I am going to take the time to blog about every day that I spent in Edinburgh during the festival and to do that properly I need to set the scene of what was happening in my life before the festival and in doing that I may well upset a few people along the way. Such is life.
No-one seems to give a fuck about me or how I feel so I although I do usually try to think of others feelings, it has got to the point where it is more important for me to speak MY truth otherwise I will be forever labelled and judged according to what other people have said about me and as my friend Geoff Talbott expressed in an article, to let that happen without commenting on it would in fact be cowardly.
Introductions
Here is a second introduction I made.
So let me set the scene and also give more reasons why I feel I need to publish this blog.
Before Edinburgh this year I went to perform an open spot in Olü Deniz in Turkey for a club called Spotlight Comedy and some things transpired which led me to become at least partly involved in what has become known as Turkeygate.
Up until now, I felt that perhaps it was not my place to say anything about the events that took place and apart from one or two blips I have kept fairly quiet about it but there are a few things that have encouraged me that I should now write about what I know.
The main thing that has convinced me want to write about it was actually this 7 hour lecture by Mark Passio called The Suppression of the Sacred Masculine.
I watched this last week and in it he really opened my eyes to a lot of the ‘New Age Bullshit’ as he calls it, that it is better to turn a blind eye than to get angry and speak your mind in case it could hurt someone.
I noticed that this passivity is a behaviour that I indulge in quite frequently.I tend to bottle my feeling inside rather than speak my mind but I have learned that others take advantage of that trait and that sometimes you have to take action to stand up for yourself and also those around you, especially if you think they are victims of an injustice.
Mark lays that on the line quite clearly and I recommend you watch it in full as it is very powerful and direct. He uses vitriol in his righteous indignation to great effect and I think more of that is required if we are to sort out the problems in the world, though for now I will concentrate on my own problems.
We can deal with the World’s problems on other blogs. 🙂
The second thing has encouraged me to write about Turkeygate was attending one of John Fleming‘s chat shows during the Edinburgh Festival at Bob‘s Bookshop where Kate Copstick and Janey Godley were two of the guests.Janey’s show this year was entitled Ungagged and I believe it was quite controversial in that she talks about what can and cannot be said on stage. She thinks that anything is fair game and I agree with her.
For instance, there was a conversation she overheard on a train that she posted on Twitter and her blog that ended up being on television called The Saga of Tim and Freya.
So during the chat show both her and Kate were saying that anything goes and that you should call it like you see it with no fear of what others think. It is your opinion and you are entitled to voice it.
Kate has never been one to shy away from that and she herself got into a bit of controversy this year over comments she made about Sarah Millican and also comments about rape.
I know that certain people don’t want me to get into all of this but why should I keep quiet when myself and others have also been hurt by what happened? Doesn’t another side of the story deserve to at least be heard?
So I am with Mark, Janey and Kate and will speak my truth and let the cards fall where they may.
Another reason I have decided to write about this in full detail is a blog post by Matt Price, who was one of the comedians involved in Turkeygate and indeed was the comedian invited by Bob Slayer to do a show about it this year at another venue he ran, The Hive.
I did actually speak about Turkeygate during the festival which I will come to as I go through my daily blogs but in short, I performed a 7 minute gig in front of 7 other comedians as well as other audience members, where I referenced the review that Matt had got from Kate Copstick in the Scotsman.She said in her review ‘everyone to a man would defend Matt against the appalling Greenwood’.
Then, like now, I felt that there needed to at least be another side of the story out there and was compelled to speak my mind about it as the whole thing to me is almost laughable.
Of course I knew that comedians talk and that word would get around that I had the audacity to offer a different viewpoint to the general consensus of the promoter being the ‘devil incarnate’ and was prepared to accept any shit that came my way because of it.
A couple of days later Matt posted on facebook ‘I’m certain that this (Turkeygate) story isn’t over just yet by any means. Oh and Billy – say it to my face mate. I hear everything.‘
It’s funny that because when other people were saying things about me that he could have defended, he didn’t hear them.
I can’t be 100% sure but I believe that what Matt wrote in his blog about a week or so after was at least in part aimed at myself. He says ‘I don’t know why I’m stunned by the arrogance of a very small number of comics, but I still am, even after all these years. The comforting thought is that these people, who have no respect for fellow performers, are universally despised by other comics, bar staff, stage managers etc and so I have no need to waste my energy on them.‘
I can’t imagine anyone being comforted by the thought that people are being universally hated but there you go. He finishes with ‘There is nothing like ridiculous comments and threats from others to fuel your desire. So thanks for that…Mate. 😉 ‘.
Glad I could be of service…..Matt. 😉
As I publish my blogs of Edinburgh I will bring up these stories again in a bit more detail. I don’t want to labour the whole affair but rather just tell my story of Edinburgh as it happened, warts and all you could say.
I know that by telling this story will probably win me more enemies than friends in the comedy world but I believe I am already thought of as being someone of ill repute so I guess a few more haters won’t make much difference.
Actually, come to think of it, another motivation to tell this story comes from the fact that some comedians who I thought were friends of mine or at least friendly acquaintances, totally judged me about this whole affair and when they saw me in Edinburgh I got distinctly cold vibes from them.
Also, it should be noted that I have never claimed to be a comedian. To me a comedian is someone who gets paid to make people laugh and is therefore a professional. As I have never been paid apart from an odd tenner here and there, then I can make no claim to be one, although obviously I do try my best and hopefully learn and get better over time.
As I lived in Turkey for the past 7 years there is not much opportunity to perform here which is why I indeed traveled 5 hours and spent over a £100 to do a 10 minute open spot and which led to my involvement in Turkeygate.
I don’t want to necessarily hurt anyone by sharing this but as I said before I feel that at least another side of the story needs to be out there and I will state that I could well be completely wrong in my understanding of what happened because I got most of it from the so called ‘dirty promoter’.
However, when I see posts like this then I feel there needs to be a bit more objectivity. It is easy to blame others for what happens to you but I feel we should all take personal responsibility for whatever happens to us so that we can learn and grow from our mistakes. Especially if it can be shown that it is maybe not so cut and dried as being all down to the actions of one person.
The point of this post is to share what I know, so that anyone interested has a bit more information to judge for themselves if it was all just one persons fault.
Also, he said in this article that he wouldn’t be doing a revenge piece or badmouth someone, well from where I was sat it was pretty much a full on assault for at least 20 minutes of Greenwoods character.
I totally get the fact that he is making a show about his experience and that any show is written with a particular slant as to make it funny, dramatic or interesting as possible for the audience.
I commend him for the fact that he tried to turn a bad experience into a positive one but I feel that if you speak out against someone in such a way for three weeks and possibly longer as he plans to tour the show, then you have to be prepared to face the consequences of doing that.
If this wasn’t an ongoing saga, I dare say I would have not felt the need to publish my side as much as I do now.
So for better or worse, here is what I have to say about it………continued in next blog.
Cheers!
Turkeygate – MY Version of the Story
I recorded this video around the start of July. In it I may be a bit blunt at times but it was how I was feeling and if I recorded it now I would probably be a bit less impassioned and maybe more restricted in what I say. However, I am posting it so you can see the emotions I was going through at that time.
I don’t know how I get myself into these situations, I really don’t. Things seem to just happen to me that I have little control over and before you know it I am up to my eyeballs in insanity again. Perhaps I need to lay off the dope but this particular case of a ‘Billy Fuck Up’ wasn’t caused by being stoned or drunk but by trying to do the right thing.
Maybe that’s my problem, I am too nice. Perhaps I should just be a dick and be done with it, but no, I consider other people and try my best to help if I can and what do I get for my trouble? Nothing but grief and hassle. Oh well, some things never change.
It all started innocently enough when back in March, a facebook friend sent me a link to the Spotlight Comedy website where I saw that 7 comedians were coming to Hisaronu and Ölü Deniz for the Summer to perform for British Tourists.
She had pointed out the fact they were looking for open spots and so I made a mental note to myself of the starting date which was mid May, then put it on the back burner.
For a number of reasons that I won’t go into here life has not been easy for me in Turkey and I knew I needed to shake things up a bit as I was going stir crazy and getting rather depressed sitting in my apartment all the time with no steady income and an ex-wife and son who demand maintenance money and ice cream respectively.
As I went to bed one evening I remembered the message about Spotlight Comedy and thought that it must be starting soon. I checked the website and it turned out that they had started the week before and there were gigs on the next two days.
So I sent a message to Spotlight via Twitter asking if I could come and do an open spot but they never got back to me. Even though it takes about four and a half hours to get to Ölü Deniz on two buses and I would have to pay for accommodation which I couldn’t exactly afford, I decided to go there anyway. At the very least I could check the club out and maybe prepare something for the following week.
As a way of dealing with the situation I find myself in here, I have smoked a lot of dope. I know it’s not that constructive and indeed hinders me from doing what I really want but it also helped me not to kill myself.
As I had a longish bus journey ahead of me I used that as an excuse to have a smoke, so as to make it go a bit smoother. I know, any excuse eh? I figured that I would be ok by the time I got there and after a shower and a bite to eat, I would be fit for the stage if the opportunity arose.
During last years Edinburgh Festival where I put on a one man show, for the first half of the run I was straight and the second half I got stoned. I am pretty sure I am better straight but it was tough going performing to 1 to 15 people every day so I used it as a crutch.
It is generally not a good idea though, to be stoned on stage, because if you start to bomb it heightens the intensity tenfold and it can be hard to dig yourself out the hole you have dug. I usually just start ranting at that point. lol.
If you do well when high, then you think you need to rely on the dope to make you funny. I had an interesting chat with the Reverend Obadiah Steppenwolfe III about this topic which I will post in one of my forthcoming Edinburgh blogs.
Once I start smoking though, then that’s it, I keep smoking for the rest of the day or until it runs out. I have an addictive personality or maybe I just don’t have enough willpower. Perhaps if I had something tangible in my life that was hopeful then I wouldn’t need to smoke as I would be too busy getting on with shit.
Video Blog 1
Ölü Deniz has a Blue Lagoon which is one of the most photographed beaches in the world and it certainly is a lovely spot but as it costs 4TL to enter that area I just sit on the main beach in front of the promenade.
As you can see in the video below I am a little bit pissed off with myself because even when I am trying to do something positive with my life I still put blockages in the way and hinder myself. It could be a fear of success that I have. Better the Devil you know as they say, or more likely it is just a deeply ingrained habit that I need help to kick once and for all.
Regardless, by the time I had to go to the comedy club I was fairly mashed and as I said in the video, I had decided that I would just watch the show rather than ask again for a spot that night. I did take my book of poems with me just in case though, then I could always read a poem if I got into a sticky wicket.
On arriving there I had a chat with the two comedians who were performing that night. One of them, Matt Price, I had met in Edinburgh in 2006 and was already his Facebook Friend – Woo-hoo – and the other, Colin Manford seemed like a decent bloke to me. I didn’t mention to either of them that I had sent a message to Spotlight asking to perform an open spot. I was just playing it cool.
As I was watching Colin perform, the promoter Jonathan Greenwood, approached me to ask if I was the guy who sent him a message on Twitter asking for a spot. I said I was and he asked if I wanted to do ten minutes. Well, seeing as how I was there, albeit quite unprepared, I said “Aye, ok” and then started to panic thinking about what set I would do.
Colin Manford 1
As I was waiting to go on I caught 5 minutes of Colin’s set leading up to introducing my good self.
My First Open Spot
It was too late to try and plan a set so I just went up with the intention of taking it wherever it goes. I much prefer that method anyway and I guess the dope helped me relax into that. It is a bit weird though being on stage stoned but I’ve done it often enough not to let it faze me too much.
Colin had talked about masturbating quite a lot during his set so when I did get a bout of panic about not knowing what the hell I was doing, I reached for my poetry book and read the poem Porn Addict, which suited the occasion quite well and I knew it would kill four minutes of my time into the bargain.
All in all, considering the room only had about 20 in it and could hold 150, I was quite pleased how it had gone and I got some good feedback afterwards. Jonathan admitted that the poetry wasn’t really his cup of tea but he did invite me back again the next night, which I was of course very happy about.
I hung around for a short while to get a few photos taken with the comedians and audience members.
Then I decided that it time to hit Hisaronu where I thought most of the action would be. As it turned out the town was quite quiet with only one Karaoke bar having any life in it. Well, it was around midnight and the holiday season was still in it’s infancy.
Billy – It Doesn’t Matter Anymore
I was going to leave without singing as the place was nearly empty but when a waiter brought me a book over to choose from I thought I’d give it a bash.
As I can’t technically sing, there are only a few songs that I can do on Karaoke as I need a vehicle that will allow me to express the words in my own rather shouty style. I wrote down 4 choices which were Elvis – Suspicious Minds, The Rolling Stones – Satisfaction, Them – Here Comes The Night, but in the end I went with a Buddy Holly classic.
Halfway through the song I thought it had finished, when I realised it hadn’t I stepped up the performance into ‘big shouty make an spectacle of myself ‘ mode as I realised my attempted singing wasn’t carrying this one.
It had the desired effect and again I got some good feedback afterwards, believe it or not. 😉
Continued in next blog…..
Cheers!
Video Blog 2
I was too cheapskate to pay for a taxi back to Ölü Deniz so I decided to walk. Unfortunately I took the wrong road at a roundabout and walked at least 20 minutes in the wrong direction before turning around and walking 20 minutes back. A 40 minute pointless detour at 3am in the morning is not ideal especially when you have a dodgy back and still have to walk down a very steep and long incline.
By the time I got back to my accommodation, my back, on which I had an operation a couple of years ago, was in total agony. Still that 20 TL was better in my pocket.
Ölü Deniz – First Trip – Day One Photos
Ölü Deniz – First Trip – Day Two
Video Blog 3
So, I awoke feeling pretty good and went for a wee walk on the beach to contemplate what set I would perform that evening. While there I recorded a video blog.
Video Blog 4
The previous night Jonathan said he would meet me during the day for a chat about the rules and regulations that have to be followed when performing here but he had to go and get the Residence Permits sorted out for the comedians and as paperwork takes forever here, it turned out that he didn’t have the time to meet me.
So I went back to the beach……
Paragliders Landing
If you visit Ölü Deniz you will see Paragliders flying overhead all day and the first time I went there over ten years ago, I certainly couldn’t sit there and watch without having a go. The second time I went, I had a girlfriend with me and even though I had just done my back in big time, because she wanted to have a go, I went along with it. Plus I was dressed as Nob Stewart so I had his reputation to think about.
I didn’t have the money or anyone to impress on this visit though so I just made this video of some Paragliders landing on the promenade.
Blue Lagoon Denial
I tried to get into the famous Blue Lagoon area of Ölü Deniz without paying but as I expected I failed miserably. Still, I felt better for trying.
Colin Manford 2
I went back to the purpose built comedy club at Crusoes for the second night and although the audience this time was mainly women, Colin performed his wanking material and done quite well with it. I recorded 15 minutes of his set while I waited to come on.
Afterwards I asked him if it was ok to put on Youtube to which I received a positive reply. Matt didn’t want his set filmed either night. Fair enough.
My Second Open Spot
So as I had good feedback from the poem the previous night, I thought that night I would do three poems, Rock Star, Shame on the Family and Jim Rose Circus which would be a round 10 mintues.
The only problem with the poems is that in a comedy club they are not as funny as is required to get big laughs (although sometimes they are) but in a spoken word setting, the people appreciate the humour more as it is not so expected. So it doesn’t really make sense for me to do them in a comedy club but I don’t usually do things that make sense, which as we shall see, gets me into spots of bother from time to time. In fact, writing this blog might not make much sense either but I guess time will tell on that one.
So, as I wasn’t stoned this time, I did feel a bit more nervous. I was wanting to do well so that hopefully I would get an invitation to come back the following week. That may not have been the brightest wish in the world as I wasn’t getting paid and it cost me 60TL in bus fares and 100 TL in accommodation and that’s before taking into account food and drink…or indeed my bank balance!
If you are going to hit the wall you may as well do it in a blaze of glory, that’s my motto.
So, instead of me just relaxing into my set by getting to know the audience a bit more, I decided that I’d better do material from the off as I only had 10 minutes to hopefully impress.
During the Edinburgh Festival when there is a lot of English people in the audience, I sometimes start with a joke about how I find English people irritating. Then I say, ‘actually, that’s not fair, I find them highly irritating’. This usually gets a laugh as I am obviously stretching it for effect. However, this time it didn’t get a laugh and I knew it was going to be a long ten minutes after that.
I ended up reciting only one poem (Rock Star) which didn’t exactly resonate with a group of mature women. It was safe to say that I didn’t do that well but after watching it back, it doesn’t look as bad as I felt at the time.
It is funny after a gig though, when you haven’t done as well as perhaps you could have. Whereas the previous night I was everyone’s friend, in the bar afterwards this night, I felt like a leper. I had a chuckle to myself about that. I understand the nature of the beast and didn’t take it too personally.
One of the ladies in the audience called Maggie, not Linda who put skins on sausages as she had said during Matt’s section of the gig, came up to me and said she liked the poem and that it was very clever. So it wasn’t all bad. 🙂
Despite my lack of funds I decided there was only one thing to do, which was to go out for a few beers in Hisaronu again. As I got on the bus, 3 of the ladies from the gig were on it. I say beside Kerrie and we had a really lovely genuine chat all the way up the road. I love it when you get the chance to really talk with someone and by the end of the journey we had definitely gotten to know each other a bit more than the usual surface level.
I went back to the same Karaoke bar and got playing Pool with a fellow Scot called Wallace but who’s full name turned out to be William Wallace Bruce. It doesn’t get much more Scottish than that! He wanted to prove his name to me, so you can see a section of his driving licence in the photo below. He was a bit of a shark at the pool though and toyed with me for most of the games.
I then went to a couple of other clubs where the music was shit but I stayed for a couple of hours anyway as I knew that when I got up tomorrow the holiday would be over and I’d be hitting the road back to Antalya.
Video Blog 5
It was then time to walk home down the long steep hill once again, recording this video on the way.
Video Blog 6
Well, what do you know, sometimes good things happen. 🙂
Video Blog 7
Ölü Deniz – First Trip – Day Two Photos
So, on getting up the next day, I certainly felt that the trip was worthwhile and I was hoping I’d done enough to at least get another crack at an open spot. It was then time to hit the road back for a five hour journey back to Antalya.
Ölü Deniz Second Trip
I got in contact with Jonathan on Facebook to ask again if I could perform and he said I could do another spot. I said I would be there on Friday evening this time, rather than doing the two nights Thursday and Friday.
The reason for this was because I had applied for a job as a bar entertainer in Ölü Deniz and as I was to be in a city over that way called Denizli on the Friday, I thought as I was in the general area I could go for the interview for the job and then pop down to the comedy club to do a spot that night.
Now, I found this out later but apparently Jonathan had asked Matt and Colin if I should get another chance and they both weren’t that keen, particularly Colin. Fair enough, they are entitled to their opinion but Jonathan said I could do a spot anyway as it wasn’t up to them.
So, both comedians knew I was coming, from what they thought was Antalya, to perform a 10 minute spot that night.
I thought I’d be in Ölü Deniz around 7pm but the bus from Denizli took 6 hours which meant I didn’t get there until 9pm and the Spotlight gig was to start at 10pm. I grabbed a bite to eat and as it was too late to do the interview we arranged it for the next day. I then went down to the comedy club for 10pm exactly.
However, when I got there, no-one else was there. I didn’t bother phoning Jonathan to ask why but instead I went back to the bar where I was going to maybe start working, in order to suss it out a bit more and see if I did actually want a job there.
The truth is I did want to work there as I thought it would give me an opportunity practice on the mic and I certainly needed a change of scenery as I was getting very stagnant in Antalya.
As time progressed in the job I was going to level with the owner of the bar and ask if he would let me slip off for half an hour 3 times a week to do a 10 minute open spot but I wasn’t taking that for granted. I just felt the need to be in that area for some reason.
I sent Jonathan a message the next day asking where they were and got a reply saying – Sorry gig was cancelled, in all the madness I forgot to tell you. Nice.
So none of them knew that I was coming from Denizli and was in town for the interview and as far as they were concerned I travelled from Antalya to do the gig.
I explained that in my reply message to Jonathan and also to Matt a few days later when he asked if I came through to the gig on Friday, when indeed he already knew I did because according to Jonathan, he had told him on the Saturday after receiving my message that he had ‘dropped the ball’ with Billy.
He said he didn’t know I was due to be on that night but Jonathan told me that both he and Colin did know. They knew when he cancelled the gig that I was on, just as he knew that I had indeed come through for it.
At the Edinburgh Festival I have done many a free show to 1 audience member so it was a bit of a surprise when I was told by Jonathan later that the gig was cancelled by the comedians because they had only sold 5 tickets at £15 a pop.
Now granted, they may have been getting a bit frustrated at what was happening with regard to the whole project at the time and decided it wasn’t worth it but one family had travelled quite far to get to the gig and had spent a lot of money for a taxi which Jonathan told me he had to reimburse them for. For their time however, he could not.
Ölü Deniz Third Trip
So I got the job in the bar and went back to Antalya to get my stuff organised and then back to Ölü Deniz to start work about 4 days later.
I had told Matt that I was in town and he asked if I was available to do a gig. I said I would have to settle in for a week or two at the Bar but I am hoping to be able to shoot off for 30 mins to do a gig in the next week or two.
He told me they were only doing gigs in Hisaronu for the next couple of weeks, so I said, Ok, hopefully I will be able to make it two weeks later when the gigs start up in Ölü Deniz again.
Although it was fun to work in the Karaoke Bar, I wasn’t really getting much time on the mic other than to say ‘So here’s Dave singing Blah Blah Blah, big round of applause for DAVE!’. Certainly not enough to get me warmed up for Edinburgh.
However, I decided I would stick it out for a week and do a review with the Owner at the end of that week.
Ölü Deniz Third Trip Photos
The Fun Begins!
So, this is where the story kick up another gear. Let me just make it clear that most of what I say with regard to the comedians in Turkey is only through the words of Jonathan. Obviously the comedians will have other points of view and have obviously been witness to incidents that I was not involved in directly but as I can only repeat for what I was told, that is what I’ll do.
So on the Thursday, exactly one week after starting to work in the bar, I got a message from Spotlight Comedy on Facebook saying that the comedians had not been performing well and they wanted to use my contacts to find some other comedians to come out to Turkey and could we meet for a chat about it.
Sure, I thought, why not? I got picked up by Jonathan and taken to the Hotel in Hisaronu where the comedians performed the some shows in the Poolside bar there.
On the way there Jonathan started filling me in on what had happened over the course of the past month.
Let me give you a background into the set up. Basically, Jonathan working with a Turkish company built a purpose built comedy club in Ölü Deniz for an evening adult show and the hotel in Hisaronu was to be used for the earlier family show.
A year previously they had approached a well known comedy agency called Mirth Control and asked for them to send their best up and coming comedians. Seven were chosen to come over the course of the summer with three of them coming initially, Matt, Colin and Dave Thompson, who was Tinky Winky from Teletubbies.
Mirth Control were well informed of the investments that had been spent by the company in setting up the venture and that the entire gig relied on successful shows, especially the first few.
At least one of the travel agencies involved decided to make the Family Show their flagship excursion and if the guests came to the first morning meeting they would give away complimentary tickets, so as to entice them there and hopefully then sell other excursions.
If you missed the first morning meeting you could buy the tickets from the Rep or one of the many very visible outlets all around Hisaronu and Ölü Deniz, so obviously if the shows were a success the guests would talk about the gig at the pool or in the bars and more tickets would be sold.
There was to be a launch night for the comedy shows which the comedians were well warned of in advance that it would be the most pressure they would ever face doing a show as depending on how it went, could make or break the whole venture.
All the heads of the several travel agencies involved in the project would be attending as well as the investors and all the reps in the resort that worked for these particular travel agencies.
So apparently there were about 100 people in the club in Ölü Deniz and the comedians told about certain topics they were to avoid, like Islam, Ataturk and the Turkish Flag for example. I don’t think those topics would be in their sets anyway so it shouldn’t have been a problem.
The reason for this is not necessarily in case the Police want to arrest anyone talking about these issues, although in Turkey that could certainly be a concern in the current political climate, but more the fact that they were concerned for the comedians safety. If they start slagging off Turkey and some Turkish people in the audience don’t take too kindly too it for whatever reason, the acts safety could be put in jeopardy so better safe than sorry was the message.
However, in the first section of the gig, which was a demo of the adult show, apparently Dave did mention Islam which caused great stress amongst the audience as they too knew this was a ‘hot topic’.
There was then a break to be followed by an run through of what was to be the Family Show. During this section Dave got down on his knees and simulated masturbating over a women’s tits which I don’t think comes under the ‘family show’ umbrella, and the other acts didn’t overly impress either.
Needless to say, it was a total disaster, although Jonathan told me he did say well done to the comedians because he knew he had to keep their morale up as they still had another 4 months worth of gigs to get through.
Jonathan told me he woke up the next morning thinking it was a bad dream that the whole past year’s worth of work and investment has been highly jeopardised but it was confirmed when he saw at least 10 messages from the heads of the travel companies saying that they weren’t going to sell tickets for the show until they sorted it out somewhat. Some of them even permanently scrapped the idea of the show going to their Hotel right there and then.
In another twist of fate I actually visited one of these Hotels at the start of July to see my Sister and her family. I was sat in the 1000 seater amphitheatre where the comedians should have been playing and it was a great opportunity lost for sure.
Jonathan contacted the comedy agency to shall we say, ‘vent’, about their comedians. They immediately informed Dave to leave the resort, which Jonathan said helped him get through the meeting with the tour agency managers that evening a lot easier.
When Matt announced on facebook that he would be telling the story of Turkey at the Edinburgh Festival, Dave said ‘I give you full permission to say anything you like about me’. Fair enough.
He also gave an interview to John Fleming regarding what happened. Here is what he said.
“The situation,” Dave told me, “was that an Englishman who spends a lot of time in Turkey saw what he thought was a gap in the market for stand-up comedy in the Turkish resorts around Ölüdeniz. This was a year ago last June.
“He decided to go full steam ahead with promoting comedy out there this year, with no experience of it whatsoever.
Instead of trying out a few shows last year to see if there really was a demand for them, he went into full-scale production. He booked nine comedians to work in three packages, all of which would be doing twelve shows per week for the entire summer of this year… His preparations were highly inadequate.
“We were booked for the Englishman’s shows through a British promoter and the British promoter was superb in every aspect. They were completely open with us, giving us the contact details of the Englishman so we could meet him and judge for ourselves if he was worth dealing with.
“I met him in Leeds, when I arranged for him to come to see me in Harry Hill’s show Sausage Time (which was being recorded for the live DVD).
“I noticed he didn’t buy one drink, allowing me to buy them all in the pub afterwards or drinking the beers from the rider in the dressing room. I got the feeling he didn’t have any money and that the entire project depended on the shows in Turkey being nearly sold out from the start. But, as I love travel and he paid for my plane ticket out there and arranged for us to be accommodated in a villa with a shared pool, I went out there just in case the project was a success.
“I was with Matt in the first group booked and I went out there anticipating the whole thing might collapse fairly soon, but prepared for it not to.
“The first show we did was in front of tour reps and their managers, for no money. The venue had been refurbished at the expense of the Turkish club owner, but there had been no consultation with anyone who had ever promoted comedy.
“Consequently, lots of money had been spent to build a dedicated comedy room that was totally inappropriate for comedy. The sound desk was in a separate room and had no communication with or view of the comedy room. There was no microphone stand. The sight-lines were appalling. The stage was too high and at the end of a long narrow room. There were no seat backs on the seats, which had been specially made and installed, even though he expected the shows to last for over two hours.
“The room could have been superb for comedy – if the English guy who initiated all this had bothered to consult someone who had run comedy shows before – or even consulted comedians.
“As a result, the large amount of money spent on the room was totally wasted.
“I don’t normally swear onstage, but the show was such a fiasco – with a few fat, thick tour reps who hadn’t paid to see the show – that I did swear on this occasion.
“After the show, the English promoter was euphoric about it, saying it was going to be a huge success. The next day, though, it turned out the tour rep managers were not keen on the show and I was singled out as having sworn. I was sacked a few days later, having only done one unpaid show.
“As I always knew it was a strong possibility the whole project would collapse, I had continued booking work elsewhere for the summer. So I stayed in a different resort in Turkey for a few days and returned to Britain after having had a pleasant week swimming in the sea and the pool every day.
“But it had become clear while we were out there that the owner of the hotel and nightclub where the performances were happening was connected to the Turkish mafia.
“Mafia is maybe rather an umbrella term. But it was obvious that, in certain ways, they were not concerned about the law or the police. We did not have work permits and we were told that, if the police came to the show to enforce the law, as soon as they saw a certain person who would be in the audience, they would leave without interfering.”
Jonathan admits he had no experience in comedy promotion which is why he got in contact with Mirth Control and took advice from them on every aspect, from what comedians to book to exactly how the Comedy Club should be built and arranged.
He doesn’t have a lot of good things to say about that company in general. He says that the reason there were no work permits in place was because it took the company well over 6 weeks to arrange a copy of each comedians CV and documents required to get a work permit.
I personally know how things work out here and both I and Jonathan believe the whole venture could have went ahead with no work permits but Jonathan wanted to do things by the book but as he never had the documents early enough for the first few weeks they would perform without a work permit. He did apply and pay for at great expense, two work permits for Matt and Colin which never came into play as they left not long after the application was made.
In Dave’s case I wondered why someone would commit to doing 4 months in a resort but not cancel his other commitments. Then to go onstage and simulate masturbating over a women’s tits during a family show demo to his employers seems to me as if he deliberately sabotaged the whole project. Well, at least he got a weeks holiday into the bargain.
As I said, the tour companies immediately stopped ticket sales until the show proved itself worthy and in the meantime they were to carry on to hopefully try and build the reputation of the gig back to being sell-able.
When I told this to Matt he acted surprised and said ‘no-one told us that. we never heard anything from the travel companies.’ I said that Jonathan told me there was a meeting the next day and that was the outcome.
When I relayed this back to Jonathan he told me that Matt and Colin had both been called into said meeting with the Travel Companies to explain what they were going to do about the Family show and how they would turn it around! So someone ain’t telling the truth.
Of course, I had no idea about all this when I was there for the open spots.
Suffice to say, I thought Jonathan was a nice guy who had found himself up to his eyes in shit not totally of his own doing. There were mitigating circumstances. Granted he maybe should have checked out the comedians more thoroughly before they came out but he trusted the comedy agency to provide the very best.
By the way, I am not saying that any of these guys are bad comedians. Hell, it is a difficult thing to do and I am sure they felt under great pressure to do well but as I said, I do feel that there should be more of a shared responsibility of what happened.
Jonathan then spent the next couple of hours going into some of the other escapades that had taken place since that opening show and I can only say I was constantly shocked at what I was hearing.
Here are some of the highlights…
1) Two comedians having a verbal fight in the club in front of customers over one claiming the other one was setting him up to fail.
2) Comedians were told what bars they could go into (for their own safety) and who they shouldn’t socialise with, namely the Reps. Yet one, went anywhere he felt like and not only made friends with reps but bought them drink and drank with them until 7 in the morning.
3) One comedian’s friend posted a photo of the Turkish riots in Istanbul, which were just kicking off at the time, on the comedians Facebook wall with a caption ‘Look what happens when Manford comes to Turkey’. When this was discovered he was told to remove it at once by his manager and the promoter and said he had done so. Two days later it was still on Facebook.
4) One wore the same T-Shirt and shorts for about a week in the hot weather to the point guests at the hotel were complaining about it.
5) One insulting the owner of the bar from the stage in front of the guests and his staff members. This led the owner to preparing his own comedy show which he was going to perform at the next gig if the comedians didn’t make his customers laugh.
6) One comedian started the show and an audience member says ‘I hope you are going to do different material from last night’. The comedian replied, ‘Why did you come back?’ The lady replied ‘A friend paid me to be here’. At this point the other comedian pissed himself laughing which led to the first comedian losing confidence and only doing 10 minutes when he was supposed to do 30-40. The whole show lasted half the time it was supposed to and many people had to be given a refund.
I wasn’t going to list any of these incidences but Matt’s post about it all being down to the actions of one man has led me to do so. Yes, the whole thing was a fuck up, I agree, but I don’t think it was all down to one person and one person only.
It seemed to me that what had happened was largely out of Jonathan’s hands and that he was doing his best to get the show back on the road. That wasn’t going too well as one night, out of 38 customers, 18 of the walked out at the interval, throwing their armbands on the floor in disgust. The company was having to issue refunds for tickets that had been paid for and Jonathan was even buying people drinks for them to stay, so he told me anyway.
After the first month Cole Parker was due to come out to the resort. When Jonathan talked to him on the phone about what had been happening he started going mental and was told not to come if he was going to start trouble. At first he said he wasn’t going to come but then phoned back an hour later to say he had changed his mind and was on his way.
On arriving the first thing he did was to attend a meeting which Matt did not attend but which resulted in Colin getting told to come home. According to Jonathan this was not his decision but that of the comedy agency. Jonathan felt like Cole wanted to get his own comedians out to the resort.
So Colin left, apparently leaving a £1,100 bar tab into the equation so when he complains about not getting his tickets home paid for, bear in mind he left a hefty tab and it wasn’t Spotlights decision to send him home.
Also each comedian had a residence and work permit arranged for the tune of at least £1,000 each as well as their flights out there paid and a luxury villa to stay in. When they say they didn’t get paid, there were other costs involved and ticket sales certainly were not making up for.
Ok, so these costs are not necessarily to do with the comedian and they should get paid for the gigs they perform but I think a bit more understanding of what other people lost in the venture wouldn’t go amiss. Jonathan alone lost £14,000 of his own money and other investors lost a lot of money too. When Matt complained during his Edinburgh gig that he lost £25,000, that is in projected earnings, which ain’t quite the same as losing actual cash.
After the short gig that I referred to previously, Jonathan and the two comedians then went to a Cafe where Cole was apparently ready to turn tables over and start a fight and so Jonathan left them to it and walked out the cafe. Matt went into what happened next during his Edinburgh Show, which I have to say, I did find quite amusing.
They had built up an idea of a Turkish Mafia out to get them and so stole forks in order to protect themselves. Yeah, the whole thing to me is totally absurd and I believe was all in their own minds. Yes, they were warned not to go to certain places and the permits may not have been totally in place for the start of the project, but that is just how things are here. If you are sensible then I feel it is a very safe place.
The next day, the two comedians of their own accord decided to leave the resort. Spotlight were still wanting them to do the gigs and try and get the thing back to where it should have been. Jonathan told me they were still prepared to pay them but it would depend on ticket sales as was agreed in the contract.
So this is when Jonathan asked me if I would help finding other comedians and by doing so I could MC the gig for the rest of June and July before going to Edinburgh in August. I thought that for once something is going right in my life, I took a chance to come here and then this opportunity arose. Good things can happen…or so I thought.
I thought I could contact comedians and help sort out the situation for everyone’s benefit. I wasn’t trying to hide this from anyone as I thought the folks involved would take their share of the responsibility from all that had happened and move on from it.
At this point I done something that I am not particularly proud of myself. I was going to have a chat with the owner of the Karaoke Bar about how things were going anyway but after getting the offer to organise the gigs I decided to leave the bar and start working on it right away. I would need time to prepare my material as well as finding the other comedians.
So I went to tell the owner of the bar that I am leaving and I done so in a way that was quite abrupt and not very thoughtful considering all he had done for me in putting me up in his hotel and allowing me to work there. He didn’t take that too kindly and told me to ‘get the hell out of dodge’ in no uncertain terms.
I was trying to be respectful by being honest with him but I don’t think he seen it that way and from his perspective I can totally understand his reaction. I apologised to him and tried to explain my situation further but he was not for listening. So this would be a bit of a stumbling block when it came to me trying to perform in the comedy club but I figured I would cross that bridge if and when it came to it.
I headed back to Antalya and when I got there I posted a message on the Facebook Comedy Forum with details of the gig and asking for any interested parties to contact me. Fairly soon afterwards I got an email from Lee Bennett, who’s brother Steve runs the Chortle website, telling me to take it down.
He then posted on the thread that ‘now you know that no-one will get paid, if you don’t take this post down then you will look like a prick.’ I was just about to take it down anyway and did so. I thought it funny that he had so much venom towards Jonathan as he had never met him. Why was he making it his business to shout me down?
I thought that he obviously hadn’t heard the full story and only got the comedians side of it so I decided to reach out individually to some of my personal comedian friends regarding the gig. All I was trying to do was to put them in touch with the promoter and they could sort out the details.
If the comedians wanted to ask me anything then I would be 100% honest in what I had been told had happened and I figured that the comedian would be able to make their own mind up and weigh up the risks involved.
I could see the potential for the enterprise to be a success financially but first of all I realised that the show had to be a success. I wasn’t bothered about getting paid myself, I wasn’t and in fact, never have been in comedy for the money, it is the cocaine and pussy I like. 😉
At this point, I was also in contact with Matt. As you can see I was being very upfront with him about me looking for other comedians to come to Turkey and he seemed to be quite understanding and supportive.
Again, I doubt that he didn’t know anything about the message I put up although granted he may not have been involved with the effort to get me to remove it.
Well, there you go, a good luck message for me regarding Spotlight Comedy. I took it for granted that he understood the situation and was wishing me well.
It’s funny he says that Jonathan is such a nice guy because a week or so later after another slanderous posting on chortle when asked directly what he thought about the promoter or indeed myself he said he has ‘nothing to say’.
Although he did tell me later he was being sarcastic in the message but it didn’t read like that to me at the time.
Doug Segal, who I had interviewed on my website and was one of the comedians I had approached about coming to Turkey at least asked for the promoters side of the story. Even though at the time I wanted to be straight with everyone, I knew I had to be careful because of the other people and indeed large corporate businesses involved.
We’ll come back to that chortle post later.
Matt then sent me a message saying he had acts interested in the Turkey gigs.
No-one contacted Spotlight Comedy via Matt.
I saw that Mike Sheer had posted on the comedy forum that he was looking for gigs for August and so I checked out his YouTube videos and liked what I saw and so I contacted him about coming to Turkey. Yeah, I probably should have realised that he was one of the acts due to come out here later, hence his need to find new gigs.
For whatever reason, Matt seemed to change his tune here. Obviously he was in contact with Mike Sheer.
He still understood where I was coming from but now insisting that the acts will not be paid. He doesn’t seem to take into account that Work Permits, Residence Permits, Flights, Accomodation in Villa with Pool, Advertising and Food and Drink all cost money!
If the first gig never went tits up I believe they would have got paid as agreed. If the other gigs were successful they would have sold the necessary tickets due to word of mouth, the travel agencies and all the outlets in the two towns.
He said he was questioning my judgement as to whether I should be involved or not. Maybe he has a point but as I said, I felt like it was an opportunity that I didn’t want to let slip by. They don’t come by my way that often.
I did say to him I wouldn’t comment about what happened but as he has went on stage for three weeks and intends to tour it around the country I feel that I should comment about it.
Somehow, I was supposed to feel dreadfully sorry for these comedians, two of whom actively tried to stop me getting an open spot. No other comedian has ever stood up and shouted for me when I have had public run-ins with various other forces in the comedy scene.
As far as I was concerned I was trying to help comedians come out here and have a great time. I would have explained the situation for them in detail so that they could make their own minds up as to the risk involved. In fact did do that to one comedian who said he would have came if the money was guaranteed. I told him it wasn’t and so he didn’t come. Fair enough.
If we couldn’t get professional acts I would have asked comedians who would like to have come for the overall experience and the chance to gig regularly, so they could work on their act and improve. That is the main reason I wanted to do the gig. Obviously I was trying to get friends involved who I thought would do a good job but wouldn’t have done so under false pretences.
Ripped of by a con-man! Really Matt? How many Con Men work with the top travel agency companies? How many con-men build a purpose built comedy club and put comedians in a luxury villa for 4 months?
Out of all the acts that came the company did see that Matt in particular was put into a bit of a predicament at times and was willing to renegotiate terms and get him back out and so I tried to help them come together for a chat, which they eventually did. Ultimately though Matt turned down the offer.
It seemed strange to say the promoter he had no intention of paying. If you build a comedy club that you want people to come to year after year, don’t you think it would be a bit bad for your business model if you never paid any of the comedians who were performing there for potentially 4 months? I think that you would then quite rightly get a bad reputation.
Jonathan told me that when Matt first arrived, he said he couldn’t believe how good a set up it was in Turkey and that he would have done the gigs for much less than was agreed.
So he is not angry with anyone, that is very considerate of him but haven’t the company got a right to be angry with him? Doesn’t he feel any guilt about walking away from the situation in a bout of panic, instead of staying put and trying his best to make it work?
Yeah Matt, you would never give anyone flak, we know you’re such a nice guy, but you don’t exactly stick up for your ‘mates’ either do you?
For instance, when Colin’s brother Jason Manford put out a warning to all comedians, I didn’t see you rushing to give the full story.
I wonder if Jason knows the full story because if he did then I am sure he wouldn’t put out messages like this because it will just come back on him to make him look like a prick.
He then also threatened to tell 7 million people I am a Scab and that I would never work in the comedy industry again. I was going to reply ‘What do you mean, again?’
So, even though I am not part of their industry per se, apparently I had joined a Union at some point and was now a Scab. Cool. I’ve always done my own thing. Talk about Turkish Mafia though, this to me is the Comedy Mafia.
Hence I am not a member of any comedy cliques, thus I have no great allegiance to any that may exist. When I have performed for either the Free Festival or the Free Fringe for instance, I don’t go around asking comedians which organisation they are performing with before I talk to them. I treat them all equally, as if they were all human.
Peter Buckley Hill doesn’t want to book me because one reviewer said I am Racist but yet wants to segregate comedians based on whether or not they go with his organisation or not. I was going to say that I find that childish but it is actually more like fascist and it is why I can never join a clique and is probably why I will always be an outsider despite the fact that I recorded about a hundred video promos for acts from both sides of the comedy divide while in Edinburgh. No-one appreciates or even recognises that though.
Matt was writing cryptics blogs about the Turkey experience but has since either deleted or at least changed most of them. In one he was lauding the talents of the guy who was setting him up to fail with statements like ‘Colin Manford, you are an excellent comedian and a great person. I miss your football chants and your singing.’
They both keep talking about doing the full story one day. I’ll look forward to reading that. Perhaps it will put what I have been told in a totally different light and that indeed the promoter will be revealed as being the evil charlatan for whom he is being accused…but I doubt it.
So even though I had stopped talking to anyone about the whole affair by this time someone called ComedyKen signed up to chortle forums to post this one post – another warning about the dirty promoter and scab wannabe comedian. He felt it right to expose our names, yet he went under a psuedo name. Yeah, makes sense.
Going by what Mike Belgrave posted on the forum where he linked to the above posting, by saying ‘Looks like Colin Manford is having problems with these guys’, and also Colin’s eagerness on the thread to spout off about it again, I am guessing it was he who is ComedyKen but then I guess that didn’t take a rocket scientist like brain to figure out.
So, off it went again, people offering their opinion when they don’t know the full story. Only one person actually sent me a message and asked me directly what is going on, so thank you Nik Coppin for at least having the grace to do that. I didn’t reply though because it was just way too touchy a subject at that point and to be honest I hardly trust anyone in comedy anymore.
It would appear though that the comedy mafia have won the war as their was enough bad publicity raised to put anyone else off the idea of coming out here this summer and probably for-evermore.
It’s amazing though how everyone jumped on the bandwagon with, as I say only one person, asking me directly. This could have been a really great gig for many comedians over a number of years but now it looks like the whole project has fallen on its face. Oh well, at least the comedy chums will be happy. So well done everyone.
Despite this blog post and future blogs that will include references to Turkeygate, I do sincerely wish all the comedians and everyone involved with Spotlight Comedy all the best. I am sure everyone wishes things had turned out differently.
However, we can’t turn back the clock and I hope by putting my story out there that a more balanced viewpoint of what happened will be welcomed as this is my intention. I take no great pleasure in discussing these matters and fought against myself for a while about doing so but for the reasons I have given at the start I feel like I have to at least address it.
Also, it would not be a truthful account of my Edinburgh Festival 2013 experience if I do not write about what I was going through before and also during the festival with regard to Turkeygate. I hope people appreciate that fact and don’t think I am doing it to stir up trouble although no doubt, some may ensue.
Personally, right now I don’t give a shit about what happened and for why. I just didn’t like my freewill being controlled and therefore I have ultimately decided to express my feelings about it. There will be more to come as I continue to blog about Edinburgh over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!
Trial Runs
Ok, it has been a few days since I posted my Turkeygate blog which goes into my side of the story in detail and so far I have not heard a peep from anyone. No-one looks at my blog anyway so that is not that surprising.
I did send it to two people who I thought may be interested. One of them was John-Paul Stephenson who runs the Gigglebeats website and who had asked me and/or the promoter Jonathan to comment on the story that Matt put out before the festival that the promoter threatened legal action if he mentioned anything about what happened in Turkey.
There was also an article on Chortle on the same topic.
In this article Matt says that he received an email from the company threatening to sue him if he said anything about Turkey.
He then says, in a follow-up email that Jonathan said….
“You agreed not to disclose any staff, managers, owners and connections with Spotlight Comedy Turkey. You were explicitly told not to reference me. You failed to do that on many occasions, which are all documented with the organization, which is a breach of your contract.
I would like to receive confirmation from you before the start of your show in Edinburgh that you have removed ALL documentary photos (including ALL flyers and web material), visual aids, pre-show videos and anything that you are now in breach of your contract and/or the use of my photo without permission.
Your story is advertised as “a true story” and therefore everything you portray must be completely true and under your contract, not be in breach of it’s [sic] terms. To ensure that you receive this email before your show, I have cc’d Martha (who I had an email relationship with whilst you were in Turkey).”
So on facebook Matt was saying that Jonathan and Jonathan alone was the one threatening him with legal action if he said ANYTHING about the events in Turkey but Jonathan told me that he did not send an email stating that. He said he was not even on Spotlights email account for about 3 weeks prior to him receiving that email.
So on other-words, it was the so called ‘Turkish Mafia’ that is the owners of the company, who sent that message to Matt, not Jonathan. This is of high importance because he tabled all the blame for the legal threats at the ‘dirty promoter’ turning him into an almost pantomime baddy like character.
Jonathan told me that he sent an email to Matt from his personal gmail account, asking for his photograph on the flyer and all references to him directly be removed, as was relayed in the chortle article.
He told me that the only reason he CC’d Martha was because Matt blocked him on Facebook and he wanted to be sure that he received the message. It was in no way a threat to Martha and as he thought he had a good relationship with Martha he can’t believe it was taken in such a way.
I feel this is an important point to make because Matt made a big deal of this email to Martha as being the thing that really made him angry and want to rain down on Jonathan. During the gig that I witnessed he reiterated that fact.
I get the fact that Matt was displeased with how things in Turkey transpired and that he was in fact using the media to stir up publicity for his show and both I and Jonathan both agree, he certainly done a very good job of that.
Again though, I come back to the fact that if you are going to spout accusations of a personal nature then you better make sure they are true otherwise you leave yourself open to contradictory opinions.
When I learned that Matt was going to do a show about Turkeygate at Edinburgh this year I was going to post the blog I posted a couple of days ago but I didn’t want to go public with everything I knew at that point, as I thought it would do more harm than good.
Instead I made another video which granted, probably doesn’t make much sense if you don’t know the full story but was aimed at trying to get Matt to do a more balanced show.
As he said in the article, ‘This is not a revenge piece, I’m better than that. It’s a chance to write a show while I’m there’, so I thought I would make the video to appeal for some rationale and to try to clear my name which I feel had been dragged through the mud.
I posted it on a blog which read…
‘To the comedy world.
As some of you know I was asked to help by the company in Turkey after the first set of comedians left and by doing so, left no show.
In the mean time I have spoken at length with Matt Price and he totally agrees that I did nothing wrong. All I was doing was looking for new comedians to put in contact with the company for which I even got a good luck message from Matt to do so. In the process I even asked him to return.
In fact I have been discussing with him about what I should do about this situation and have spent quite a long time preparing a blog which would tell my version of what happened, as well as making a video blog about it.
Through respect for everyone involved I have chosen not to publish these as it will just bring up a whole lot of crap which I think it is in everyone’s interest to move on from. Also, as I wasn’t there personally to witness most of it, I didn’t think it my place to go into the details.
The reason I feel it important to clear my name is because I am going to the Edinburgh Festival in August and I don’t want any doubts over my integrity which could adversely affect me while I am there.
In truth I would actually like it if others came forward to take some responsibility for what happened. I consider the ‘dirty promoter’ my friend and think he has been harshly judged given the circumstances.
The comedians do think they are owed money so I should say though that I don’t know the full ins and out of what was agreed between the agency and the promoter. I know what I’ve been told and therefore I can only go on that information.
Matt has been given the opportunity by to do an Edinburgh show about Turkey. He said he was struggling for a title for the show and asked for suggestions and decided to go with this one ‘MATT PRICE IS NOT IN THE PROGRAM: Turkeygate, Tinky Winky & The Turkish Mafia‘. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say about his experiences.
I wish all the comedians and everyone involved with Spotlight Comedy all the best. Hopefully we can all put the shenanigans to bed. 🙂
Looking forward to meeting up with friends old and new in Sunny Scotland.’
Under that statement I posted this photo of myself and Bob Slayer.
Granted, that may have been a bit cheeky as Bob was the one who offered Matt the last minute available spot at The Hive venue that he runs but I was very stoned at the time and not thinking that clearly.
Bob sent me a message saying….
Can you take the photos down of me and you…
You have obviously included these as if I endorse your actions in some way – which I certainly don’t…
I dont really know ins and out of all this so I am not sure how much I disapprove yet, if at all.
But these are my friends that you may or may not of fucked over – so please don’t drag me into something I know nothing about…
Stewart Lee has a policy to ask people not to use words he has said whilst being polite in a bar… And I totally agree. If you really want to quote me on anything then this is my only authorised opinion
“Billy Watson is a complete and utter bell end…” Bob Slayer
That blog was bullshit too – I expect Matt was just being polite to you because he is a nice man – or maybe sarcastic
I read it thinking what is he on about – but I am pretty sure I didnt endorse him and I expect matt didnt either
that video was maronic
it made no sense what so ever – and then talked about wanting to promote peoples shows – no one wants to be associated with you
piss off
Fair enough, although I would say, if you are going to call something ‘moronic’ it would be a good idea to spell it properly.
I had already removed the post not long after posting it.
I wrote about attending a Chat Show at Bob’s bookshop in the previous blog where Kate and Janey were saying that you should ‘call people out and be truthful’. Funny, Bob never disagreed with them, to say that he thinks Stewart Lee’s policy is the one he believes in. Horses for courses Bob eh. 😉
At the start of the fringe I had actually gone to the Hive on the first night, to see Lach’s show after meeting him in the street outside the venue.
I had told Lach that I wasn’t very welcome in the Hive but he said that Bob wouldn’t bet there and that he’d be in his bookshop venue. Wrong!
As I went in I saw Bob immediately. He gave me the peace sign, which I felt relieved about and then touched him on the shoulder as I passed by him as he talked to people.
As I was leaving the venue Bob was in the doorway. We stopped for a chat. I again apologised for using his photo. He said that I should leave Matt alone as the poor guy had lost a lot of money.
He also said Dave Thomson was his friend and that I am a loose canon that no-one knows what will do or say, and that they find uncomfortable. The video I made was stupid and not in a good way and he couldn’t believe my cheek to ask people if they want interviewed.
I agreed with him up to a point but mentioned that there was a lot more to the story than is out there and at this point he made a beeping sound like a forklift reversing and backed away from me.
Now Bob makes a big thing about being an Alternative Hero and shaking up the established order but yet he doesn’t want to even listen to alternative view of a show that he is promoting. I guess there was money in that version of the story and only a promoter in Turkey gets slandered, rather than working comedians.
Here is some of the dialogue I was having with Matt prior to posting the blog I mentioned above.
Matt takes the moral high ground but as I showed in my last post he lied to me more than once.
I got tired of being the ‘middle man’.
He ignores what was said publicly, well, as long as it was about me or Jonathan, he does.
I heard the promise of a pint waiting for me in Edinburgh several times. When I did meet him in Edinburgh, his words were, ‘I would buy you a pint but I’m skint.’
When I performed a gig about Turkeygate, he said he ‘hears everything.’ Obviously not in this case.
I told him directly that more happened out here that has been made out.
He says people have forgotten about it and indeed they may have but then he does a show about it for three weeks and now plans to tour it. So they are not really getting the chance to forget about it as he keeps bringing it up.
But he hasn’t moved on.
Too busy writing a show digging it up to worry about people digging it up.
He knows there is more to what happened that was said in his show. He did in fact admit to me that it was ‘all marketing’.
I know there are several sides, which is why I thought a more balanced picture of what happened should be out there.
Give up and move on! By writing an Edinburgh show about it!
I honestly don’t think he conned you Matt. Everything was upfront and you knew it would take a while to get it off the ground. If the shows were successful you would have got paid and you know it.
Jonathan said he would have signed it if the Work Permits were in place. The reason they weren’t was due to Mirth Control’s tardiness at getting the required paperwork ready.
I then tell Matt that the travel companies put a block on selling tickets after the first night fiasco. He claims he didn’t know that.
Jonathan told me that after Dave was told to pack his bags that Matt and Colin were taken into a meeting about how they were going to get the shows up to a standard to get the travel companies faith again.
I asked him directly if he was sacked or if he walked. Obviously he is entitled to walk if he thought the thing was irretrievable and a waste of time and money. I just want to point out that Spotlight comedy was hoping to continue working with Matt and Cole to get the shows up to speed.
I was trying to help bring people together. I knew that not only Jonathan but other people over here had been hurt by what happened and they didn’t want it put on public display. They kept their silence about it as they didn’t want to harm the tourist industry anymore than they had done already.
This is when I decided against posting the long blog and went with the shorter one. I thought I could get the message across in that one without the need to expose everything I knew about it.
I am not sure what the anonymous email was. Perhaps this was the one from the company which threatened to sue him if he spoke about it during Edinburgh.
Matt was willing to be tagged in my post about it but when he said about the money being owed, I decided that I would take the blog down.
Cole was sending some emails to Jonathan threatening violence upon him. From the blog I posted I do think there is more to the story than ‘dirty promoter does the dirty on poor comedians’.
He keeps saying it is not a revenge piece but I challenge anyone who saw it not to say that Jonathan was the target of extreme criticism.
I didn’t hear anything about an assault.
So that was the end of our chats for a while. Just before his first show at Edinburgh I sent him a message.
I was sat outside the room that Matt was playing at the Hive when he came out during the show. I think we were both a bit surprised.
I met Matt again in the street the next day. He explained to me how Machete Hetty has taken over a ten minute spot in his show because “who am I to deny someone the opportunity to do their art?” Very altruistic, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Unfortunately I forgot the fact that he and Colin tried to deny me the opportunity to perform an open mic spot with Spotlight or else I would probably have mentioned that to him. He’s such a nice guy, don’t you know? If you don’t, he will subtly or not so subtly tell you anyway.
He was performing a spot at Espionage so I went with him, where we bumped in Nik Coppin and Alex Petty. I am guessing they must have been surprised to see us arrive together and when Matt’s set was finished we left together to continue chatting about the Turkeygate thing.
I was trying to explain why I felt most aggrieved because the comedy mafia shut down the gig and asked if he understood where I was coming from. He said he did and that he held nothing against me as I was acting from a position of not knowing the full story, so how can I be blamed. Very gracious of him.
He was telling me the show isn’t what I think it is and that it is about fear and paranoia mainly. I asked if he would be ok with me going to see it to which he said ‘no problem. After I see it, he said, I would call him ‘a dick’.
So although I was a bit nervous about going to see the show due to the fact I didn’t know who would be in the audience or what he would say about me while I was there, I did keep my promise and turn up the next day to see it.
I took a seat at the back and settled in for the show.
As soon as Matt came on the friendliness which he had shown to me on the street, changed somewhat.
He started having a go at me, firstly by telling me to start my audio recorder so that I could send it to Jonathan and his international team of lawyers. I told him I didn’t have a recording device but he persisted with that line a few more times anyway.
He explained to the audience that I was friends with both the promoter and Matt, so I was caught in the middle and perhaps I wouldn’t be the promoters friend if he had cost me £25,000. Again, that is in projected earnings.
I said that I was looking forward to hearing his side of the story.
He asked me to confirm that Jonathan had threatened him legally not so set foot on the stage. I said, I didn’t believe that to be the case. Matt said, he had an email saying just that. Again, probably from the company, not Jonathan.
So Matt told the story of Mr Bad Guy promoter. He said here is a man who makes business decisions by the turning of a tarot card and that his girlfriend done a reading for Jonathan and that her verdict was that he was ‘a cunt’. Well, so much for client confidentiality then Mr Moral High Ground.
He was laying into Jonathan quite a bit including the bit he does on this promo where he accuses him of being like a 1970’s style promoter by telling Matt to use local references.
Jonathan told me that he was impressed when Cole Parker came out as he was walking around the town making notes of all the things he could use. Jonathan was simply saying, the one thing these people have in common is that they come to Ölü Deniz for regular holidays and if you reference local shops or whatever then they will feel like it is a bit special for them.
Apparently, Jonathan says, Matt did do a local reference one night and it got a big laugh. He even remarked to Jonathan afterwards and agreed it was good.
I am not saying every word of every show has to be 100% truthful and obviously as I have said from the start and also as Matt states in the messages, there are bound to be differences of opinion, that is all well and good. I am just pointing out a few of those differences.
Anyway, the show went on to talk about what happened after the first and last gig that Matt and Cole performed. Jonathan had told me that he left them in a cafe that evening with Cole about to over turn tables. The story Matt told about what happened afterwards was quite funny and this is the part which Matt was referring to that, I will think him ‘a dick’ afterwards.
I didn’t hear it until the end though as he ran out of time after letting Machete Hettie do her thing for 10 minutes.
He continued it in the bar area but I had an open spot to go to and I didn’t fancy sitting in the bar and letting Matt get ripped into me again. Not exactly the welcome he had alluded to but he did say ‘you came along so what do you expect’ and hey, I agree. He said, he is a ‘Celt’ so that’s just how he is. Fair enough. All is fair in love and war then, cause my Mother is Irish and my Father is Scottish. Celt times TWO. 😉
I sent him a message saying I was sorry to have to leave.
I left it at that though.
So I was watching facebook updates of how well the show was going etc and then Matt posted his Greenwood’ winning update.
First of all, I thought it was a show to entertain people, not about getting revenge and secondly the way Cole and Colin but put Jonathan down I thought a bit over the top.
Then Matt got his four star Scotsman review by Kate Copstick. Again, the despicable Greenwood was mentioned. It said that they would all to a man defend Matt against him.
Well I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer and so went onstage and did a rant about Turkeygate.
There were 7 comedians in the audience so I knew the word would be on the street that I talked about it.
The next day I was with my son in the Royal Mile and Matt storms up to me and says ‘Tell Greenwood I got Four Stars from the best comedy critic in the world’, as if I am his fucking messenger boy.
I didn’t say I knew about the review or that I had done a gig referring to it but simply said ‘Ok’. Matt then left.
The next day he posted his update saying ‘Oh Billy, tell it to my face, I hear everything.’
I don’t need to tell him anything to his face. I was asking him directly on chat messages to talk about it and said things directly. Is he saying the things he says on stage direct to Jonathans face? Or indeed the other parties involved faces? No, he’s not. It seems like one rule for the comedy mafia, another for the open spot.
I decided not to publish the gig I performed about it during the festival as I didn’t see the need to upset the apple cart anymore. I had said my piece and felt better for it.
The only other incident of note regarding this was when I turned up at Bobs Bookshop for the chat show with Janey and Kate.
I actually wanted to see quite a few shows there, including all of Johns chat shows but didnt feel comfortable. The reason I went to this one was because a lady called Sandra, who always likes and shares my stuff was in town and I said I would meet her.
She attended all of Johns talks and wanted to meet me on the Wednesday talk with Patrick Monahan. I avoided it but then she suggested the one with Kate and Janey. I didn’t try to talk her into meeting elsewhere but went with her suggestion.
By this time Bob probably knew I had said something about Turkeygate and as I approached the venue he saw me but ignored me and continued talking to Janey outside.
I stood beside up until he had to turn around and asked if I was welcome. He said nothing but just motioned for me to enter.
Janey said ‘Hiya’ but I didn’t stop and talk, I just went and sat beside Sandra.
While I was trying to get comedians to come to Turkey I had asked Janey if she would like to come and she was quite keen. The reason it never happened was because of all the noise made about it and the fact that she could only do a week so it wasn’t that viable.
As you can see I was being upfront with Janey and willing to explain the situation before she came out.
I was a bit disappointed that after agreeing to be interviewed and reviewed by myself she then chose not to get back to me, even if only to explain why she wants nothing to do with me, like the rest of them.
So after the Chat show I waited outside with Sandra to have a quick word with Janey. I was going to just thank her for showing an interest in coming to Turkey but after saying hello she said she had to go and meet her daughter. Maybe she didn’t want to speak to me or maybe she didn’t want to say anything with Sandra standing beside me. Either way, she left and has not corresponded with me since.
Incidentally, I have not spoken to Kate Copstick either since at last years Malcolm Hardee Show she said she would come and review my show the next day, where I would donate my takings to her Kenyan Charity, but she never turned up. I maybe shouldn’t have told her my average collection. I understand she is busy and probably promises to lots of people then can’t make it. Hell, I do that myself at Edinburgh as there are many distractions so I am not too upset about it but still, it just seems to me that you are either in the gang or out the gang and I have never wanted to be in any gang in the first place, so I guess I will carve my own path outside of the comedy world as, and I speak for Jonathan also here, it fuckin’ sickens me.
Oh yeah, the other person I sent the first blog to was John Fleming who never read it before I took it offline again.
That one and this one will probably never be published but I am keeping them for my archives. Maybe I’ll put it in a book one day.
Here are some blogs that John wrote about Matt and Turkeygate.
I went back to Hisaronu a few years later and I met Sonny, the owner of the Hotel and he told me all of the comedians had written to him and apologised for what they done.
Jonathan and I are still waiting for ours.
The End.
Cheers!
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