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I probably tried to pack too much in to today and then we had a guest emergency on RHLSTP and so it was a mildly flustered and jerky couple of podcasts tonight, where we nonetheless elicited some laughs and pushed back some boundaries, not always for the best. But RHLSTP is best served with a side order of egg.
I had come down to London early to pre record an interview with Steve Wright. I admire Steve very much (apart from his insistence that any present participle with the g left off is somehow a pun of “jockinâ€) and have been interviewed by him intermittently over the last quarter of a century. He’s always engaged and interested, though today he admitted he was tired. Both my kids had slept til 6.40am, so I was bouncing off the walls!
It went well - you can listen in on Wednesday - and we then sat in the studio and chatted a bit more off-tape about podcasting and longevity in show business. Steve has had a remarkable career and I suspect he might still be interviewing me in another 25 years.
Then I had another longish chat with Geoff Lloyd for a 4 Extra show about podcasting.
It’s probably not great to chat this much when I have to do two podcasts as well.
But the podcast became complicated when Amanda Abbington let me know that filming had over run in Manchester and she was just setting off to London. This was after 4pm. I hoped she was on a train, but hopefully she’d still get to the theatre in time for the second podcast.
But as I was recording the pre and post show bits I got a message saying she was still on the M6 and stuck in traffic. I realised we needed a new guest and we had about an hour and a half to the show starting. Luckily lovely Lou Sanders was in town and agreed to do it, but there was not time to do my usual research (which is a bit more of an involved process than it might appear) or think too much about what we could talk about. Luckily I’d just seen her show.
On top of all this Geoffrey from Rainbow had died. I’d met him back in the 90s when he appeared on the Fist of Fun radio series, after being unceremoniously sacked from Rainbow after all those years. He was genuinely sad and a bit broken by this at the time, but game for having fun with us. You can hear it here. And I still think Dawn Airey should be replaced by a puppet. And it seems Geoffrey was 51 years old at that record. So take that young slightly sarcastic Richard Herring doing things in a post-modern and ironic way, whilst still being genuinely delighted to meet Geoffrey from Rainbow. You would get old yourself one day. You didn’t realise it. But in the blink of an eye you’ll age and then another blink and you’re gone.
RIP Geoffrey from Rainbow.
Strangely one of the other celebrity guests from that series, Dale Winton, also died this year. I am not saying that the Fist of Fun radio show has a very slow acting curse on it, but it makes you think.
I did mention Geoffrey’s death on the podcast and the audience let out a gasp of shock. I’d assumed they’d heard already, but this is how they found out. Sorry if this blog is the way you found out.
The shows were a bit bumpier than last week, but not surprisingly with tiredness, grief and lack of preparation time, but people seemed happy. I sold the first 18 copies of the new Emergency Questions book. That has to be enough to get me into the best sellers list.
And someone came up afterwards to tell me why they can’t laminate bus tickets. It’s because the laminating process on that kind of paper turns the whole page black and unreadable. She’d worked in a laminators and done the same thing with someone’s baby scan photo.
Still doesn’t really answer who is laminating their tickets though.
Amanda Abbington didn’t get home til midnight. So it’s lucky we didn’t wait for her. But she’s booked back in for October 29th so you can see her then (traffic permitting).
We’ve only got one guest booked for the Manchester podcast on Friday and the next London one on 8th October, but if we can get someone with 90 minutes to spare then days are a luxury.
Here’s the line-ups for the remaining shows, along with a couple of big guest reveals.
Oct 8th Alice Lowe and TBA
Oct 15th Drunk Women Solving Crime and GREG DAVIES
Oct 22nd Michael Sheen and Rose Matefeo (not many tickets left)
Oct 29th Amanda Abbington and TBA
Nov 5th Lucy Porter and Jenny Ryan from Fingers on Buzzers Podcast + TBA
Nov 12th Sanjeev Bhaskar and Rick Edwards
Nov 19th Terry Hall and Adam Buxton (SOLD OUT)
That’s 10 men and 10 women on this series so far. Who will fill those last few places and how will they identify their gender?
