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For this, one of the more demanding legs of the tour, I am without the super reliable Bex and driving the show and the car on my own (though incompetent sound man George is along for the ride). I made things a little tougher for myself by starting the day with my first personal training session in a couple of months. Though it didn't exhaust me as much as I expected and maybe thanks to five weeks of healthy eating, I found myself to be surprisingly fit.
I like to do my research for the shows on the day of the record, mainly to keep it all as fresh in my mind as possible, but much of the day was eaten up by loading the car, packing and then driving to Winchester. I could listen to podcasts, but had to hope there weren't any severe Friday afternoon delays as I was relying on getting a couple of hours work in once I was at my hotel.
It basically worked out, even though I really wanted to go to sleep by the time I was at my Premier Inn. I had an hour for each guest and had luckily found a couple of good Winchester based talking points for my stand up last night. I work well under pressure and there wasn't a huge amount about either guest online, but I did managed to find some good areas to explore.
Then on to the Winchester Theatre Royal, a venue I mistakenly thought I had first played in 1987 (it was, I now realise 1988) though either way, the technical crew were a decade or so away from being born at that point and my first guest had been a baby. As I am sure I've mentioned before, the Oxford Revue had their one great gig of their short 88 tour there, and we signed out first autographs outside the venue. And the man who got that autograph, Rupert, was once again in the front row tonight. As I adlibbed in the show, he has a collection of autographs getting messier and messier and showing my decline - much like the before and after torture signatures of Guido Fawkes.
For all my tiredness, maybe because of it, I was in exceptionally skittish and silly and naughty form. Last tour's gig here had involved some surreal flights of fancy with John Kearns so there's something about this room. Both Harriet Kemsley and Matt Green were excellent guests and I said many things worthy of cancellation if transcribed and not delivered in my inimitable cheeky fashion. I think it was good.
Natalie from off of Trevor and Natalie was in the audience and it was lovely to see her again. She somehow looks the same as she did in 1999, though I decidedly do not.
There had been some buzzing from the sound desk during sound check and incompetent George had said he wasn't going to risk plugging in the spare mic as we never used it. Inevitably the guest mic went wrong and he had to plug in the spare. In the down time I told the audience the Peter Kay story that we'd had to cut from the Liverpool show. As surprising as it may be, it won't be the biggest revelation about a comedian this weekend and the other one will be more public.
Poor George. He's not been well and still came out to do this job. He's an amazing guy, but don't tell him I told you that.
Back to the Premier Inn, absolutely spent in every sense. No wait, I hadn't orgasmed. But someone was about to. Some groans from an adjoining room indicated that someone was getting some. I could only hear one of them, but my guess is at least two people were involved. I am now so old that the exciting thing about being in a hotel is the possibility of eight hours of uninterrupted sleep (I still woke up at 6am inevitably).
I had looked in the mirror in the dressing room tonight and thought I looked unusually handsome. Why is biology making me look my sexiest when I am this old and largely unable to cash the cheques my face is writing - and also no one wants cheques any more? Give me this face back in the 1990s when I might actually be able to get something out of it. Though to be fair, I think a 56 year old man's face (however handsome) on a 30 year old man's body might put most people off. Not everyone though. Thank God for those poor perverted souls who have somehow found me attractive over the years.
