’ crowd, our host Carrie Quinlam did a great job of handling the brattish schoolboy element – and were fully behind all our fantastic entrants, the competition standard is certainly getting higher and higher. (Cue Barbara Nice).
This literary fest is just ‘too cool for words’.
A very big thanks to our special guests, the brilliant Mae Martin (I won’t look at Don Cheadle in quite the same way ever again) and Annabel Giles (always great) and headliner Suzy Bennett who absolutely, to use a comedy cliche, ’stormed the room’. If only Chris Evans had seen it eh?! No doubt he’ll have her on his show one day.
