It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Well, for Cal Wilson in 1994, mainly it was the worst of times.
Casting her mind back almost two decades for the nostalgia comedy special The Year That Was, the 42-year-old Christchurch-raised comedian – based in Australia for the past 10 years – admits that 1994 wasn’t exactly full of her finest moments.
“It turned out to be a year of embarrassments for me,” she muses. “Lots of embarrassing stuff happened that year, which kind of fits in because I’m always screwing things up and falling over in public anyway.”
Speaking of falling over in public, one of the things that makes 1994 memorable for Wilson is that it was the year she rather embarrassingly broke her collarbone.
“The tram tracks had just been put in down in Christchurch and I got my bike tyre caught in the tracks, somersaulted over the handlebars and smashed my collarbone on the footpath,” she remembers. “But I did it in front of a cafe full of people, so I was really embarrassed and got back on my bike and rode away. Then I discovered about 30 seconds later that I was in quite a lot of pain and I fell off my bike again.”
Next stop on Wilson’s stumble down memory lane is the time she was pummelled with poultry by enraged chicken factory workers.
“That still stands out as the worst gig of my life. We were doing theatresports for corporate events and we got hired to do a chicken factory. They were ****** that we were getting in the way of their drinking time, so they just pelted us with chicken drumsticks until we left the building.”
As if assault by drumstick was not enough, 1994 holds at least one more mortifying memory for Wilson.
“There was another very embarrassing incident, one of the most embarrassing incidents of my life, which I won’t share, but I finish The Year That Was with it.
“Let’s just say it involves being surprised at a time you wouldn’t really like to be surprised.”
The Year That Was TV2 Tuesday
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