Wow, that's a relief.
The Richard Herring's Objective record is now done and dusted - you'll be able to hear it on your radio/computer next week. As you know, writing the script for this has been quite a burden and I was very much looking forward to getting it over with so I could enjoy my time here a little more.
The hard work seemed to pay off though and as I read the script through with Emma Kennedy who has a broken arm (she claims her scooter fell on her, but it's clearly an injury from her main job of wanking off tramps behind the bus station), it felt like it was a strong show, but rather long. We cut a sketch about William Wallace inventing the jimmy hat at the battle of Falkirk, partly because the show was too long, but mainly because there was enough of the two of us doing atrocious Scottish accents in there already. To provide some balance we also had a special guest of an actual Scotch in Susan Calman. Unbelievably her and Kennedy had never met and I knew as soon as they were together they were going to be all kinds of trouble as a duo. They are sure to commit some crimes together in the future and I feel guilty already for being the one who brought them together. I can only apology to humanity.
The BBC have built a venue to record their shows in this year (as I commented in the show, if there's one thing that Edinburgh lacks at this time of year it is venues). It's essentially a high ceilinged tent, though they have decorated it with lights that look like stars, and you could hear the traffic driving by outside and I was worried it might not be too conducive to comedy. When I came on the audience seemed to be glaring up a bit and I hadn't even started on my Scotch schtick yet.... but I wasn't intimidated or scared. Nowadays on stage I rarely have any fear.
Luckily once we got going the show zipped along and Susan was particularly good value. The funniest bit won't make it to air, where Susan appeared as Storm in an X-Men sketch and did the character with a Glasgow accent. The producer asked us to do the sketch again at the end, requesting that Susan try to do an American accent instead (to be fair to Susan she hadn't even had a chance to rehearse this sketch) - it was always going to be a recipe for disaster, but with Susan managing to garble a different accent for every single line in the sketch made it a lot funnier than it had been originally.
Once this was over I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. My mood and demeanour immediately changed (and I think it's partly because I did also manage a bit of a lie in). I was surprised that my show tonight had sold out (there had been a couple of really good reviews today, and also lots of shows were having a day off), but also felt alert and awake for the first time in days and with a responsive crowd and a functioning brain, unshackled by a script deadline I completely nailed it.
I was in the mood for a couple of celebratory drinks and it was also a nice change to go out to one of the bars, rather than rushing home to write and sleep. I had a couple more drinks than I had intended to, with Al Murray, both of us now aware of how old we were, but not too unhappy about that fact. I needed to let my hair down a bit and hopefully the rest of the Fringe will be as much fun as today was.
Tuesday's guests on the Ed Fringe Podcast are Ray Peacock and Katherine Ryan and Wednesday it's Shappi Khorsandi and Simon Donald. Come on down if you can and looks like it's worth booking ahead for What Is Love, Anyway too.
