The Late Show. 1982
Pyramid Theatre Times Square New York
“Cut!!”
This from the Rooster.
Cut Cut Cut!!!
What the hell is he doing? The act was still only halfway through, the part where the pseudo-hypnotised has-been Hollywood starlet does her phony psychic predictions was still to come and here was Rooster in his pale green tights and witch doctor's mask (adorned with fantastic real buffalo horns dredged from a junk shop on East 3rd Street), waving his arm,s shouting cut! What about my academic jargon-loaded anthropological speech concerning the ancient shamans’ ritualistic hypnosis and the joke at the end where I get a backhander for bringing the TV crew to the village? That was the joke, and it’s still half a scene away, so why is he shouting “cut?” I shimmered in character, adjusting my Attenborough safari suit, shades on the forehead and ebony holder cigarette boot tucked corduroy military chic fashionista monster outfit. For the sake of my status inside this act, I couldn’t take this. Deviation from the script was all so cha cha cha with this lot of psycodellic vaudevillians, but this was distinctly unusual and spotlit robbery of my favourite fancy-pants role. Maybe Rooster was flying too high on the cocaine that Petie Boy, the Italian Transport Specialist, had laid on the dressing room mirror 15 minutes before showtime. Petie Boy would appear with impeccable timing, an elegant sideshow from the night, gifting drugs and on odd occasions apparel that he had sourced from….Well, I wasn’t to ask. Pastel coloured French silk shirts and Italian shark skin suits, and perhaps these low-heeled grey pumps? How he emboldened my own antipodean challenged sense of sartorial elegance, and this particular night on The Great White Way, he had laid lines of snow, smiling in a detached (stoned) way as we snorted with delight and got pumped for the Late Show. Before cocaine time, I had done my shift on the street above where the 10:30 pm Broadway post Theatre crowds swarmed through Times Square, eager to flee the pimps and hawkers that prowled the pavement. I joined them dressed as a delicate lamb in grey and pink, wearing a mask copied from a photograph of a Balinese cow that adorned a postcard recently received from my backpacking cousin. Between my delicate hooves, an accordion, a child’s accordion, you understand, that I had found in a K’rd toy shop the day before we left New Zealand, 18 months previous to this beautiful nightmare. I did a slow walz-shuffle through the crowds in my grey pumps and fleecy collar; intrigued tourists would take a flyer from my normally attired companion and make their mystified way down the Pyramid Steps to the red and yellow low-lit basement theatre. The Broadway crowd was thinning out, and it was almost time to descend myself. Through the open baa mouth of the lamb cow mask, I glimpsed Petie Boy and knew if I wanted a noseful, I’d better be quick. So now, 20 minutes into the act, floating in that driven cocaine way, Rooster is pulling this stunt. Chelsea, in the role of witch doctor’s minder, chief fly swatter and money bag maintainer for the tourist dollar, had fled the stage giggling and Bristol, as the stoned-out starlet was waiting for her entrance, so the moment was mine to use or lose. I rounded on the witch doctor and gave him an earful.
“My man, (I had to begin somehow), do you know who I am? I have discovered hitherto unknown insects crawl out of the earholes of entombed Peruvian mummies and studied the rarely seen twat twat bird, and you dare to call cut during my broadcast! I’ll be glad to get out of your lice-infested village and will bid you farewell in the language of the Lang Dok Highlanders of Cambodia. Hok bin wat snit bing!!!”
With an imperious toss of the BBC demeanour, I minced off stage. In the dressing room, Chelsea and Bristol lay collapsed in fits of laughter. Onstage, the Rooster rocked back on his heels and gave a transfixed New York audience treats from his rare and vivid tongue.
After the show, I chatted to a small group of Germans who had been to a Broadway musical at 8 pm and, wandering disappointed at 10:30, had seen the accordion-playing sheep had taken a chance on us.
Polite they were, bemused and generous with beer.