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I had just completed two fun RHLSTPs, for (I think) the first time, a night with no comedian on the bill. The chats with Ben Shephard and Deborah Meaden had gone well, but I was very tired and my voice was going by the end. Deborah had not offered to invest fifty million pounds in my business so I was a little disappointed. And I still had the long drive home ahead of me.
As I left the theatre someone recognised me in the street. I thought maybe they’d been at the show, but it quickly became apparent they hadn’t. They were drinking bottles of Heineken and only one of them had any idea who I was. And he didn’t have much idea. “What’s your name?” He asked and I told him. It wasn’t ringing bells. “How do I know you?” I told him I was a comedian and that he might have seen me on Taskmaster. He thought that might be it. The two young men were drunk, but I wasn’t feeling threatened by them. They seemed OK, but there was something a little off and I wondered if things were about to explode in an unexpected direction. It was like they were holding something back or were pretending to be interested in me and there was the slight air of the next question being, “Have you heard about a guy called Jesus?”
There was a question coming, but the one who was doing all the talking was struggling to get it out, but when he got there he was essentially asking me if I thought it was right that children should be vaccinated without their parents’ permission. This was a bit of a big one after three hours of talking on stage and I said that it was probably too complex to answer in the time available (I was about to turn towards the car park). The men started arguing that they thought it was a bad thing and I said that on the whole I was behind vaccination and that we wouldn’t be here without it. They handed me a leaflet and quoted some statistics. I acknowledged that it was a thorny issue and that I would be happy for my kids to be vaccinated if they were allowed and the young men remained polite and gracious, in a drunk and swaying way and I managed to extricate myself without getting dragged in too far to the conspiracy. I said that if the government had any plans to get stuff into our blood streams that the beer he was drinking was a more efficient way and he laughed and admitted he smoked a lot of pot and that might be part of his paranoia. I am not sure if he was full on anti-vaccine or just concerned about kids. He urged me to look at specific stats.
More of the fellows’ friends had emerged, all with the same glassy look that could have come from beer, pot, fervent belief or all three. The guy who had spoken to me shook my hand, which was nice, but then I worried about him probably not being vaccinated. He told me he would keep all my answers off the record, but I hadn’t really said much anyway.
I then couldn’t get my ticket to work at the car park and when I came out to find someone to help I bumped into one of the conspiracy guys who I think had probably just done a wee in the doorway. He shouted to his mate that it was me again, but I managed to swerve them this time.
I couldn’t find anyone to help me, but this time when I put my ticket in the machine everything worked. Conspiracy? Probably.
I listened to Miriam Margolyes’ audiobook on the way home. She was talking more about the men she sucked off (there is other content). Next week’s RHLSTP is going to be something else. You should definitely come.
