Mike Reid's Other Job - Stand Up Comic!
By Tim Wilson
After sitting through three separate comedy videos produced by a starring Mike Reid, I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at the man in quite the same way again.
Please allow me to backtrack. My admiration for Mr. Reid is considerable, his portrayal of family man/car salesman-gone-bonkers 'Frank Butcher' must surely rank as one of EastEnders’ most poignantly played.
I always loved the way he’d mop his brow, look heavenward and sputter 'Rick-KEE!' through clenched teeth whenever the Butcher Boy landed him in it! Reid also proved he could also do heavy dramatic fare during the storyline involving Frank’s mum Mo, an Alzheimer’s sufferer. But when one thinks of Mr. Reid’s talent, it always comes back to comedy. The man was, after all, primarily a stand-up comic before he got his big EastEnders break that made him a household name.
So when Larry Jaffee passed on these three videos (released in the U.K.) to review I thought, 'At last I’ll get to see Mike Reid in his element.' Well, what I didn’t realize was that viewing this lot I’d have to re-evaluate my self-image. I found out to my infinite distress that I was something of a prude! The language in these videos 'Oy! Oy! Do the expressions 'gutter talk' and 'potty mouth' resonate? Just read on about my mounting horrors and you’ll know what I mean.
Mike Reid Live at the Queen Vic (1996) and Mike Reid Alive & Kidding (1998) are easy to lump together because they are stand-up birds of a feather, comedically speaking. Live at the Queen Vic doesn’t originate from Albert Square’s immortal pub but from a theatre in East London with a set onstage that strongly resembles the Vic.
It’s actually a clever ploy in that some audience members are seated onstage at tables and can be seen falling about in hysterics at various jokes like 'What is the most common name for a Russian prostitute? Onyerbackyabitch!' The Russian prostitute joke was quickly followed by a succession of nun and choirboy jokes. I must admit that I did laugh at quite a few of these because Mr. Reid really knows how to deliver a stand-up routine. He appears to be enjoying himself immensely and regularly flashes that 'Frank Butcher' grin we all know and love.
Mr. Reid also use his trademark sunglasses to dexterous effect, raising and removing them for a particularly punchy punchline.
One fringe benefit on Alive & Kicking is that there are several cutaway shots to EastEnders colleagues such as Barbara Windsor ('Peggy') and Sid Owen ('Ricky'), who was sitting with a beautiful blonde who’s definitely not Bianca! All right, I know you’re clamouring for an example of humour from Alive & Kicking, and here it is: Quasimodo’s running down the boulevard pursued by 20 schoolkids. He finally turns around and yells 'For once and for all, I don’t have your f___ing football!' At several points in Live at the Queen Vic and Alive & Kicking he mops his brow, takes off his glasses and leans against his microphone stand in despair, just like Frank would do when things weren’t going his way.
Most of Mr. Reid’s jokes might be considered wildly offensive but his stage persona is so appealing and his joy in performing so infectious that it’s nearly impossible not to laugh along with the in-stitches audience. Humour obviously wasn’t enough to get Frank Butcher out of a massive depression but one can assume that it’d certainly rescue Mike Reid. His fans (myself included) could attest to that!
Mike Reid’s Pussy In Boots (1994) - yep, that’s the title, in the tradition of Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough and Gore Vidal’s Burr. Notice the obviously misleading double entendre? It turns out the title character Pussy is played by an upwardly nubile lass named Cindy Milo. The video contains photos of castmembers including, of course, Mr. Reid as well as John Altman ('Nasty Nick from EastEnders,' reads the copy) and 'Special Guest Star' Barbara Windsor. Babs, beloved of EE fans everywhere as 'Peggy Mitchell,' puts in an appearance as Wandawoman (get it?). Mr. Altman plays the Wicked Giant, more on that later. And Mr. Reid plays, get ready for it, boys and girls, Big Dick Whittington! Characters names such as Pussy and Big Dick led me to expect acertain degree of smutti- ness, but this video exceeded my expectations, that’s for sure.
It begins innocently enough with the lovely Ms. Windsor descending on the stage like a fairy queen 'no cracks, please' muttering on about her running stockings. The show as taped in front of a live audience, and they actually talk back to Babs, which is what audiences apparently do at a PBP (Proper British Panto). But this is an FBP (Filthy British Panto), folks, so the crowd gets particularly naughty with their unsolicited comments. It suddenly struck me that it’s the sort of entertainment where the audience can revel in behaving like a Jerry Springer crowd without making fools of themselves on national TV.
The show’s ostensible ingenue Pussy enters, and receives raucous catcalls,no pun intended. Mr. Reid enters in a pageboy wig and tights and place goes wild... big surprise! Mr. Reid as Big Dick Whittington leers in no small amount at Pussy and then proceeds to do a 15-minute stand-up routine. One of the cleaner jokes? Two nuns are driving through Transylvania, and Dracula suddenly appears and climbs onto their windshield. One turns to the other and says, 'Show him your cross.' The nun gets out and yells to Dracula: 'Get off the f___ing car!'
The audience eats this all up as if they haven’t heard any of these jokes before. An anatomically correct 'pantomime cow' enters, and the phallic jokes escalate. The Wicked Giant enters wearing all black leather and cracking a whip. The crowd’s obviously overjoyed to see Nick Cotton in the flesh, so they cheer.
Mr. Reid immediately hurls expletives at them and reminds them it’s a pantomime, so they’ve got to hiss him, which they dutifully do. So he eners again. When told that he’s a bit short to be a giant he responds that his Giantess Mother got it on with one of the seven dwarfs and the’s the result - yuk, yuk, yuk!
You may wonder by now whether there was a plot? From what I could tell between all the bathroom and bedroom jokes was that it was about pussy trying to find a way back to the proper 'Panto' show. Thanks to Wandawoman’s exhortation to the crowd to yell 'Push Pussy, push!' Pussy found her way onto a Starship Enterprise-type spaceship, despite being kidnapped by the wicked Giant and losing most of her costume in the process.
All that matters is a bargain-basement Vegas floor show, in which Pussy and Big Dick Whittington exchange vows in what is billed as a 'royal marriage.' A royal cock-up is what I’d call it. Did I say that? Well, that’s how my brain worked after viewing this! Needless to say, I had to stay clear of any social inteaction with family and friends for a day or so. The cover of the box claims that the show will 'do more than raise the curtain.' Ahem, no comment, but I did have to raise my mind out of the gutter.
