This will be the last tour I do without a tour manager or at least a driver. Whilst the young Richard Herring of 2005 managed to bomb up and down the highways of the UK at the start of his resurgent solo stand up career, the one of 2012 can scarcely cope with it now. I was on the road for over six hours today and the journey home was a difficult one, through a snow storm for the second time in a week. The radio news kept telling me that in Cumbria there were over 100 car crashes today. I already had a headache and was exhausted and the concentration required to get home was nearly too much for me. I considered driving off a cliff and putting an end to all this.
I don't ever remember the drives feeling this tough, though my fiancee insists I felt just as tired two years ago and that I've just wiped it from my mind. I am enjoying the daytime drives, but the night time ones just feel like they will never end. Or immediately end. Along with my life.
But it was still an enjoyable day. I had stayed overnight in Brighton to avoid the drive home (again I'd got it arse over tit - I should have come home last night and stayed in Bath) and after breakfast managed an enjoyable 45 minute run along the beach front to Hove. I was listening to my Dickens biog audio book as I went. I don't know if I could have been any more middle class or middle aged. But I felt happy and energetic and smiled as I ran past some messages chalked on the pavement, presumably by some happy youngsters, saying "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and "Keep Smiling". Transient messages, presumably written the night before by teenagers a little giddy with alcohol. But guileless and charming and effective.
I wondered if I might get called a prick by one of the staff at tonight's gig at the Bath Komedia, but they turned out to be some of the loveliest and most helpful people I've encountered yet. So much so that I was again suspicious that they were deliberately being this nice in order to avoid a bad write up on the blog, but if they were horrible people faking niceness for the whole evening then that in a way is even more impressive. I didn't give them any reason to call me a prick either, which probably helped, but when the staff are upbeat and joking around then it really puts a performer in a good mood for the show. And I also got an excellent meal provided. The food at the Bath Komedia is top notch. I had the pork bellies and aside from the
amazing lamb dish I once had at the Glasgow Tron, this was the most impressive meal I've ever had as part of my rider. It also put me in mind of the Australian waitress who had innocently referred to me as
Mr Pork Bellies. Ah 2003, a good year for food.
Aside from a very drunk woman throwing in unfunny and tangential heckles (one about the rock at Blackpool being hard, which was apropos of nothing as far as I could see) it was an enjoyable gig in quite a tricky venue for comedy (with its high ceiling). Luckily she was so drunk that she fell asleep through the second half.
Thirty gigs down, forty-one to go. Not that I am counting.
