Robin Williams’ ambitious plan to impress David Bowie: “I told him I’d do an hour”
In our lives, we’ve all done something to impress someone we admired/fancied/needed to borrow 20 quid from (delete as applicable). For actors and musicians, though, it can be pretty tough to give a fellow megastar a giddy little thrill.
After all, these people have already tasted the decadent delights of fame and fortune, and they spend their days surrounded by hangers-on dedicated to obeying their every whim. In essence, it’s a bit of a “What do you get the person who has everything?” kind of situation.
All this is to say, legendary Hollywood funnyman Robin Williams had his work cut out for him when he was entertaining the equally iconic David Bowie in the early 1980s. One night, as he and the art rock pioneer were painting the town red in London’s famous party district Soho, it’s easy to imagine Williams pondering how he could excite the man they once called ‘Ziggy Stardust’.
At that point, Bowie’s stardom had risen again after a slump in the ‘70s, and he began the ‘80s with two number one singles, ‘Ashes to Ashes’ and ‘Under Pressure’. To his fellow Londoners, seeing him strolling through Soho would have been like seeing God pay a visit, and it would have been made all the better because of the demented, excessively hairy company he was keeping. You see, in this period, Williams was a stand-up comedy superstar, had his own hit sitcom in Mork & Mindy, and was dipping his toes into movies.
Having said that, it’s undeniable that Bowie’s fame would have eclipsed Williams’ then, especially in his hometown. Therefore, the Popeye star had to make an impression, and there was likely only so much cocaine and champagne he and Bowie could consume in one evening before it started to get a bit boring, or things went irretrievably off the rails. Thankfully, Williams had a brainwave, and he convinced Bowie they needed to duck into the Raymond Revuebar, a bustling nightspot in the city.
On October 7th, 1980, that venue, owned by strip club and pornography kingpin Paul Raymond, began running a stand-up comedy night called The Comic Strip. It was a home for the scuzzy, vibrant alternative comedy talents of the day, and the likes of Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, and Keith Allen all plied their weird and wonderful trade there. It only lasted for a year before the group embarked on a national tour, and before long, their act came to TV in the form of The Comic Strip Presents.
Still, within the year-long window of opportunity that The Comic Strip operated in the Raymond Revuebar, its popularity spread like wildfire, so much so that celebs like Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, and Bianca Jagger came through the doors to see what all the fuss was about. On this particular evening, though, Williams didn’t just have visions of taking Bowie to see the show. Instead, he wanted to be the show.
So, when he met with performer and compere Alexei Sayle, he said he wanted to perform stand-up for Bowie’s delectation. Naturally, because he’d shown up unannounced, there was no space for him to do a full show, but Sayle came up with a compromise: a 15-minute spot squeezed between two other performers. That way, The Comic Strip could boast that hotshot US comedian Robin Williams had played their club, and the comedian could enter Bowie’s roster of people who’d impressed him, while Sayle wouldn’t have to let any of the regulars down.
To his surprise, though, the bleary-eyed Williams didn’t go for it. “I told Bowie I’d do an hour,” he supposedly grumbled. Then, when Sayles stonewalled him again by saying, “You can’t”, Williams made his most elaborate play yet to impress the songster, who probably didn’t know what to make of the entire toe-curling scene.
“I’ll buy the club!” Williams exclaimed, perhaps thinking Sayle was the proprietor of the establishment, and not a comic trying desperately to defuse a potential situation. “We don’t own it,” Sayles said, drawing a line under the matter once and for all. “It belongs to a bouffant-haired pornographer”. Cue Williams sloping off into the night, Bowie resolutely unimpressed.
