Shropshire Star

Andy Richardson: Keep your finger on the button when things go quickly wrong

I’m a dyed in the wool five-to-niner. That’s to say, when most people settle down in front of the TV to catch up on the day’s Brexit, waste money on internet shopping and cook their partner lamb shanks and chive mash, I’m usually working. My part-time creative is entirely compatible with my full-time, erm, creative. So in my spare time, I might knock out a book, work on someone’s concert or come up with an idea that’ll end up being a food festival, or something.

Published
When 750 people are supposed to be viewing a picture of a rock legend but instead see rabbit.

One project feeds the other. I can write about the people I’m hanging out (mostly chefs and rock’n’rollers) with when I’m not in the office, erm, writing about the people I was hanging out with.

Usually, things run as smoothly as a quantum stabilized atom mirror, which is, curiously, the smoothest thing in the world. And then there are nights like Saturday, when all I want to do is cry.

This is what happened.

We were working on a show with a fella who can reasonably claim to be part of rock royalty. He’s been decorated by the Queen – that means he’s been given an honour, not a can of Solvite and a wallpaper brush. He’s sold 100 million albums and had attracted a crowd of 750 people to listen to him talk, sing and tell rambunctious stories.

During the afternoon, we’d set the stage, got everything in place and rehearsed his entry – which sounds like a line from a Julian Clary sketch but isn’t. So, as the clock struck 7.25pm we were good to go.

We ran through our checks: talk to the tech guys, get into position, make sure we all know what we’re doing. The usual. And at 7.29pm, I stood down, confident that the evening’s event would run swimmingly and that all would have a good time. After all, what could go wrong? The only thing left for to do was for a guy called Johnny Slippery Fingers to run a presentation at the start of the show by clicking a simple button. Ahhh. The joys of Saturday night rock’n’roll.

So I left them to it, walked back stage and watched the action unfold on a monitor. As you do.

Johnny Slippery Fingers counted down to 7.30pm. Five, Four, Three, Two, One.

And then he pressed the button. And he wasn’t sure if it had worked properly. So he pressed it again. And again. And again.

The button had, of course, worked properly. And it continued to work properly as he pressed it more times than he should have done. So the screen didn’t show the presentation, which would have followed after one click. It showed the thing that happens when a man with slippery fingers presses the button too many times – that is, the fourth slide, which comes halfway through the show.

The fans, of course, were oblivious to this. They loved the video clip that comes 20 minutes into the show and started to sing along. I, however, wasn’t. Nor was Johnny Slippery Fingers. Johnny Slippery Fingers was doing the sort of thing that butter does if it’s left beside a central heating radiator that’s turned on full during a really sunny day. He pressed the button some more. The computer flipped out. It crashed. And a room full of 750 fans who’d been merrily singing along to a presentation they weren’t supposed to have seen for 20 minutes suddenly laughed as the computer closed down and flicked up a home screen picture of a la carte rabbit loin.

In my other life, I make food books. Pictures of food have the same cultural relevance to me as paintings by Alex Echo or Bridget Riley. And so, with good reason, my home screen happens to be a picture of a particularly attractive rabbit loin dish cooked by a Michelin-starred chef in Wales. And that’s exactly what flashed up on a giant screen for 750 people when Johnny Slippery Fingers wigged out and pressed the button so many times that the computer crashed. It’s funny what happens in the nanoseconds when you realise a disaster is unfolding. And, with rapier speed, I flew up a flight of stairs, dashed past Old Slippery Fingers, dived across the stage – like a professional roadie at a really big gig – and pressed the button that removed the rabbit loin and returned footage of the Rock Royalty to his rightful place. Ahh, saved.

My friend has a heart condition. I told her what happened.

“What happened to your heart?” she said.

“The same thing that happens to yours when you stop taking the pills.”

It was over in less than three seconds and normality resumed. Johnny Slippery Fingers strode purposefully on stage before welcoming the Rock God and his show. And now Johnny Slippery Fingers and I have reached an agreement. He’s been banned from ever pressing another button.