6024/18953
RHLSTP is often a show of two halves and tonight in Wakefield was another fine example of that. My first guest Kay Mellor gave a fascinating and funny account of her incredible life as a writer, actor and director and my second guest Rob Rouse closed the show by making me lie on the floor as he attempted to light my farts. For a very long time. Because for one time in my life I didn’t have a fart in the chamber. And also over 300 strangers were watching. And filming it.
You can never quite predict where this show is going to go. But it was a rip roaring night of entertainment even if I failed to rip roar at the end. Rob did manage to light one of his own in the dressing room after the show. It was genuinely impressive. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone actually do that before. You sometimes have to come to Wakefield to experience such things.
My anal stage fright (and I never expected to use that phrase in a blog) was partly caused by the fact that I was dressed up in a brand new suit and was fearful that Rob would manage to set fire to it and me (and indeed Rob did look like he was briefly engulfed in fire when he succeeded). And what if I sucked the fire back in through my bottom and exploded?
I very much embraced the “Yes, and†law of improv, whilst knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to perform.
Ultimately though, it turns out to be hard (for me at least) to fart on demand in front to strangers, so that’s another job avenue denied to me.
As usual I’d done my research in the car on the way up, but I also managed to walk round Wakefield for half an hour before we had to go to the theatre, so I’d managed to accrue a bit of local knowledge. I was of course delighted to find out that Wakefield is the capital of the Rhubarb Triangle and made quite a lot of that as you can imagine. But I found some unexpected nuggets of fun too and the Wakefield audience seemed to enjoy it very much when I took the piss out of them. My opening monologue is always extremely loose (as you may have noticed) but I managed to adlib some proper jokes that were occurring to me as I said them, which is a lovely fun place to be.
And both interviews flew by, until the second one seemed like it wouldn’t end unless I could produce some methane from my mousehole. Not many shows can give you this kind of variety.
Rob, James my tour manager and me headed back to the Holiday Inn Express for a quick nightcap (tonic water). I had joked on stage about how cheap our hotel was - it was something like £35 a room including breakfast, a price I haven’t paid for a hotel for over a decade, when I stayed in a room above a pub where the door had been kicked in and hastily repaired. I think it was partly down to us staying on a Sunday, but we got a great welcome from the staff here, who were cheerful and funny and eager to make our stay as pleasant as possible. And as tired as I was, it is a welcome change to end a gig and then have a fun, if low key, social time with a man who has tried to force you into an unpleasant act in front of a room full of people.
Well over 300 people in tonight too, which is remarkable for a venue that I’ve never played before. If you like the podcast and would like me to carry on touring then please do come along to one of
the tour dates.
Coming up next are the Kings Place gigs in London with Russell Howard on the 10th June and Michael Sheen on the 17th.
