5250/18170
Another day of acting (although the character I was playing today was a lot less realistic than a man who runs the superhero office) and the final piece in the complex jigsaw that will eventually be AIOTM.
It was a sketch from the “As It Occurred To Me” section of the show, which is basically an excuse to film some of the ideas I have explored in stand up or blogs in the past and this one was an extended version of the “Olivio” routine that I did back in my 30s. It’s been wonderful being in a long-term relationship, but it does mean that I no longer get to experience the kind of humiliations and weirdnesses that occurred to me as a single man. But thankfully I have enough of those to draw on.
I was acting alongside the brilliant Francesca Fowler, playing the part of a woman who for some reason wanted to carry on being in a relationship with me even though I was a total arsehole (yet we would at least find out why). It was a relatively easy days shoot as we had not over stretched ourselves trying to film three sketches or something that was 15 pages long. It was 6 pages, four set ups and a minimal crew. And we could do it all in my house. We are getting a lot of bang for your buck. A hundred thousand pounds might sound like a lot of money, but most TV productions would spend that in a couple of days. We are going to be getting six episodes that will come in at over an hour each (at least for those of you with
the secret channel - we’re editing them down for the free release).
Most of the day was taken up with preparing for a three line exchange in which I imagine people on their 50th wedding anniversary realising they are only together due to a margarine misunderstanding. But we needed to be made up to look like we were 90. The amazing Sophia Weary accentuated our natural lines (well, she just had to take a punt with me, due to my youthful line-free face) and sprayed our hair silver white. It took a good length of time and sadly I didn’t look much different than I had done before, because there’s only so much that a human being can be aged before they become a skellington. But the transformation with Francesca was astonishing and scary.
I had wiped off the make-up by the time that Phoebe got home with her mum, but my hair was still silver. She laughed at me, but didn’t seem concerned. Almost like that’s how my hair has always looked. But if you want to feel less grey, then get all your hair sprayed grey and then have a shower. The difference was luckily still quite marked and I felt like the young brown-haired buck that I like to imagine I once was.
Amazing to have wrapped on AIOTM though. Now just the incredibly difficult job of editing it all down. Hoping the first three episodes might be on the secret channel this month though. And then released into the world in May.
I have now sold 81 tickets for
Wednesday’s gig in Camberley. Is it too much to hope that 19 more people might come along and preserve my 100+ or 100% record?
It doesn’t really make much difference if I don’t as I can’t really see me selling 100 tickets
in Radlett the next day.
Leeds on Friday is thankfully much closer to selling its 400+ tickets. But I am no closer to achieving my dream of playing the big room in
Wolves.
