Comedy transcends the barriers of language and age and at breakfast I was making the young Japanese boy laugh by pulling funny faces. He was about 3 and so at roughly the same intellectual level to me.
I tucked my napkin into my T-shirt and did my best Chaplinesque clowning for him before realising he wasn't even watching. "I am wasting my A stuff on this idiot," I said to my girlfriend who I think was jealous that she wasn't the centre of attention and that I was giving out all this brilliant comedy for free.
"You have to share me with the world," I told her, "You get to see my genius all the time."
She looked at me angrily, almost with disdain, so pissed off that I had a new friend and created a wonderful hands across the ocean moment. I was healing the world. The boy looked back at me and I pulled out the stops, exaggeratedly cleaning my face and behind my ears with my serviette. He laughed. Of course he did. We were friends for life.
Perhaps in some future world war when Japan had invaded Britain, he would be a soldier about to execute me and then he would recognise me and laugh and throw done his weapon and tell his comrades to stop this conflict. All because of me and my funny slapstick japes.
Screw my girlfriend. Me and this kid's friendship would last forever.
Later though when I passed through reception, the kid was there with his parents who were checking out. I smiled at my new pal, but he just looked right through me. He had used me and now cast me aside like a broken toy. Only minutes before I had been the funniest man on the planet and now he didn't even recognise me.
I realised that the love of my girlfriend is more important than the mercurial friendship of a Japanese child.
And if in a future world war England has invaded Japan and the boy is a soldier trying to surrender to our forces I am going to shoot the flighty little fucker in the face.
Today I learned to hate.
Then on to Cardiff to record my DVD. I was doing two performances pretty much back to back with just a five minute comfort break in between the first and second halves. I was nervous but excited about the recording. I think this is my best show yet and I really wanted to do it justice. At least I had two shots at it.
Both shows had their good and bad points, and I reckon we will probably mainly use the first half of the second show and the second half of the first one. Not only was I pretty tired in the end but the audience got slightly lairy and drunk and weary too. But we probably got some interesting extras from the second show.
My favourite bit was during the mini-interval when I stayed on stage to entertain the people with bladders larger than a pea. A man approached me as I bantered and reached our his hand and gave me back his ticket, before turning his back on me and pointedly walking out.
It was clearly a rather theatrical protest at something but he refused to explain what had upset him as he walked out. I found this quite amusing. It was the most preposterous walk out I have ever seen. Clearly it wasn't enough for him just to leave a show he wasn't enjoying, but felt the need to make sure I registered his disapproval. It reminded me of the people who feel the need to inform you they are unfollowing you on Twitter. But worse because he was making this sel-important show and then refusing to explain what had made him so indignant. I thanked him for the ticket but explained that not only could I get into my own shows without one I would need a time machine to see this one as it was half over. It gave me a chance to discuss the fact that everyone offended by the show so far has complained about a different bit. Was this because if the Maddie joke or the Michael Jackson one. It couldn't be the one about the Pope as I hadn't done that yet. Did he feel I was sexist or mocking the mentally ill or was I just too liberal for him? It was hard to know. His gesture was flamboyant but totally baffling. Maybe he just thought the show had finished. The audience joined in with trying to work out the mystery. Was he a Nazi who thought he was going to see his Fuhrer or a Nazi hunter disappointed to see that he wasn't going to claim the ultimate scalp. "Maybe," opined one disreputable man, "he has to go home to feed Maddie."
I couldn't condone that remark!
But that's what you get accused of if your protest is unclear.
I said that I thought the man would undoubtedly email me to let me know what had upset him. Perhaps he just thought I wasn't funny, which would be fine, but why the need to make the gesture. Thanks for the DVD extra though mysterious man!
I also had a slightly odd discussion with a woman who was a Peter Kay fan and a very funny chat with a guy with cerebral palsy in the front row, who wanted me to give the collection money directly to him. I told him to piss off and that I had run the Marathon for him!
"Not for me," he insisted, "I didn't get the money!"
Later on he cheered as I explained about the collection and I was able to claim that I always had someone with CP in the front row to guilt everyone into giving more. It was a fun, if slightly disruptive digression. Which will probably make the extras too.
More annoying were a couple of drunks who threw in some mistimed and useless heckles that derailed the more theatrical bits of the show and it was hard to get the energy back into the room. I was hoping to push things further with the ad libbed bits in the second show but things didn't take off and I was fighting fatigue and got a little bad tempered. And when one of the girl's friends chipped in later with an equally useless comment, which merely showed he was too drunk to follow the show I realised they were just hoping they would feature on the DVD.
So we will make sure they don't.
It was a long and exhausting night. But I am hopeful we have got an excellent version of the show recorded now. Thanks to everyone at go faster stripe for their hard work. I am hoping that the DVD will be out - and in the shops this time- in the autumn. But buy your copy from gfs please.
