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The greatest trick the devil ever played was to make my son do a fart so bad and lingering that it seemed like he’d done a shit, but he hadn’t done a shit. He plays that trick on me all the time. His second greatest trick is to have had my son done a shit, but then he does another shit just as I am changing him and the shit goes over my son and me. That’s a bit more hack, but still good.
“It’s so amazing to be at the Old Vic,” I told tonight’s audience in Bristol. “I would never play the Colston Hall, because Colston was a slave owner. But today I found out that Old Vic was a notorious 18th Century paedophile.”
Hooray! I wrote a site specific joke. And it was a nice opener to a really fun show. Bristol is my favourite city to play and it’s terrific to have a large and enthusiastic following here that means I can sell out a nice size theatre in what is a mainly unpublicised tour warm up (and still put on two more shows next year). I could hardly have felt less like doing a stand up show after a difficult and disturbed night with the baby (we were staying over in Cheddar for a couple of nights), but being on stage lifts your burdens and nearly always makes you forget your ills and I flew through the show.
It’s been a long slog to get to the stage where I can feel like an actual hit in selected towns in the UK - I’ve done a solo tour every year for the last 17 years - but it definitely makes it all the sweeter when a show goes like this one tonight. I might well take a little break from stand up after this tour (or at least from such intensive time out on the road), but the only thing that makes me reluctant to temporarily step away is that I might finally be getting somewhere. Well we shall see. I don’t have an idea for a new show yet (though I rarely do at this stage) and am wondering about taking RHLSTP out for a limited tour of some of the bigger cities in 2018/2019. Or just staying at home and enjoying/being tortured by my children.
We will see.
Anyway, whether this tour is my last for a little while or not, I am really looking forward to taking this show out on the road in 2018 (
all confirmed dates are here - don’t think there will be a whole lot more added). If my two sold out gigs this week are anything to go by then it’s worth booking ahead!
