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Gutted to have to cancel RHLSTP tonight, but I think it was the right decision and I can at least take some comfort in the fact that we didn't lose the Palin interview to this madness. By the end of the day the Leicester Square theatre had made the decision to postpone all shows til mid-April, so that's the whole series gone. Hold on to your tickets for now. They will be valid if we can reschedule the dates and I will attempt to keep the same line-ups.
I am very much behind the showbiz adage of the show must go on and have had to cancel very few gigs in my career. I pulled one preview about 15 years ago when I had some kind of norovirus (but played countless other shows when ill or food poisoned or just badly hungover) and the storms of last year meant I had to reschedule two tour shows, so to lose so many shows (and sold out ones too) is a real blow. There's no news on the Birmingham Podcast Festival yet, but I can't see that one happening. We're making a decision on the O2 James Acaster gig tomorrow (it's a choice between postponing it or doing it with no live audience) and no news on Norwich yet.
I am though keen to keep the podcast stream going. Having been splurging two a week like people who think podcasts will never run out, we've still got about 10 in the bank. But I will do some non-audience ones via Skype or one to one to keep us going. With luck it will have blown over by the time we get to the Edinburgh Fringe (if not I am £7000 down on accommodation having paid in advance, but that's still not the worst Edinburgh I've ever had- actually it would be in the top half of successful ones), but as I said yesterday, with the help of Twitch we might come up with some good alternatives.
To be fair, although my Edinburgh landlord has got away with it, there is some sense of justice that most of the greedy money-grabbers might be left out of pocket this year.
I had started making notes for the Parapod podcast when the news came in. I am sure we will rearrange that one, in the unlikely event that Ian Boldsworth is strong enough to survive the virus. Is there anything sadder than RHLSTP notes that don't get used?
Wait, what? People have died from this? Oh shit, that's much worse than what I'm talking about.
It was probably good in some ways that the gig was cancelled. I was feeling a lot better today, but a hard night of work and driving might have been too much for me. And yes, in the grand scheme of things a few lost gigs and some lost pay cheques (the live gigs are how I pay myself, whilst all the other revenue goes into the podcast company) is not the worst thing that could happen.
This is now the only sports event going on in the world and I am hoping that will lead to a few billion listeners and viewers. It may have taken a deadly virus to make it work, but finally I will prove to my wife that I can make a living from self-playing snooker. I am like the Noah of sport.
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