Gentleman juggler Mat Ricardo writes, “Last week I got booked to travel to China and appear on their big world records TV show to pull the biggest tablecloth ever. Here’s how none of that happened and I ended up literally fleeing to the airport.”
Finally, at 6.45, literally fifteen minutes before the show is supposed to start filming, with a studio audience already filling the huge hangar downstairs, I get granted a meeting. I ask what about the big tablecloth trick. They immediately start shouting. What big tablecloth trick? There was never a big tablecloth trick agreed. You knew you weren’t doing a big tablecloth trick. Why would you lie about this? The producer fixed me with a hard stare and told me that if I backed out of the show, they would cancel my return ticket, kick me out of the hotel, and “Your visa, perhaps not so good now”.
Whoa.
More shouting. In my face. Through translators. Midway through the yelling, I call my agent back in England. My wonderful, beautiful, alluring and fragrant agent., who, let’s remember, didn’t get me into this, but damn well got me out. I passed the phone to the producer who yelled down it for a couple of minutes and then passed it back. “Right. We’ll take care of you and get you back home tonight. Get yourself out of there”, said the best agent in the world.
While I was still being yelled at by a room full of producers and translators, I calmly got up, and walked out, smiling sweetly. I think they thought I’d caved, that I was going to get ready for the show. They were wrong. I think they assumed that I’d feel pressured to just do the show on their terms, since by that point, the thing had already started filming. They misunderstood my ability to be a dick, when correctly inspired.
I went back to the dressing room, told the other performers, who I think were quite enjoying watching my story play out, what was going on. Packed my stuff, hugged them goodbye, and walked across the studio, and for the first and only time in my career, I walked out on a gig.
Out into an industrial estate on the outskirts of Beijing, on a freezing cold evening. The middle of nowhere. Shit.
And the world record for worst gig ever goes to…
[Mat Ricardo]