A year ago my wife and I had been married for a month and were living in Harpenden. Today I returned to the town for my tour gig. It was strange being somewhere that I knew so well and yet which felt like a much more distant memory. We were only there for five months and I was on tour for most of that time. I don't quite know how we managed to get through last year. Getting married, having the house renovated, moving out of town and all during a big tour and then both of us having to work up Edinburgh shows for one of the most stressful Fringes in years. I am hopeful that the first few months of our marriage might prove to be the most hectic and overbearing. I don't know how we did it. I didn't even have a tour manager.
Things are hotting up this year, though not quite to the same extent. I need to finish off my comedy drama treatment, write the programme for this year's show and we've filming the extras for my Talking Cock DVD on Saturday. I am still trying to sort out the guests for the upcoming run of the Leicester Square Theatre podcast. And there's the small matter of writing a brand new hour of stand-up by August. But it's nothing compared to last year, so this should be a breeze!
On the way to the gig I popped into the countryside mansion of Lee and Herring plagiarist Ray Peacock (if that is his real name). This year, instead of having lamp-post ads I am going to spend the money on printing up 90 minute DVDs of my favourite bits from my previous 9 Fringe shows to give away to everyone who comes to the Edinburgh show. It will cost less to do that than to have the ostentatious and annoying posters. I am unconvinced that people pay any attention to them anyway. But I want to do a video explaining my decision and encouraging acts to come up with more imaginative and fruitful ways of promoting their shows. You can do an awful lot with £3000.
And given that so many people have lamppost ads or similarly expensive campaigns the market is saturated and the impact is lessened. Everyone feels they have to do it because everyone else (at a certain level) is doing it, but it feels like nuclear proliferation. We're all spending a lot of money on something that doesn't help any of us. We should all just agree to stop it, but of course if most of us stopped then it would become financially worth spending that money. Yet if we did all stop then the prices would come down. The people behind this (and there seem to be some shady dealings with the council going on from what I hear) can charge whatever they like because acts will pay whatever they are charged. But if no one bought the ads they'd soon start dropping the prices.
Anyway, Ray Peacock is such a fan of mine that he had stolen a couple of my lamp-post ads at the end of the last Fringe (the fact that they were tied to posters for his own show is just a lucky coincidence for him) and so I was popping buy to pick them up so I could use them as an illustration for the video I'll be making on Saturday.
But the lamp post ads are much bigger than I had anticipated. I thought they would fit snuggly in the back of my car with the back seats down. but they were as long as my whole car. We could only get them in by having one end of them resting on Giles's head in the passenger seat (I do the driving when we're in my car for the nearby gigs). They severely limited my visibility of the mirrors and I thought that it would be quite apt if these expensive posters ended up killing me. Less apt if Giles was killed too though. It's not his fault.
Luckily we managed the drive to Harpenden and home without too much incident. On the way back we had them down the middle of the car so they acted as a kind of Peace Wall between me and my tour manager. Or we could have pretended we were on blind date.
The gig went fine, with about 100 people in which is as many as I've had in this venue before (probably more). The show seems to have found a new level since I recorded the DVD (which is slightly annoying, though suspect only I would notice the difference). I am still really enjoying it, despite counting down the days til it's over. Though there's one more date added. A very late addition as someone has requested that we put on the show in the (massive) Regent's Park Open Air Theatre on Sunday 26th. So if you missed the London run you will have one last chance to catch the show, which goes ahead whatever the weather! The tickets aren't on sale yet (there's a whole fortnight to sell 1200 seats, what's the rush?) but I will let you know when they are. I can't wait to unleash my cock in the park on a balmy sunny evening.
Only a few more days to donate and get your name into this year's show programme. Donate at least £15 (the more you donate the bigger your name will appear) and you will also be sent a signed limited edition version of the programme in August. All the money goes to Scope and thanks to those of you who have already donated.
The Justgiving pages is here. If you donate after May 17th your money will still go to Scope but your name won't be in the programme because it will be at the printers.
