Took the fax machine to the tube station at 11 to find Fran and her boyfriend waiting for me. I handed it over and they gave me a cupcake for my trouble. No one got murdered or kidnapped or pranked. Life can be good. This is in all probability the only interaction I will ever have with these people. Good to have 100% positive track record with another human being. I just hope the fax machine still works.
As soon as I got home I set off for a four mile run, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Bags of energy left and sprinted the last 200 metres. Which augurs will for three weeks time in the Royal Parks, but a little work to be done to ensure we can keep running for another nine and a bit miles. But feeling pretty fit at the moment and hopefully on the way to getting into better shape.
Then I headed to the Chelsea theatre for a run through gig for the TV version of Banter. It's got a new host in Rebecca Front and the regular team captains are Chris Addison and Russell Howard (though Chris was not available today, so I was sitting in for him). I am going to guest on the official pilot episode in a couple of weeks, but will not have the permanent role that I had on the radio version of this show - but that's the way of this world. People get brutally edged out and replaced. Usually I notice it's me who gets edged out. So nice to play a small role. This was always one of my favourite shows to be a part of and I had assumed it was over (we did the last series in 2008) so I have to be pleased it has an opportunity to come back.
They're playing around with the format too and I'd been asked to come in this afternoon to work with Rebecca on her script. It's twenty years since we first worked together on "On The Hour" and then "Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World" and since then she also appeared in "Time Gentlemen Please" and "You Can Choose Your Friends". She's utterly brilliant, but a bit nervous about a slightly new venture for her of hosting a panel show (though no need, she's going to be awesome in this too). Sometimes when I am called in in a more advisory or script editing role it feels like it's all been a bit pointless (when I script edited for the third series of Little Britain, for example, I felt somewhat redundant), but I knew enough about panel shows and enough about Rebecca to actually make a bit of a difference today. And if all my creativity dried up then I know I could make a living doing the kind of work I was doing today. More impressively there were loads of biscuits and crisps and Haribo on offer and I resisted them all (all right I had one tiny bag of Haribo).
It's three years since the last series of Banter on the radio, so it was fun to return to it, even with the changes. It didn't feel like three years since me and Russell had sparred off each other and even with the changes it remains a lovely show, where everyone has space to tell their stories and get their laughs and the 90 minutes whizzed by. It probably needs a more appropriate name though and in the pub afterwards I think I might have come up with a good candidate. The executive producer tried to buy it off me in return for a drink. I refused. But he will just steal it anyway. This is TV now. You have to constantly check your back for knives. Not like on the radio where no one would ever let you down.....
