I still seem reluctant to get back to work, but there's plenty of stuff to occupy me and my fortnight long tidy up is bearing fruit. The DVD of Fist of Fun series one will be released exclusively by
Go Faster Stripe at some point in November (though it should be available to pre-order by next Wednesday). You probably know that Stew, me and Chris Evans (not that one) have bought the rights to bring it out from the BBC (who did not want to make it themselves, but are happy to take a cut if it sells well for us) at not inconsiderable expense, so we're trying to give you as much value for money as possible. As well as the shows themselves, there are the full studio records of the majority of the series (so all the stuff that happened when stuff went wrong and the bits we did to keep the studio audience entertained and some of the sketches that didn't make it to air), as well as commentaries on all the episodes, Stew and me talking about our memories, interviews with some of the cast and loads of scripts and stuff. It's a 4 disc set so you'll be getting plenty of value for money (it's going to £25 per series, as predicted in the attached flash frame from the series). We've really put some effort into it and whilst I am confident we will sell enough to make our money back it is a bit of a gamble for us and for the brilliant Go Faster Stripe misfits, who have brought out some brilliant and obscure DVDs over the last few years. We're not spending any money on PR or adverts and we're just relying on you to spread the word and hopefully some nerdy comedy fan journalists to get over excited and write about it anyway. If a couple of thousand people buy it we'll break even, but I really hope we'll sell loads more than that. I'd say that it would demonstrate the short-sightedness of the people at the BBC who never had the faith to put it out, but as they get a cut of the profits I don't think they will be too put out if it does well. But it'd terrific for GFS if it could be a big seller (and a bit of a disaster if they lost all that money if no one bought it). Mainly I am just happy it's finally going to be available so I have somewhere to direct the people who keep asking me about it, even now, 15 years on.
I guess if these two releases go well (series 2 will be out next year) that we will try to do the same with TMWRNJ.
But the point is that I keep finding new things. Tidying up some papers today I found the handwritten first draft (plus crude drawings) of the Julia Sawalha shrine sketch and a list of all the sketches we had thought might make it into the series. There were plenty that hadn't got made and some that I'd totally forgotten, so I went through some old discs and managed to find the scripts to many of them (and some extra ones), giving us even more material for completist nerds. It's not practical for us to attempt to film them, due to constraints of time and money (though maybe we might do a reading of some of them for the second series DVD), though I might see if Kevin will have a crack at the previously unrecorded Simon Quinlank sketch that I found.... I just hope you lot are as excited about this as I clearly am. This might just be a very expensive way for me to own a copy of all of this stuff, but if it doesn't sell I can make a primitive dwelling out of the unsold boxes. For me and Chris Evans to live in. I imagine Stew will be OK thanks to his TV millions.
To give you a little taster
here's the original series 1 trailer and here's
a truncated promo that we did for the Big Breakfast. Ah so young and happy. I don't know why we were like Bros!
Tonight I did an odd gig upstairs at the posh Ivy restaurant for loads of people who book corporate gigs. I don't usually do these high paying, but difficult and weird gigs (I did one back in 2002
where I died in front of Elton John and Posh Spice) and I am not sure they are really suitable for my stuff anyway, but I thought I'd give this show case a crack. The problem is that I can't resist doing the wrong thing in these situations, so although I started strongly with some short gags, I then decided to risk my childhood hand signs for homosexuality routine, which worked OK until I got to the bit where I graphically mimed anal sex with my hands (and spit). The well to do clientele were not massively impressed. The good will in the room seemed to evaporate. This might have cost me thousands of pounds! Though I guess over the years that routine has made me thousands of pounds, so it's all swings and roundabouts. I lost my nerve a little bit and my mouth went dry but I pressed on with a less rude routine, but later summing up said, "You didn't like the anal sex material so much, did you? Though I just like the idea of doing that in the Ivy. It's only anal sex, it's not like it's something you haven't done. How do you think you all got so rich in the first place." Perhaps it was a mistake to call all the people who were prospectively going to give me work anal whores, but I enjoyed the reaction. A couple of people laughed, one man gave an exhalation of annoyance. I pressed onwards. I don't think I will be getting any work from tonight. But that might be just as well. It was my first gig since Edinburgh. I left feeling suitably ashamed and disappointed.
You can read my latest newsletter with details about free tickets to the new series of Objective, tour dates (3 nights in Norwich in April to be added soon) and the upcoming DVD releases
here.
