Predictably someone managed to video at least some of my appearance at Stewart Lee's Silver Stubilee last week and it
has shown up on Youtube. It's pretty good quality too, though alas misses all the preamble and is titled "Richard Herring is a jealous prick" which might be someone joining in with the joke, or possibly someone else believing that I was really angry and bitter and had stormed the stage without Stew's knowledge. Surely no one could think that after seeing the way Lee is laughing as I hit him in the face with his own pretentious book flaps? I wonder if anyone else managed to capture more of the invasion and the heckling before. I only regret that I didn't do more, but it came out pretty well given we had no plan.
I managed to sleep in a little bit this morning (I keep waking up at 8, but managed to snooze on til nearly 11 today) and then walked up the hill with Andrew (who had now finished secret dancing and was less than 24 hours away from leaving the city) to record our final podcast of Edinburgh 2010.
It turned out to be a slightly crotchety affair. Perhaps Andrew was upset with me for mocking his home-sickness or implying he lived with his mum or maybe the slight reticence of the audience put us both on edge. It was not a classic by any means, but there's something quite interesting about the ones where we get niggled and maybe one of us takes things too personally. It's a fine balance to get this right and I have enjoyed both succeeding and failing over the last fortnight. I hope they have been fun to listen to. We got into our stride just as it was ending, but alas we didn't do enough to be carried out of the venue on the shoulders of our audience and hailed as true heroes of the Fringe.
Have a listen here.
On the way home I felt tired and a bit grumpy and like most comedians at this point of the Fringe I decided I needed a little pick me up to keep me going. And what better than a bit of the old sherbet? You know, some of the old mouth cocaine.
Here it is.
I was disappointed to discover that Bassett's had changed their pack design, probably due to Health and Safety gone insane by trying to prevent children from dying from diseases, from the familiar cardboard tube with a stick of liquorice sticking out the top to a plastic container with a lid that needed to be screwed off to reveal the stick. Gone was the fun of peeling down the soggy cardboard to get your tongue or wet finger into the sweet sherbet that you had totally failed to suck up with the useless piece of liquorice after it inevitably became immediately clogged with your spit. In fact it was pretty hard to get any of the sherbet out at all and I spilled some of it on the dining room table. I hoped that the flat would get busted by the police at this exact moment and they would assume that this wasn't "mouth cocaine" but in fact "nose sherbet" and we would all get arrested, before an embarrassing climb down (for everyone concerned) when the substance turned to be something that a 43 year old man should really not have on his person, unless he was trying to entice children into his house. And if any modern day child was tempted by this plastic wrapped and disappointing candy then they deserved everything they got.
But the sherbet around my face would prove that I wasn't a paedophile, just a very, very sad middle-aged man who had let all the other comedians down by not being found with proper drugs. Even paedophiles would look down on me.
The sherbet was disappointing to me and unpleasant and didn't pep me up at all. I wasted the rest of the evening, before walking up to the Assembly Rooms for a Sunday night show that I was expecting to be pretty empty. I had heard earlier that I had only sold 80 tickets, which was much less than I had hoped for.
I have been wearing a suit most days in Edinburgh, just for a change of pace and to try to act my age (when I am not sucking up sherbet) and most days I get to the changing room and change out of the dark blue suit I have worn all day into the black one that is my show suit. It's good to have a show costume and to go through this routine, just to cement in my mind that we are entering show time. Today I couldn't be bothered to change though and risked bad luck and an unprepared mind by just going on in what I had been wearing (except changing my trainers - with a suit? I know I am like Dr Who - for sandals). It made no difference to my performance. Proving all showbiz superstitions and mantras are pointless wastes of time.
When the lights came up on the audience for me to ask them who believed in Jesus I was pleased to see that the room was about two thirds full. It's possible that other acts had come in with passes, but there were certainly more than 200 people in the room, which was a big relief. The third week is generally looking quiet for all but the most written about shows and the biggest TV stars. The third week - once the biggest of the Fringe - has now become a bit of a damp squib, with everyone coming up now for this second main weekend. If you want a chance to see pretty much all that Edinburgh has to offer without having to book ahead, then make your way here now.
The acts may be tired, but they should at least have ironed out any problems with their shows by now and you will be able to walk around the town in much more comfort without having to push your way through crowds of idiots.
Most performers are now wishing that the whole thing would be over quickly. We've done lots of performances and the reviewers have decided which are the hit shows and which are the shit shows and whichever you have you have a hankering to move on to pastures new or just to your own bed.
Much as I'd like to go home too I am looking forward to a relatively relaxed week where I only have one show a day to do and having eschewed the social side of the Fringe almost completely I am still generally fresh and energetic enough to give a strong performance.
I had thought I might go out for a celebratory herbal tea with Andrew Collings, but he had tired himself out and had an article to write, so we just stayed in the flat drinking tea and half-watching Star Stories and the Xtra Factor. Two middle aged men, only one of whom had been honest enough to admit he missed his home. And as a reward he was going to get to go there in the morning.
Andrew has had a very successful Fringe and can be very pleased with all he has achieved and the fact that he has performed to packed rooms in every single main performance he has done. I hope he will come back and build on this. Imagine how much we will hate each other if we did a podcast every single day for a month.
And as we sat in the flat like a middle-aged couple for whom familiarity had bred contempt and who no longer had sex with each other (in our case having missed out the part where we had sex together) I felt happier than I could have done if I was up to my knees in nose sherbet. I hadn't even had a drink of alcohol for six weeks. We are living the show biz dream.
I might even miss him.
I hate to think what will happen when there is no one here to do Tom Wrigglesworth's washing up.
