Hitler Moustache finally ground to a halt today with a gig that seemed a bit like an after thought in timing at least. It's only 3 weeks since the penultimate one, but it felt like a strange and unfamiliar show. Miraculously most of it seemed to pour out of me, even if I felt quite scared if I tried to think even a sentence ahead. I did miss out one important chunk by accident, but got a good laugh by admitting that later and was forced to drop other bits because it was a 9.30 start (though it didn't get going until closer to 10) and I had to go back to a complete show with no interval. So it was a bit rushed and a bit seat of the pants from my point of view and I was aware that the audience would be getting tired and worrying about babysitters and need to pop out to the loo. Would they go with the more serious bits? It felt like it would be hard to keep their attention. But despite my worries they stuck with me, even though there were a couple of shaky moments. And I was pretty tired too, having just come from another book reading in the city. I was slightly disappointed that I couldn't do the full show and that it was hard to enjoy the final outing for most of this material, but in the end it was an OK performance.
I had been internally debating whether I was going to do the Madeleine McCann joke in Liverpool. I didn't want to upset anyone (and there may have been people with a personal involvement amongst the crowd), but I also didn't want to short change people and not give them the full experience. As with my vote this year I didn't make a final decision until the very last moment, but I felt it was a bit of a mixed crowd and some of them had seemed offended by some of the stuff that had already been done and I erred on the side of caution. I had to go with my gut and it felt like it would be unnecessarily confrontational to do the joke in a city with a personal connection to the tragedy. Still not 100% certain I did the right thing.
It also felt a little odd to be doing this show post-election, especially given the odd result and coalition that has come out of the recent vote. The electorate did engage more with the General Election (and the BNP were kept securely out of government) so it was a little odd to chastise them, especially if any of them had voted Liberal and ended up with the Tories as a result.
But it threw up some interesting new aspects to the show. And there is a part of me that thinks that even though the result didn't go the way I wanted that this might be the best thing that could have happened for us all. The Tories will hopefully be tempered a little by the Liberals and Labour will have a chance to regroup and hopefully remember what and who they are meant to be. I remarked on Twitter later (to a small storm of process) that it was interesting that the Tories had already agreed to cancel the extra runway and ID cards, things that lefties had been campaigning about, when Labour had been pushing for both of them.
Though I have been prejudging the Tories as much as anyone - and am fairly certain their typical self interest and nastiness will come out pretty soon - it seems fair that we should allow them to do something awful before we criticise them. Prejudice is a bad thing whichever way it goes and I was amazed by how angry some anti-Tory twitterers became for me just daring to point out the irony of these early policies or to suggest that we should wait for them to do something bad before we started lambasting them. You never know David Cameron might be sincerely looking to affect a change and to protect the weak..... it's not likely, but you never know. And it's telling that they are passing policies (even if it is a Liberal concession) that Labour opposed. Hopefully the Labour party will take stock and return stronger and more left wing than the Tories. We shall see.
I had wanted to avoid being out in public with the moustache - I have already been in one fight in this city and did not want another -so although I had shaved off my beard I needed to cut down the moustache in the public toilets at the venue. I'd hoped to take it off completely at the venue as well, but was rushed out by the bouncers at the end and had to risk the walk back to the hotel.
Luckily I was accompanied by a burly audience member who wanted to interview me, so if any University lecturers launched an attack they would have to take on both of us. But then I realised the man I was with was a complete stranger and was walking me back through the empty streets around the docklands and if he had chosen to do so he could have thrown me into the icy waters as easily as Fred Talbot could leap across a floating map.
Luckily he seemed charming and friendly and I got back unscathed and went upstairs and took the moustache off for what might well be the last time. It was an anti-climactic and slightly sad moment. It felt like it should have more resonance than it did, but I didn't feel much.
I had planned to gather up the tiny hairs and give them away as an awful prize, but whatever way I attempted to shave off the toothbrush it was impossible to get it off in one stroke. I realised that all I'd be left with was tiny dots of hair, which would be fairly meaningless, so I wet-shaved it off and let it go.
More poignantly it is almost certainly the last time I will wear that battered and stinking suit. I was horrified to discover that despite some effort to diet (along with a few days of excess and a mini-holiday admittedly) the trousers were actually tighter on me that ever. I thought there was a good chance that I would be splitting the second pair of smart strides in a week. I am really going to have to do something about this now or I will have to dress in a mu-mu like Homer Simpson that time. But glad that the suit made it through to the end of this with me, even if it actually did fit me when I started it all. And the BNP leaflet, although creased and torn and frayed also got to the end of the run. I had thought about tearing it up on stage for the last show, but instead will save it for posterity and whoever it is who pays the most money to get in the COAB programme.
I sat in the bar and drank another expensive glass of wine at the expense of Ebury. I've actually been pretty restrained with my full account privileges. I wondered which of their authors had incurred the most expenses on one of these jaunts.
Matthew Crosby of the Pappy's tweeted to say how sad he felt looking at my last Hitler pic, not because he is a Nazi (though I think he might be) but because the end of a tour can be a sad time and he admitted some tears had been shed at the end of the sketch troupe's last tour. I tweeted back, "Somehow it's less sad and yet much more sad when you are on your own."
He said that should be the title of my next show.
I could tell you all about the fact that my room at this posh hotel smelled of excrement - someone else's I should add - and what happened when I complained about this fact. But I am going to hold it back for episode one of AIOTM. This afternoon in my excrement smelling hotel room I recorded
a short and slapdash trailer for the show and I managed to save it and export it and send it off to Orange Mark all on my own, which suggests that Andrew Collings is finally redundant in our joint podcast and so I can now just do Collings and Herrin on my own.
But I will keep letting him be in it for the moment. He just needs to know that I don't need him.
Please do subscribe to AIOTM if you haven't already and if you have subscribed check that the new podcast has made it through. And obviously it would be terrific if you could
come and see the show live.
Next book reading is Birmingham Waterstones (Thursday) Details of that and remaining book events
here.
