The day I was beaten up in front of Arnold Brown

IF ANYONE IS going to notice that life is often funnier than comedy it must surely be a professional comedian. Even when the incident may seem tragic at the time. And why not?

Arnold Brown is the self-styled ‘Scottish Jewish’ comedian and has made a long career with an observational stand up act ever since the ‘alternative comedy’ boom of the late Seventies during which he appeared at the opening night of London’s Comedy Store. Recently awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at a Scottish festival, Arnold said: ‘It's always been great to be regarded as the comedian's comedian, but my real ambition has always been to be the bank manager's comedian.’

I had the pleasure of befriending this dark, slightly-built ex-chartered accountant in the mid-Nineties when we had a brief collaboration, over cappuccinos in Hampstead, towards the production of an even briefer humour publication. Along with his claim to fame for supporting Frank Sinatra at a Glasgow concert, he first met me at a Cartoon festival at Chelsea Town Hall. He was always a keen cartoon aficionado.

Over the years we would have occasional meetings in various cake shops around London (“I’m a patisserie kind of guy” was one of his catchphrases) even though he would very rarely eat anything more fattening than a tomato and onion salad.

Our meeting places included such legends as Bunjie’s Coffee House, around the corner from The Ivy, in Litchfield Street; Marino’s in Rathbone Place and Stockpot in Old Compton Street. Restaurateurs must fear that there is a Curse of Arnold Brown, because all of these establishments have sadly shut down. Fortunately, the extremely cake-y Maison Bertaux in Greek Street continues to struggle on.

It was more of a mild friendship than anything business-inclined, with him critiquing some of my latest works with avuncular, yet constructive enthusiasm. He always had the air of the slightly tortured artist, his thick bushy brows knitting together above intense eyes as he intellectualised one experience or another. “I was on an existentialist tube train the other day. The announcer said: Mind the gap between your expectations and reality.”

And it was on tube station when, for me at least, we had the most memorable encounter. It was on a platform at Euston underground station (still open for business in spite of Arnold’s presence) which is where we return to the observation about comedians observing tragedy.

Laden down with baggage, I was en route from the Northern Line platform up to the mainline station and swerving around the corner into the concourse leading to the escalators. My shoulder slightly rubbed that of a roughly-dressed young man going in the same direction. Thinking nothing of an encounter that any Londoner has several times a day, I muttered an apology only to find the man’s fist forcefully swinging into my jaw. At that precise moment of shock and pain, my eyes focussed quickly enough to see, opposite me, with an equally shocked expression, my old comedian friend Arnold.

“Are you alright?” he enquired naturally enough as I watched the ruffian, who was staring back at me, ride up the escalator.

Yes, there was nothing broken, I checked, just a severely rattled jaw, the ache and memory of which would seriously disrupt my sleep over the following few nights at my assignment in Birmingham.

Arnold’s expression was identical to the photo on the cover of his book “Are You Looking at Me Jimmy?”

Shocking though it was at the time, putting on an impromptu performance of inner city violence for one of the UK’s leading comedians may well have been my finest hour.

It’s easy to laugh about it now and, indeed, a friend has embellished the tale further with his taste-free joke that he had been gang-banged on Holborn Viaduct at exactly the same time that Stephen Fry walked past.

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