Days without alcohol - 41 - take that Jesu - lightweight.
I managed to get through the show without forgetting too much. Some of the stuff at the end was a bit shaky, but it was good enough and I think the small audience enjoyed it. As I told the story about the
Hot Dog T shirt I was about to say, "I was doing a gig at the Battersea Arts Centre," when I remembered that I was actually at the Battersea Arts Centre and so briefly discussed my stupidity at having nearly not realised this, as well as pointing out that I had been doing the big room on this occasion! I wondered to myself whether any of this audience had been at that other gig and would know that I was telling the truth. It was good to be back at the scene of the crime (I am looking forward to telling the fight story when I appear in Liverpool in June).
In a slightly bizarre coincidence, the tech guy came up to me after the show and said, "I have something to show you." He then began to take off his jumper and I wondered what was going on, but underneath he was wearing a T-shirt. Unbelievably it was an almost identical "Free hot dog" T shirt. It had the exact same lay out, but used a slightly different colour scheme and instead of saying "Bring your own buns", it said, "Bring your own baps." Some people think that buns means breasts, but buns are buttocks. Baps are breasts. So in this version of the T shirt the wearer is simply requesting tit wank rather than anal sex, making it a far more charming and almost romantic double entendre.
But really, what are the chances of that guy having that T-shirt and then happening to wear it on the night he was operating my show? He hadn't worn it on purpose and had not seen the show before. Nor had he purchased it from the same shop I had got mine from, just up the road. He had recently been home to his parents and picked up a load of old clothes and this was one of the items he'd picked up.
I have been a bit paranoid about losing one of these T-shirts or someone stealing one of them after a gig and have been idly looking for a back up, so it was doubly strange to see this one (though, of course it is no good to me because the wording is different and I'd have to change the whole routine).
Last year when I had been at the BAC they had been under threat of closure and there was a heaviness about the place and the staff seemed depressed and unconnected. I didn't even manage to sell out this tiny room, which I suspect was as much down to them not publicising it as anything else given that I had sold out the big venue two nights in a row with my previous show. This year, though, there was a brightness about everyone working there and big changes to the venue (the rest of which has been entirely taken over by Punchdrunk's "The Masque of the Red Death" which is meant to be brilliant. Afterwards the guy running the improvised bar in the corner of the room told me that everything was back on track and that the venue was safe now, the council giving them free rent on the site for (I think he said) the next 125 years.
I am very pleased about this. I have a lot of fond memories of the BAC, having rehearsed and previewed many of my early Edinburgh shows here. And now, at the level I am at, Arts Centres are a big part of any touring itinerary and I need as many of them to be saved as possible (two venues I was meant to be going to on tour closed down just after I was booked into them - hopefully the two things are not connected). So I am delighted that the BAC will be there for years to come. Please support your local arts centre!
