John Hastings on his most memorable gigs

John Hastings is putting out eight full-length comedy specials for free on YouTube this year, with his 2023 Edinburgh Fringe show The Times They Are A John Hastings related last month, and Do You Have Any Ointment, My John Hastings, as recorded in Toronto late last year, coming Sunday.  Here he recalls five of his most memorable gigs...

First gig 

Comedy Works Montreal. 

The club owner wore a wig. I wore a suit. I took a cab home and felt like I had a career . 

Montreal was a great place to start, as it was well after the 1980s comedy boom but all the drug-addled weirdos from that period were still alive. Nothing says showbiz like someone smoking a joint made from a Bible page telling you to ‘keep it clean’.

I do hope there are still delusional maniacs doing stand-up comedy, and I also very much hope I am not one of them. 

Best gig 

My best gig was being the face of a gum in Denmark for a spell. They were going to shoot many new commercials in a lake in Portugal. They changed it to me in a canoe for 20 minutes at the last minute. Free trip to Lisbon! Cash in the bank!

The gig that changed my life

Let’s be sappy and unfunny for five seconds. I worked with the director Paul Bryne from 2014 until his passing in 2022. Showing up at the Fringe that year was and remains the most difficult thing I have ever done. Before he passed, I ran every bit of comedy by him. I

I did not know if that hour was any good or if I could do it. It was such a tough month and had a few curveballs thrown in, such as someone at the pub the show was in getting coked up and mocking the whole show. But I got through that month, and it showed me that I could keep being a comedian without Paul, which was never in doubt and absolutely in question for about a year after he died. 

Oh, and if you would like to see that material, on September 15 I’m putting out the comedy club version, and on October 15, the version from the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe. I hope you like those, and if you don't, you can watch me cry loads in the October one! 

Also, I know it is awful to turn that into a plug, but good goodness, I have seen a few of the clowns who I know are reading this do more with less. So sue me. Also, I know it is cheating as it said gig, not gigs. But… what an answer. 

Worst heckler

At the Adelaide Fringe in 2018, I kicked out a weirdo heckler who kept trying to discuss the legal ramifications of some of my invented comedy observations. He returned the next day, tried it again, and was ejected from my show. He was banned from the venue grounds but did take a flyer from me when I was flying on the street.

Worst journey to a gig

I spent my time in Canada hacking the back highways for one-nighters at Yuk Yuks clubs. In my 20s, I was basically escorting a variety of 45-year-olds who looked 65 and did cocaine like they were 25 between farming communities. All those journeys were bad. I was just smoking in a car with someone who still feels slighted by Arsenio Hall. 

• YouTube playlist of all John ​Hastings’s stand-up specials.

Published: 11 Sep 2024