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One of the reasons that I did a second leg to the Can I Have My Ball Back? tour (apart from my belief that everything should come in pairs) is that I hadn't got to play Liverpool with the show. I love playing here, even though there have been a few weird incidents, mainly after the shows. It struck me that
the infamous fight with the University lecturer where I received a kick to my balls, may have been one of the catalysts that led to the testicular cancer.
I was so keen to do Liverpool that I even agreed to do it in the school holidays (the only other date that the venue was available was the day before my trip to Dublin and the logistics of travel made that too complicated). This meant doing Liverpool as a one off gig, which is something I'd usually try to avoid. It's a long drive and even when I'm being driven by someone else, that's not the best prep for a gig. Now I am 57 anyway. Ideally you can do three or four gigs in a row, each not too far from either, the last one on the way home. It rarely comes out that way, of course.
As a glance at my tour schedule should confirm.I thought I'd shaken off the lurgy that I've had for the last couple of weeks, but I was snotty and tired and there were quite a few hold ups and the journey took five hours. We also had to stop twice because I really needed a wee. Again one of the occasional issues with being an older touring comedian, but it was particularly intense today, maybe due to being ill or maybe somehow being stuck in traffic jams intensifies the desire to urinate. Someone should do a scientific study about this. Knowing you might not be able to wee for ages makes the need to all the more desperate.
We'd set out very early so we were nowhere being late, but I wasn't well thought about having a nap in the hotel, but that's a risky decision which is as likely to make you feel worse as it is to make you better.
So it was a little bit of a struggle to do the show tonight, but 300 lovely Liverpudlians lifted my spirits and got me through it, with just a couple of minor mistakes. The show goes on. Have I ever missed one due to illness? Maybe one preview in a tiny club back in the noughties and I was all for doing that one until my girlfriend at the time told me I was insane. I was barely able to get out of bed, but had still not considered cancelling as an option.
I once did a Lee and Herring gig - I think the Rude for a Reason one which went out on video - where I had food poisoning so bad that I was lying in the wings right up to the point I had to go on and then did our 10 and then lay down in the wings on exit. For ten minutes I'd been more or less fine.
Tonight was nowhere near that. I had a bit of brain fuzziness, but not much more than you get from just not having done the show for a fortnight (I just had to trust the right words would come out as if I thought about what was coming I would go into a panic of having no idea) and was mildly snotty. I don't think the audience noticed until Right Bollock started taking the piss out of me for being ill.
His bit of the show is improving all the time. He now managed to elicit quite a big sympathetic aaaah when I tell him I'm glad I got rid of him, which is impressive for a cancerous tumour.
There was the possibility of going for a drink with Gordon Kennedy from off of Relativity who was performing at the Royal Court, but I made the sensible decision to go and try and sleep. Doctor Theatre doesn't work in bars, even theatre ones and I would have been lacklustre company.
