That Time When John Cleese Turned Massey Hall Into Messy?Hall

A couple of years ago, I was approached to contribute to a book of recollections about Massey Hall, arguably one of the world’s, and easily one of Canada’s, most heralded performance venues. I had what I considered to be a noteworthy story, which I wrote, submitted and forgot about.

That is, until this week, when my friend Lawrence Kirsch — a renowned photographer, one of the inspirations for the book and the guy who recruited me — posted that “That Night at Massey Hall,” a luxurious coffee table volume, had just been published. It has tons of tales and pics of acts the very diverse like of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, U2, Gordon Lightfoot, AC/DC, Iggy Pop, Neil Young, Rush…and John Cleese.

So call this an “excerpt” if you will, but here’s my story in its entirety…

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For a guy who spent most of his professional career — over 30 years! — engaged in the business of humour, it’s somewhat ironic that I learned perhaps the most important lesson about comedy?not?in a New York club or Los Angeles TV studio, but on the stage of one of music’s most iconic venues, namely the title subject of this book.

Before getting to the lesson and the man who taught it to me, a couple of confessions:

1. Despite the aforementioned reference to a three-decade-plus stint in the land of laughter, I was always way more a “rock ’n’ roll guy” than a “comedy guy.”
2. And despite traveling to catch rock concerts in iconic venues all over the globe, I had never, ever, ever seen a show in the hallowed Hall of Massey. In fact, until I walked on stage there on the afternoon of July 18, 2009, I had never even set foot in the place.

So, with that out of the way, let’s go back to that fateful Saturday. I had already been 10 years removed from my job as CEO of the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, an event I was brought on to develop and co-found in 1985. I was president of a mobile media pioneer called Airborne Entertainment at the time, but kept my toes in the showbiz pool spending my summer vacation directing the Festival’s most prestigious shows, the Galas.

Each Gala was formatted the same — about 10 top-notch comedians delivering tight sets designed for TV consumption, all under the wing of a celebrity host. If said host was a stand-up, a la?Howie Mandel?or?Jerry Seinfeld, they would perform an opening monologue, a little something in the middle and closing number with the comedians interspersed. As such, as director, I had little more to do than point everyone onstage and off.

Bleeding Edge Writers…Literally

But if said host was more “comedic personality” than comedian, a la?Nathan Lane?or?Tina Fey?or?William Shatner?or Broadway’s?Kristen Chenoweth, well…that’s where the fun began. Alongside a troupe of bleeding-edge (term chosen on purpose, as you’ll soon see) writers, I would work with these stars and create all sorts of outlandish skits, songs, dance numbers, and what-have-you.

So on Saturday, July 18, I was rehearsing the famed?John Cleese?for the first of two Toronto Galas which would be repeated the following week at the Theatre St. Denis in Montreal (the Montreal festival was preceded by its smaller Toronto counterpart back in those days).?

Although not necessarily renowned as a comedy venue, the wide stage of Massey Hall and it’s “on top of you” sight lines made for an intimacy that was indeed humour-friendly. And as much of a thrill as it was to work with the Monty Python legend, the buzz for me was equaled by the experience of snaking through Massey Hall’s backstage hallways and offices, and marveling at the gallery of signed posters of historic gigs gone by.

But I wasn’t there to wistfully poster-gaze, I had a job to do. And luckily, it was with one of the best. I had worked with John a few years earlier, and found him to be one of the most astute, hard-working and generous of anyone ever in the JFL Gala Host role.

Let’s put things in perspective — let’s say we’re doing a standard Saturday JFL Gala in July. In most cases, we were lucky to have a couple of phone calls and perhaps a one-hour face-to-face with the show’s host before he or she turned up at around 1:00 p.m. to rehearse for a 7:00 p.m. show that night. By 2:30 or 3:00, most hosts were already in their limos back to the hotel, only to arrive around 6:30 for make-up, mic-ing and the stage walk-on.

For a Saturday JFL Gala in July with John Cleese though, things were?far?from standard. We would have the first of about two dozen phone meetings sometime in January or February. Then, about a week prior to the show, we would be ensconced in a rehearsal hall on a daily basis for hours on end. We would table read. We would tape the floor with the theatre’s stage dimensions and act things out. We would write, edit and re-write, obsessing on mere syllables in the end. By the time Cleese would actually show up at the theatre on the day of show, he was a well-oiled machine looking to precision-adapt the hours of previous preparation to the stage he had to ultimately perform on. He was there at noon and didn’t leave until the curtain fell.

So that’s where we were on the afternoon of Saturday, July 18, 2009 — traipsing about a Massey Hall stage lined with colourful JFL set backdrops, its well-worn wood floor covered by stylish carpeting. The “concept” of John’s Gala was that his recent divorce had ruined him financially, so he had to reduce himself to taking gigs such as this one to stave off bankruptcy. Taking his desperation one step further, he would hold a “Telethon” during the Gala, and entertain performance requests from the audience in return for cash. Instead of requests for old Python standards though — silly walks, the Parrot Sketch, the French taunter et al — our skit would have audience plants ask John to demean himself with some awful physical stunts, including shaving his mustache off.

One such “stunt” was for John to reach into a paper bag to retrieve a $5 bill put there by a mean-spirited fan; no big deal, except that the bag was filled with broken glass (fake, obviously). So the joke — and the precursor to the lesson and the reason I used “bleeding edge” before — was that Cleese would reach into to bag, fumble around a bit amongst the shards, and bring out the bill to a huge “Ta-Da!”…ignoring the fact that his hand was gushing blood like a spigot.

He grimaces as if he’s being tortured

Anyway, during the dress rehearsal, John reaches into the “glass,” grimaces as if he’s being tortured, squeezes the “blood bag” planted there, and pulls out his hand. To put it lightly, the ensuing blood pour was somewhat less than Niagara Falls; it was a mere trickle that one would expect had they pricked a pinkie trying to fit a Remembrance Day poppy onto their jacket lapel. Everyone laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

Everyone except Cleese. This was the first time I had ever seen him be anything less than polite and accommodating. He was seething.

“What…happened…to…the…blood?”?he asked pointedly, each word almost its own sentence. The creative team members looked at each other, perplexed. We had nothing to do with it. The silence was deafening and seemed eternal, and was broken only when our stage manager — a person whose name and sex will go unnoted to spare any further psychological trauma — piped up to say: “Well, I told them to hold back and make the blood bag smaller.”

More silence, before Cleese simply asked:?“And why did you do that?”

“Well,”?the stage manager said confidently,?“I didn’t want to stain the carpet.”

More silence. Suddenly, gentleman Cleese was back.

“So let me see if I understand,”?he said calmly.?“You didn’t want to stain a carpet, oft-rented from some prop house, so you took it upon yourself to limit the amount of blood that spills on it.”

“Uh, yeah,”?the stage manager smiled.

Cleese’s calm was but a ruse. He channeled the God of Thunder when he replied with what can be considered a deafening masterclass in the art of humour:

“Uh…NO! NO! YOU don’t interfere with the funny, with the comedy, with the joke! In the hierarchy of this show, the carpet is far, far, far below the punchline! It’s the joke that matters, not some rented rug! You don’t jeopardize the funny to save on a goddamn steam-cleaning bill!

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was slack-jawed in awe. The stage manager tried to make a case of the decision, which enraged Cleese even further.

“This is not a discussion. It’s a directive! Funny goes first! Everything, even your precious carpet, is secondary. Now go get me a properly gushing blood bag before I have you wrapped in that rug and carted off!”

That night when the skit was finally performed, we held our breath, but the blood flowed as if John were hemorrhaging. Everyone laughed again, this time for the right reason. The crowd erupted in a combination of revulsion and revelry.

And for a few minutes, Massey Hall became Messy Hall…but, as we all learned, it was well worth it.