[Reader Warning: Gently sacrilegious-themed silliness ahead]

The Angel Gabriel’s doing stand-up.

Got a spot at The Greasy Cat, amateur hour on Sunday evenings.

But his delivery’s wooden and his material’s way dated: the step-ladder and the banana joke; a priest, a rabbi and a secularist walk into a bar; the Holy Trinity arguing over the last parachute as the plane’s going down.

He’s getting nothing from the crowd. Not a peep.

(Of course the club’s been shut for weeks now: shows are live-streamed on zoom or some such. But he can’t see it. Can’t see anything past the spotlight – not the rows of stacked chairs, the vacant bar or the camera that tracks him round the tiny stage.)

Five minutes in and he’s really sweating, thinking of opening his great wings calling down Glory on these humourless ingrates.

‘Not even close!’ he thunders, as he storms off.

You could barely hear the chorus of Amens from the screens up the back, sounding one after another like a tide on time delay.

Image: (those were the days), Imtech Arena Hamburg, Germany c/- unsplash  – A bit of silliness for Tuesday.

8.4.2020

Back then I can remember nearly wetting my pants at Billy Connolly’s Three Men from Carntyne. Hope you enjoy it.