The first two pints of my order arrived in front of me. I picked them up and made my way back to the table. I asked Ian if he could give me a hand with the rest of the drinks and thankfully he obliged. The girls had peeled off and sat at their own table by the time I arrived back at the bar.

After a couple of stand-up comics had presented their wares to the audience, the compère announced the next act and onto the stage walked the Victoria Beckham lass.

‘Hi, my name’s Anne Campbell. Why are you all looking at me? Do you fancy me or are you just wondering if I’m any good at doing the hoovering?’

This was met with total silence. My supervisor, Ian Pepper, was the only person to laugh.

‘Ha ha ha. That’s VERY, VERY FUNNY!’ he bellowed, and it was impossible to tell whether this was genuine or pure sarcasm.

She continued but I could tell her confidence had taken a hit.

‘So, err… yeah. I caught a fish the other day and when I cut it open it had a “Best of Mozart” cassette in its belly. It was hooked on classics.’

Silence. This time it was broken by a member of the audience (Ian wasn’t listening anymore):

‘Tell us a joke, we know you want to.’

Some of the audience laughed. They clearly weren’t on her side. I could sense a shaking in her constitution. She took the microphone off its stand and it instantly caused a shriek of feedback through the speakers. A bloke on a front table waded in:

‘Here’s some more feedback, love: fuck off!’

That line sealed her fate; there was no recovery route that her material could navigate a safe path through. The compère came back on the stage to save her. I felt sorry for her and guilty for the part my colleague had played in her ridicule. I could only partially convince myself she had deserved it due to her earlier behaviour at the bar.

At the end of the night my little work group were completely pissed and mostly talking about their memories of tinned foods and frozen ready meals. Only a few other punters remained. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed Victoria Beckham sat alone consoling herself with a blue-tinged fizzy drink. I grabbed a full bottle of beer off our table and walked over to her.

‘Hey, here’s that drink you wanted me to get you.’

‘What? Oh yeah. Thanks, but I’m on the blue drink.’

‘I saw you on stage earlier. I thought you did well to stand up to everyone.’

‘I’m usually a lot better than that. It’s just that some fucker heckled me right at the start and I’m always thrown by an early punch.’

‘Yeah, I heard him. What a bastard.’