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I hadn't been looking forward to today. I had to drive to Sheffield for a gig (which is not in itself a problem) but then drive straight home again so I could be back in time for some filming tomorrow. There didn't seem to be anyone I knew available to take on tour manager duties and I was fearful that my lurgy wouldn't help.
But luckily I was just about well enough to take this on. Just about.
Usually Sheffield is one of my banker towns, but a few things combined to mean I had about half the audience I usually get - firstly I had been in this venue relatively recently as unusually I hadn't done the October Comedy Festival as usual last time and instead come here in February, secondly there had been some confusion about whether the gig was happening and the venue hadn't listed it until quite late on and thirdly I was up against Brian Cox in the main hall. I think there is a bit of crossover in our fan base, though him losing 50 punters to me would not hurt as much as me losing 50 to him.
I think I got about 150 in in the end, which isn't terrible and hopefully won't prove indicative of anything - I can't work out if a Best of show will be given a miss by regular attendees or whether it will encourage more newbies to take a chance on me.
The journey up was made more exciting by the news of the Thugs in Suits party having some literal in fighting and the possible brain damage or death of their prospective new leader in a fist-fight or altercation or whatever the Hell happened. It's another terrible sign of the way we're slipping and who we're voting to represent us. I thought the puncher might find himself staying in Europe after all, when he was sent to prison, but the crisis seemed to dissipate over the course of my drive and the failed Kipper was out of danger. Which was good. Mainly because without serious injury it was OK to laugh about this shitshower of idiots self-combusting.
But it's probably too late to make any difference. It seems Brexit has become about lists of foreign workers and British jobs for British people. When the Leave vote came in there was a lot of hoo haa about not assuming this meant 52% of people were racist or anti-immigrant and that there were a lot of reasons to vote for Brexit. And yet now it seems to be settling in to a broad interpretation of the result as being a mandate to clamp down on immigration I don't see any of the 52% clamouring to shout out that that wasn't what they voted for. But they must be furious. Silently furious.
Giles, my regular tour manager, is touring with Brian Cox, so I got to see him and Robin Ince before my show. I was weary and still trying to work out what bits to include in the 90 minutes.
The show went really well. In Cheltenham the first half had come in much shorter than I expected and I'd had to bump some of the second half stuff up and then quickly think about what to add in. But tonight the 45 minutes was somehow not enough time to do the stuff I had planned and I had to drop loads of bits from the second half. And I managed to start developing a mini-theme of what best means. Ironically there might be a whole new show in that concept, but tonight we had to make do with a couple of new jokes. I'd like to make the show have a bit more of a running narrative, but I also am enjoying that fact that it's basically just a load of my funniest stuff stuck together. The first half is quite crude and the second half more thoughtful. I hope the tour proper next year will do a bit better with sales than these two festival gigs. As nice as it is to hit the kickstarter targets, the tour is where I earn the money that allows me to do all that other work for free.
The drive home was livened up with some good interviews on the radio and on podcast. As usual Adam Buxton had got a guest that I'd really like to have, Michaela Cole and she was very open. I hope they both went to a sex club afterwards. Mainly because the idea of Adam Buxton at a sex club is very funny to imagine.
Somehow I managed the three hour drive back without incident or falling asleep. To think 10 or so years ago I was doing this kind of drive all the time.
The RHLSTP extra with Mark Addy is now up here.
I think it's a really good one. Mark very honest and funny. Good Yorkshireman.
