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To Hereford Courtyard Theatre, which I last played in 2013, but which used to be a regular stop on my tours.
Back in 2006 I noted the perilous trip hazard on the way into the disabled toilet in the dressing room. I was pleased to see that this hazard had been addressed. There is now a tiny little ramp to prevent trippage. Also back in 2006, I went out and got spectacularly drunk with some of the staff and ended up in a nightclub (perhaps the last time I ever went to such a place). It was a lot of fun, from the little that I recall. That’s a rare thing to happen on tour. Usually the crew disappear off into the night. So that one stuck in my mind and I looked back fuzzily but fondly at the ridiculous man child I once was. I would have been 38 going on 39 at the time. What a loser/winner (delete as applicable - you should have deleted winner or you too are a loser).
As I started to think a little bit more about the 50 show, I had inevitably been looking backwards to where my life was when I was 40. I am glad to have escaped that madness, but from a distance some of the fun and temporary friendships give me a warm glow of nostalgia. Glad not to be there any more. But glad of the memories. Even the terrible ones.
The staff I drank with that night are no longer at the venue and I didn’t go out drinking afterwards tonight because I needed to get home to my family responsibilities. But they made me feel welcome and not just by repairing the trip hazard. On my dressing room mirror was a picture of Keith Allen, seemingly signed by the man himself. I wondered if it might be genuine. I had seen him in the street before Christmas and we gave each other a look that made me suspect that Allen might be aware of who I was. It would be nice if he took my ribbing in good spirit and I’d quite like to get him on the podcast if only to ask the question, “What would it take for you to suck your own cock?”
Maybe Allen had played the theatre, seen that I was on and thought he’d leave me a passive-aggressive message.
But then I saw that in the corner of the room there was an old fashioned wooden high-backed armchair with a semi-circular toilet mat underneath it and realised that I must have some podcast fans amongst the crew. And as always these little gestures from a venue do put you in a good mood.
I had been worried that this might be the first sub-100 audience, but actually there were nearer to 200 in tonight. So I will have to wait til Camberley or Radlett next week to break this impressive record (Sutton Coldfield had only 80 seats, but I sold over 100% of those so I am not counting that).
Now ticking down to the last 25 gigs of the tour. I am still enjoying the show and it whizzes by each night. We are always trying to keep costs down and so we try to make the potato and apple from the potarto routine last as long as possible. Tonight, to be fair, the apple was in danger of exploding into much in my pocket, or at least it was soft round the edge and a bit scarred. It might be almost a fortnight old. The potato is starting to sprout eyes and is going a bit green, which makes my point that an apple is green and a potato brown rather moot. Though as I used to say a rotten potato goes green whereas a rotten apple goes brown, so they are still the opposite of each other. To be fair I would have bought a new apple today had I remembered, but the old one looks OK under the lights. This is a fitting metaphor for show business.
