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The Chortle award nominations were out today and for the first time in its five year existence I was not nominated for the Internet award! It’s all over folks, the bubble has burst. I’d better go back to TV with all the dinosaurs. Worse still Ray Peacock was nominated. It’s a disaster. But I voted for him, because it will be nice for him to know that at least he got one vote. And you should too, just to give him the faint hope of victory so it will be more enjoyable to see him crushed (actually thinking about it, we’d better let him win, just to be on the safe side)
And I am actually happy not to be nominated. There’s so much good stuff on the internet now that it’s right that different projects are highlighted and the impressive thing about the always somewhat divisive Chortle awards (they tend to favour a certain type of comedian) is how many new names are up for nomination. Most remarkable of all is that Stewart Lee is not up for any award for what might be the first time in the history of the Chortles, though I am sure they will manage to give him something on the night to preserve the balance of the Universe. I did wonder if I might get a nod for the 12 shows extravaganza, but I can’t say that I was surprised that I didn’t. But it’s OK. I am less bothered by awards than I used to be. And the 12 shows was reward enough in itself and basically a little secret for people who like me. I am growing as a person and though it’s human to want validation I think I have realised that I am lucky enough to have a job which gives me a ridiculous amount of validation nearly every day.
And the podcasts have finally paid off anyway, as today I got a job interviewing David Baddiel for a podcast about his upcoming travelogue about the Silk Road that takes him from China to Istanbul that is going out on the Discovery Channel. It’s only taken eight years, but now tens of pounds are rolling in. And having done 100 interview podcasts off my own bat I realise that I am getting quite good at this job, knowing when to chip in and more importantly knowing when to shut up. I’ve worked with David a few times recently, most notably on our trip to Armenia a few years back and we have a nice chemistry. And his show looks really great too, a fascinating history of a part of the world that most of us in the UK probably know little about.
I was able to be a little subversive, refusing to believe that a goal David scored in a football match was not set up for the show and making a comment about a goat’s severed head and David Cameron that I imagine will be expunged from the final thing. We’d been told we couldn’t be libellous, or burst into song. I don’t think we’d have felt the urge to sing unless we’d been expressly told not to, but it was difficult to stop myself at times.
This was a nice job for me, admittedly probably not as nice as going to travel the Silk Road for four months, but a lot less time consuming
I didn’t get time to do any work ahead of my second (and oh so nearly sold out) Leicester Square Theatre show, but I prefer to try and do the revisions on stage anyway and loads of bits came out quite different tonight, but most of it worked well. I am recording the shows and hope to get the chance to actually listen back to them this time, so I can remember what I changed and how I phrased the bits that worked and those that didn’t. This will be easier to do when I am on the road and don’t have 100 other things to do in the day. But I am loving the fluidity and the knowledge that something that is already a good show has the potential to get a lot better. Show one got a very nice review from Bruce Dessau and the feedback from the audience is strong too and people are coming out to see me, so that’s all quite unusual too. It’s nice unusual though.
