Keara Patricia Murphy: Flypaper For Freaks

Bill Hicks said, "It’s hard to have a relationship in this business. It’s gonna take a very special woman. Or a bunch of average ones.” But what of a woman on the road? Well, when asked if I am seeing anyone ‘special’, I like to say, “Nope, just a bunch of un-special ones.”

The truth is it takes a very special person to understand that being a comedian is not a job; it’s a lifestyle. And they must also put up with it. I was with a very special man who put up with me for seven years. I had a great teaching job at a prestigious girl’s school and a lovely life filled with exotic travel and astonishing crockery.  

But I gave it all up to pursue my vocation as a clown.  For the road beyond that cosseted world is a rocky one that I had to take alone. Trundling down motorways in hurricanes named after the scrotum, sleeping drunk on gunk-stained couches and vying for the validation of strangers nightly is a maverick’s quest. 

Nevertheless, the human need for companionship even extends to comics.  So, in an attempt to have some fun with the un-fairer sex, I stumbled into some bad romances.  Here are a few…

Keara on stage in the Take The Mic competition

The Comedian: I fell for his stage character without listening to his weak material and then fell drunkenly into him in a late night bar during the Fringe. Our communication was largely electronic except when he needed somewhere to crash; I was his girl in Edinburgh.  Unfortunately, he also had a girl in Leicester, one in Newcastle, one in Melbourne and two in Sydney. Some say he also had a boy in Bognor, but I think that’s just a nasty rumour that I started.

The Television Celebrity: Let’s just say that Krusty the Clown is drawn from a very real character. 

The Dotcom Wizkid: When you meet a man at the global event Twestival and discover he is a bit of an internet sensation, it's something of a shock when he dumps you by snail mail.  He might well have also considered dumping me by carrier pigeon or sending the village idiot with a gun.  He did, however, send me the Stewart Lee book How I Escaped My Certain Fate.  A cruel irony is that I cannot now read that book for every time I try to pick it up it feels like I have landed the consolation prize on Bullseye and reminds me of what I could have won.  

The Incontinent: A very nice young man came back to mine one night to listen to some music, drink some wine and piss on my couch. Yes, it does end there!

The Man Between Contracts: Yes, this is a euphemism for on the broo. He pretended he was a big shot but when we went to pay the bill on our second date, he pulled out his giro.  So, I paid the bill as he threw in a few coppers and a penny toffee. As we were leaving, he asked me for a pound for the bus. So I gave him the pound, along with a map of Princes Street and surrounding district marking the best begging spots in Edinburgh with an X.

The Open Relationship: I was offered one of these. I laughed and said, “Is that not just permission to cheat?” And he said, “Well, yeah, it’ll be great!” 

So, until another ‘someone special’ arrives in my life, it is my certain fate to continue along this road less travelled fielding out the freaks.