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It seems that I was not the only one confused about who I was lining up to run with yesterday. Holy Moly also set this little celebrity teaser. Though to be fair, it’s not like all these people barged to the front and demanded to be in the picture. They were all invited by the organisers of the race or their appointed charities. But none of the proper celebrities would want to put the effort in to run that far. They have people to do that for them now.
I didn’t feel too bad this morning, though as usual it was a little tough coming downstairs, my leg muscles screaming out and having to take a step at a time, but it wasn’t as much of a window into the life of a geriatric as usual and I felt fit enough to do some more podcasts tonight at the Leicester Square Theatre. I worried that I might flake out but I actually had way more energy than last week and these turned out to be two of my favourite podcasts of the whole run.
I had come through the rain in my suit and posh shoes and annoyingly rainwater had got through the leather soles and my socks were damp. I tried to hang them up to dry but to no avail. Steve Coogan was my 50th Leicester Square guest (or maybe 53rd if you count the double acts) and just before he arrived I remembered that the theatre had a spin dryer, so I took my socks and put them in, just as Steve arrived via the back entrance. I was standing there in a suit and bare feet looking like I’d been caught doing something embarrassing. It was awkward. I told him he could use this idea for an Alan Partridge skit. Luckily he understood that I was joking. Also because I invented Alan Partridge he knew he owed me big time. And I didn’t mind anyway because in the end I got to wear toastie hot socks rather than damp ones. So I was the winner here.
It was lovely to see Steve again properly, as my massive podcast success over the last few years has meant we move in slightly different spheres nowadays. We worked on On The Hour and the dum show in the early 90s but have only bumped into each other a few times since then. He seemed very happy and relaxed and told me how to stop my leather soles leaking again (applying some shoe polish to them is apparently the key). The chat was a nice balance of me claiming I invented Alan Partridge and asking for £250,000, autobiography and silliness and despite my worries that I might do a Merchant, we got through it more or less unscathed.
Steve went off to take his celebrity ghost train to Brighton and I then chatted to Sara Pascoe. She is in blisteringly hot comedic form at the moment and on the verge of huge success and she was brilliant on the podcast, running with ideas, passing the ball, not afraid to voice her opinions or pick the character of Richard Herring up on the more moronic things that he says. She also gave an amazing answer to the asparagus wee question in the exclusive backstage bit for monthly subscribers. Sadly we later discovered that one of the cameras had malfunctioned so we may have lost all the backstage footage and the close ups on the guests during the video podcasts (they might still be salvageable), but we’ve still got the audio for everything (except maybe the backstage bits) and the other camera angles. So there will be something to see.
Once again it feels very exciting that there’s a new generation of comedians coming through who look set to wrestle power from the boring old guard (even though I am in the latter camp, I welcome this). Sara this week and James Acaster last week are prime examples of the smart and funny, newer generation. But it was great to showcase the (relatively) new alongside a man who is probably the prime comic genius of my generation. That’s when RHLSTP is at its best and it’s always worth coming along and seeing it live in case the bumbling buffoons from gofasterstripe fuck everything up (it was in no way their fault, but it’s still fun to blame them).
Whatever has survived will be up in a few weeks time.
