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I do not understand how, but I felt largely OK this morning, despite lack of sleep and espresso nibs and the red wine and whisky I had foolishly ingested with dinner. I did start to flag a little bit by the second RHLSTP podcast, but then that got unexpectedly dramatic and woke me up.
We had a small, but seemingly jolly audience in to see Aisling Bea and Ray Peacock and all was ticking along nicely. Aisling is a charming and witty woman and we got a nice mixture of philosophy, stories and general stupidity (I particularly enjoyed her correct reluctance to listen to a story that involved me having sex while an Enya song was playing). She’s another inspirational comedian/writer/actor who demonstrates that whilst you need to be talented, drive and hard work are enormously important. She’s already doing very well, but she’s sure to be a huge star.
Ray Peacock and I have a long history of rivalry and winding each other up (though I think we secretly like each other a lot - at least I hope he does, as I have now revealed that I do and I he could use that against me). He’s a massive man child (it’s one very important step away from being a baby man), brash and silly, but I know he’s a sensitive person underneath this and he’s had some serious run-ins with depression.
Things took a strange turn when he reasonably asked a couple of women in the front row to stop talking during the podcast. They had been joining in in a fun way in the first podcast, but had been having a drink or two and had reached the point, that will be familiar to comedians, where they didn’t seem to realise that their whispered comments and conversation was actually loud enough to create a disturbance for the people around them (and the people on stage). When picked up on this they started accusing Ray of having been sexist and offensive during the podcast, which came a bit from the left field as nobody else could really think of an instance where he’d been either of those things. I had pushed things a bit far at times, but Ray had largely critiqued me for my childishness. Their insistence that he had been offensive, when in reality he had just reasonably asked them to stop talking at a show as it was annoying other people (something quickly and vehemently confirmed by a woman sitting behind them) was as amusing as it was inexplicable, mainly because in this instance the whole show had been recorded and people listening at home would be bamboozled as anyone. I sat back and allowed this car crash to happen, partly because I knew it would be interesting to see where it went but mainly because Ray was doing a good job of expressing his frustration. I knew the women in the audience weren’t bad people and that they’d mainly been trying to join in, but they were in the wrong on this (both in their accusations and the fact that they were creating a disturbance). But it led us on to talking about why Ray now wanted to cut back on stand up and how this sort of thing often happens to him (I think because he correctly feels that if someone is acting up in the audience the comic owes it to the rest of the crowd to call them out on their rudeness) and from there it developed into a revealing and fascinating discussion of depression and the dark (and funny) places that has taken him.
Usually it’s the last podcast of the series where things take a weird turn, but there was a really electric atmosphere in the theatre and nearly all the audience (apart from 2) were behind Ray. And within it were a couple of genuinely hilarious moments that might have been scripted but weren’t, one being when an enthusiastic podcast fan mistook the word “rehearsal†of RHLSTP and shouted out the traditional response.
It won’t be out til February, but it’s going to be well worth a listen, as much as for its glimpse into the should of the comedian as for the way that people can perceive exactly the same events in totally different ways and the arbitrary nature of offence. It was a very unusual thing to happen at a podcast, where generally the audience is aware that we say stupidly contentious things (not that Ray had as far as I recall) and where I am often needlessly insulting to the front row. But there we go. In the end I think it made the podcast into something extra special. I don’t think many people consider the psychological impact of such situations on the comedian themselves, but this podcast should give you some idea.
One more show this year with the excellent line-up of Richard Bacon and Cariad Lloyd. Come along and experience this whirlwind as it’s happening .
