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Oh fuck. It's 15 months til I am 50. I feel a new show coming on.
It’s been quite a seven days: Kickstarter success, award winning short film and now 800+ people turning up to see my DVD record (though a few of them had won the tickets in a competition). If I can get seven days like this every 30 years of my career I will be happy. Roll on 2046.
It was a thrill to be back in the massively huge room at St David’s Hall, though I wasn’t going to be troubling the top deck of the auditorium with bottoms. And though I am usually pretty nervous before my DVD records (last year I was so overwhelmed by my welcome that I breathlessly rushed the opening of the show and had to do it again), I stayed oddly calm all day. I don’t know if I was distracted by having to get here from Stoke, or just been side-stepped by the fact that I was doing the record in the middle of the tour and not the end. I was mildly worried that there were a couple of bits in the second half that are still a bit variable, but as usual I failed to do my homework and go over it beforehand. I guess this is just the way I work. If I don’t remember how I did a routine last night then the new bit won’t get incorporated.
We walked round the theatre for a DVD extra, showing the dressing room and walking through to the bar where I would usually be performing and we did an interview with a local TV station. I sat down in a chair in my dressing room as I tried to thread a needle so I could repair my suit trousers and it collapsed under me, sending me toppling to the floor. I grazed my hand a bit and my shoulder was a bit sore, but luckily I didn’t break anything, or stick a needle in my eye. I know I’ve put on a bit of weight, but I don’t think it was down to me. Not the auspicious start I had hoped for. Had I been sabotaged by the Welsh, furious about my inability to do a Welsh accent and my continued mocking of Swansea.
I was reminded of my failing close up Donald Pleasance sight as I found threading the needle almost impossible.I refuse to accept that I need glasses though. I also fixed my errant fly zipper with a safety pin, which meant it wouldn’t fall down, but it was quite a palaver to go to the loo. No one was going to see my rainbow pants tonight.
I didn’t get nervous at all and even when I walked out in front of this huge crowd I stayed calm, chatting to them, ending up ad-libbing an unpleasant joke about the Macwhirter twins. Usually the voice in my head keeps reminding me that this is the performance that is getting recorded and warns me not to fuck it all up, which obviously makes me fuck it up a bit. That thought wasn’t totally absent tonight, but everything kept coming out pretty much in the right order and I made very few errors. The response from the audience was good, but not overwhelming. I was able to ride some laughs, but it didn’t detract from the sharpness of the performance which had been one of my worries. I made a couple of minor mistakes in the second half, but also did maybe the best version of the 5 Little Monkeys routine that I’ve yet done. I missed a bit out in the door mat routine and then tried to reincorporate it (when I should just have left it out) but even so I did the comedy bits in that section better than I’ve done before too. There was some ad-libbing, but I managed to get almost everything that I wanted into the show too.
It was a lot of fun and I think it’s the best DVD performance I’ve done. But you know, this job just becomes easier the more people who are in and the bigger the theatre. Not always more fun, but if you’re up there in front of this many people and you know what you’re doing, it’s pretty hard to screw it up. The fact you’re up there and that many people are watching gives you a kind of authority and trust from the crowd that you don’t immediately get in a smaller room.
But, very happy with the performance and I’d like to thank Chris Evans (not that one) for all his support and for helping me to get this far. Without him all my live shows would have disappeared into the ether and I don’t think I would have managed to get things this far. It was a momentous day for us both: my biggest ever gig and he filming in one of the biggest venues in his home town. And the staff and crew at St David’s Hall are phenomenal too. Usually in the big venues things become a bit impersonal and corporate, but not here. Loads of familiar and friendly faces and they seemed as happy as I was that I was finally getting to play the big room with a decent sized crowd. It makes a huge difference to have this kind of a support and it means that I won’t be suing the venue for the damage caused in the fall from the chair. If that’d happened at the York Barbican I would own the York Barbican by now!
And thanks to that audience who made this the most extraordinary night of my solo career.
We drove home through the night and I was in bed next to my wife at 2am. It’s hard to believe any of the events of the day had actually happened, but my shoulder was aching a bit so I knew the chair thing was real.
The DVD is coming out for Christmas. Or as a download if you are from the future and eschew objects.
