I've started writing some of my ideas down but am not necessarily sure what to do with them.
I came up with the following the other night - I wonder if people would be so kind as to cast their eye over it, see what you think? Surprisingly enough it was after a day out to the zoo...!
It's the first thing I've ever exposed publicly, so be gentle with me!
I also wonder what people think I could do with it? Is it the beginnings of a stand up set, would it work better as a sketch, or does it just not work? If you haven't recently endured several (not just one, several!) trips to half empty zoos, can you still relate to it?
It's written as a stand up but I'm obviously open to suggestion on that.
Will be interested to hear (read?) your thoughts?
I've discovered this huge new scam. You know when you were a kid, and you went to the zoo - there was lions and tigers and stuff? Well, not anymore.
The new money making scam in those circles is zoos with no animals. Try it yourself, you'll find out it's true, I'm not joking....went to my local zoo last week, actually tell a lie, it wasn't a zoo, it was a "wildlife park"...... the difference will become apparent in a bit.
So anyway, went to this zoo, they lure you in with promises of all these exotic animals, there's me, my other half and our littlun, so that's £30 just to get in the door. But then they've got you in the door, so it's worked.
So you go to the first cage, the one by the entrance.
It's inevitably a small tank of some description. And it's empty. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's got stuff in it, but nothing actually alive. No matter how hard you look at it, it is basically a glass box full of twigs.
So you check the sign "lesser spotted lizard" - you look again - lesser spotted is right, never spotted more like. So you read the sign again "This exhibit is temporarily closed." In other words, "This tank is empty - stop looking in it, you idiot."
So you try the next one - "tiny tree mouse". And you're searching - "Oh, is that it? No, it's a leaf. Keep looking kids." "What does the sign say? "These mice are absolutely miniscule, hardly visible to the human eye. Oh, and they hide behind stuff if you look at them. But by all means spend the next half hour listening to your bored child whinging and waiting to see if you can catch one out. "
You move on to the next one - some small cat or other. And you're looking for it, and you look in every corner of the cage, up on the wooden shelf thing they have, right at the back, you move round to the side to check it's not hiding, your other half is looking, the kids are looking - it's blatantly obvious this thing isn't there.
Then you look at the sign - and notice another one stuck on top of the proper sign, printed on paper, and a bit rain soaked "This cat is currently undergoing a breeding programme at the University of...... I don't know, let's say Borneo."
And you start to think to yourself, hang on a minute..... something's not right here.... For starters, that sign seems a bit odd, is there even a University of Borneo? And if so, how the hell did they find out about your bloody cat? What's wrong with using their own cats anyway?"
But you can't make a fuss cos it's for the kids, so you accept it and move on....
Now, I said earlier, that there's a difference between a zoo and a wildlife park? The main difference is this - zoos have proper exotic animals in them, like tigers and penguins and that. Wildlife parks have squirrels. And seagulls. And in this particular wildlife park, the next exhibit we got to was....badgers.
And surprise, surprise, they were nowhere to be seen. Now, this did surprise me because we all know what sociable animals badgers usually are. You see them everywhere, walking down the street, chatting to people. You can't move in my local Tescos cos of the badgers blocking the biscuit aisle. But on this occasion, they'd disappeared.
The reason - according to the sign, "badgers are generally nocturnal". In other words, you mug, they come out AT NIGHT. When we are shut and you AREN'T HERE."
So by this point, I was beginning to get a little bit hacked off - and decided we should go to the big animals, the ones they can't actually hide. And, to give them their due, they did have some.
They had a sheep. One sheep. Not unlike all the other sheep you might see in your average sheep field on a Sunday afternoon drive in the country. The ones you can see for free.
But by this time the littlun was desperate to see something that moves, so we were encouraging her, saying "Look, sheep, sheepy sheep" - I should explain at this point, she's only one, it's not like we're the most patronising parents on earth or anything, she's not this 20 year-old neuroscientist looking at me with pity saying "Yes, mother whatever".....anyway, so back to the sheep.
We're waving at him, and he looks up with a bored expression, as if to say "get me out of this place - I was promised tigers and all I've ever seen is a bloody squirrel."
Apparently, this was a particularly rare sheep, native to the British Isles. In other words, they bought it down the road.
Not sure what makes it rare, but the fact they only had one suggests they weren't planning to rectify that any time soon.
By this time, it's raining - which is great, because zoo animals hate the rain. Even the ones that live in the rainforest, apparently don't like getting wet.
The British sheep, who must have had his fair share of rain, by virtue of the fact he's British and a sheep, ups and leaves to sit in his shed.
And we decide to leave too - rush round the last few cages - there's a pig, asleep. Or probably stuffed, to be honest, because that's how they get around the animals that are too big to pretend they're hiding behind a leaf. They put a stuffed one in, near the back, so you can just make it out, and make a note on the sign about it being a very docile animal.
By this time, littlun is upset that she hasn't seen any animals (except the sheep, he doesn't count). So we head off to the gift shop and buy her a cuddly version of whatever animal she would have liked the most had they had any in the first place. Another £20.
On the way out, they've got a notice board saying "Donations always welcome". So I put in an empty envelope with a note saying "This tenner only comes out at night, except when it's dark, and doesn't like the rain, the sun or Great Britain. Please spend it wisely."
So I've decided to beat them at their own game - and set up an invisible zoo - £20 to get in but all the animals will be there, you just have to find them. But I like you guys, so you can come in for free! Who's with me?
