Andrew Collings was round this morning, but we weren't just doing an ordinary podcast. This was going to be a ROAD TRIP! We were heading to Cheddar to film some extras for my forthcoming "The Headmaster's Son" DVD, but on the way we were going to take the brief window of opportunity to record
Podcast 83. But here's the twist - we would have to do it in a moving car that I was driving!
Some people seemed to express concern when they heard the idea, suggesting it was dangerous, but I would have my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel all the time (much to Collings' relief, given he was trapped in such a small space with me for two and a half hours). We were only talking. Something we'd been doing for the half an hour before we started and would be doing for the hour after we'd finished. Andrew claimed to prefer it saying that without the distractions of my iPhone and the internet I actually listened more to what he said. But I didn't. I didn't listen to anything he said. Including the bit where he said I was listening more. It certainly made the drive fly by and I'm thinking that maybe I should do podcasts on the way to all my gigs on tour. Driving is really boring and it was good to have this preoccupation to help the boring hours pass. Plus we were able to comment on fires and lorries and a man almost driving into the central reservation, sending a plume of dust and soil shooting upwards on the opposite carriageway. Luckily he didn't crash and flip on to us and nor will our conversation be used by crash investigators as a low-tech black box to find out what happened.
The sojourn in Cheddar also passed quickly, but I think we got a lot of fun stuff. Firstly we shot our second video podcast which will be exclusive to the DVD, chatting about our schooldays, including a few more choice and perverted things that I got up to which there wasn't time for in the show. I tried to find my dad's copy of Desmond Morris' "The Naked Ape" which I had enjoyed as a child, mainly because the front cover had pictures of naked bums on it. But dad must have squirreled the book away for his own purposes as it was no longer there. If you want to find out how I broke a caravan window by wanking or what I got up to on my mum and dad's sofa you'll have to buy the DVD which will hopefully be out by Christmas and looks like being another packed double disc bonanza.
After that Andrew Collings interviewed my dad, TK Herring, about the show and his memories of the events described in it - which appear to be none, he has no recollection of the whole Ascension Day burping fiasco. I stood off camera making interjections every now and then, but Collings did very well with his years of experience, bringing our stories and forcing my critical father to admit that he was proud of me, as well as to give his assessment of my past girlfriends. It's embarrassing (for me) and funny (I hope for you) and gives a lovely extra dimension to the show. My father was slightly in awe of having the film editor of the Radio Times in his house. I am not even sure he knows that Andrew is also the star of "I Love 1983". That was probably lucky.
After that we headed down to the Kings of Wessex for a brief tour of my past, where we also happened to bump into the only teacher who taught me who is still working there, Adrian "Tadger" Targett, who you may remember was interviewed on "TMWRNJ" because he turns out to be the ancestor of a 10,000 year old skellington found in Cheddar Caves. I performed the full version of "My Penis Can Sing" on the very stage that I had first performed comedy that I had written myself, in the school hall that was the scene of so many triumphs and disasters a quarter of a century ago.
And if that wasn't enough we then headed back home and I read out some more excruciating diary extracts, before we all sat down to have some Cheddar cheese and ham that my mum had kindly prepared for us. The sound man, Felix, was disproportionately excited to have eaten Cheddar in Cheddar.
But my day was not over. I then drove Collings over to the Colston Hall in Bristol where I was taking part in a big gala of local comedians including Russell Howard and Justin Lee Collins (and many, many more). I don't think I've ever played the Colston before (I thought Stew and me might have done so, but it is way too big for us to have done - I am wondering if I did it with my school brass band), but for only the second time in my career (and the first time on my own) I performed in front of 2000 people. And better still it was a local gig in a venue I had come to see the occasional gig as a teenager. It was an exhilarating moment to step on to that stage and hear that many people cheering and applauding and I had a fun 15 minutes, even daring to give them a truncated version of the Mars Bar bit, which worked surprisingly well. I do enjoy more intimate gigs, but there is something magical about surfing the wave of laughter that you can generate in a space of this size. A good joke can get four or five distinct laughs and you can hear the noise rolling around the room, almost as if the sound travels significantly slower to the back than it does to the front. Surprisingly I had hardly felt nervous before I got on and I pretty much just enjoyed myself until I had to get off. I felt a bit like Naz Osmanoglu must have felt last night playing to the biggest crowd of his career so far.
But there was no time to wallow in it. I had to meet Collings, jump in the car and head home.
Without the podcast it felt like a much longer journey home. We still talked a bit. But I still didn't listen to Collings.
It saves time in the long run.
