Written by: Robert White
Published: Friday 1st August 2014

With me at every gig, giving constant support, helping with writing, carrying props for me and even coming on stage with me, there is an ever present guiding comedy force that has sadly stayed long over-looked. So now, given this opportunity in writing, I would like to say a massive 'thank you', from the heart of my bottom, to my unspoken comedy partner, my friend and my equal, my Yamaha PSR-E303; or, if you want to be friendly and informal, you can just say my keyboard. (BTW, if you're not being friendly you can, in line with a number of mean non-musical stand-ups, just refer to it as an 'applause machine' - a derogatory title given to any musical instrument used in comedy, due to the nature of musical acts getting applause breaks after songs. As if it's the instrument creating the comedy magicness on its own. The jealous fools!)

My friendship with the piano started long before comedy, and long before my Yamaha PSR-E303 in fact, when, as a child, I taught myself to play on an old upright that was in the back room. Maybe I was able to pick it up so easily because of the way my mind works, having Asperger's, although I feel it's less to do with any 'special skill' and more to do with the lack of friends autism brings. Therefore, basically, I had a lot of time on my own to practice. Many a day I spent in my room, alone, pounding away, hands going at ten to the dozen, mumbling away to myself with intensity as I came to a climax.

So just like any other teenage boy, only with the addition of a piano. I played to help me through the tough lonely secondary school years; the piano helped me make friends at university and, even when I was in prison, one of the rare moments of relief was when a vicar took pity on me and let me play his organ after he'd given me a service - a phrase that should never be repeated in the voice of Julian Clary.

How comedy came into piano-playing started well before I did stand-up. As a kid, having dyslexia, I always found it easier to play by ear or make stuff up than read the dots, and as such I basically spent my childhood in my room composing all the time, and even extemporising improvised musical 'heckle put-downs' on my mum when she interrupted my practice to tell me to come to tea or do my homework. If I'd have known then what I know now from my experience in comedy clubs - that a number of well-positioned bouncers can dismiss any interruption - I could have just saved myself some time and got my mum taken away in a head-lock. Then again, I would have never developed any comedy act or been alive even, having been found one day dead at the piano after forgetting to eat... I loved playing that much!

So my keyboard now goes with me everywhere: it's been in the boots and on the seats of many other comics' cars, on trains, on planes, to cities all up and down the UK and into europe; it's even been as far afield as the Indian Ocean to play for a prince on a tropical island. It travels by rickshaw across Central London when I'm rushing between gigs on weekend evenings and it even allows me to take peoples' seats on the Tube - well that's what I tell tourists, anyhow. It's been with me on stages no bigger than an upturned shoe-box, it's been with me on boats that wobble and it's been forever lugged on my back day in day out, saving me a ton on gym membership, although in a fitness routine that is about 110% more shoulder-based than is usual. Even if a venue already has a keyboard or piano, my Yamaha PSR-E303 still goes, as nothing is as good as it for me.

Of course life with my keyboard has not been without incident. It's broken half way through performance a couple of times, leaving me to mime playing as no sound comes out. Surprisingly, the audience went along with this, thinking it a deliberate part of the act on both occasions. One major bugbear is that other acts seem to see it on stage and are, for some inexplicable reason, constantly mistaking it for a table! WTF? Placing on it papers, books, clothes and, on a few occasions, even trying to have it take their body weight. Worst of all, and more often than I'd care to rememeber, other comics rest their drinks on it! Which is basically balancing fluids precariously only inches away from electronic parts that get irreversibly ruined, at great expense, when even the tiniest droplet comes into contact with them. "Does it look like a table?" I say; "No, of course it doesn't." "So don't use it as a table then!" This is something I point out when the offending act finds me using their best jumper as a flannel.

Additionally, whilst most sound people and promoters are technology-smart, there have been a few screw-ups. When I turned up to one gig and politely asked for what was needed, I was talked over, abruptly cut-off and told quite arrogantly "I've been doing this for 17 years, I think I know what I'm doing". So, as if written in a sitcom, instantly flash forward an hour and the keyboard sound didn't work. I've done gigs with no mic stand, leaving me trying to work out which of my three hands I should use to hold the mic whilst the other two play the keys. I spent 15 minutes once, of a 20 minute set, shouting, pleading and begging with the soundman that the sound wasn't working, from the stage, as the sound man and the room erupted into fits of laughter thinking that this complaining itself was the entirety of my act. I've had a stage manager tape my keyboard-stand to the floor with thick gaffer tape, at the back of the stage, so when it gets to the point, mid act, where I have to move it, I can't, then I fell over, off the stage and ripped my favorite tank-top. (I have 155 tank-tops, BTW.) I've even had my keyboard be the only thing left working as the power cut mid-show, because it's battery operated. And, as I stood with me and the audience in utter blackness, all I can say is it is very lucky that, thanks to my ability to play by ear, I can summon up almost anything on cue and, as such, in this case, breaking the shocked silence with an instrumental rendition of "Hello darkness my old friend" came in quite handy.

All in all though, my Yamaha PSR-E303 - other quality models of keyboard are available on the market - has been with me at many more positive times than negative. It is integral to a many jokes, I can stick my set list on it, I can hang props from it and I've even screwed a plastic platform to it, upon which I can mount a suction-padded dildo. For comedy purposes only I must point out, nothing more sinister. It is the perfect comedy keyboard, such that I have 6 of this exact same model (now discontinued) in different states of repair, hoarding like the freakiest Bargain Hunt fanatic.

So that's my keyboard thanked now. Thank you my Yamaha PSR-E303; thank you for the music and here's to you, once and for all now given the praise that's due and respect that's deserved. I couldn't do it without you. Even though I did once ... but you know what I mean.

Robert White performs 'The Curious Incident of the Gag and the Gun-Crime... Plus More Stuff!' at Heroes @ The Hive from 31st July to 24th August (not 11, 18) at 5:30pm. It's a Pay What You Want show. Listing