I had a swim this morning, going to a different branch of the gym with the conditioner with extra ingredients, but still sniffing the shampoo before I used it. Then it was back home to load up the car with a fortnight's worth of stuff and head up the M1 to Derby.
As always, my slightly negative comments yesterday have led some of you to think that I am on the point of suicide. This is not the case and I am very happy to be doing a job I love. I was merely trying to get across one of the slightly less enjoyable elements and give you a window into the life of the working comic. Like all jobs it is less fun than you might imagine at times, but I feel very privileged to be doing it and to have people paying to see my shows.
But no one's life is as hard as mine. So go fuck yourselves.
I thought the people at the theatre in Wolverhampton had done their homework, but tonight at the Assembly Rooms in Derby (where aptly I was playing the Darwin Suite) they had pulled out all the stops and put a high-backed armchair backstage for me. It was well used and whoever normally used it for his or her depraved activities had left had odd indentation in the back (presumably from where they had strained to orgasm on to their semi-circular toilet mat). Also, rather nattily, it had a special crest on it, like it had had royal approval. Had Prince Andrew once sat in here whilst girls danced for him? Had Prince Edward watched naked cavorting men whilst pleasuring himself in comfort? Had the Queen flicked the bean whilst dwarves gyrated in front of her?
No, I shouldn't think so.
Alas the chair was unusable for me as the theatre had neglected to provide a semi-circular toilet mat, so I had to send away all the naked girls who wanted to dance for me after the show. "Just ejaculate on to the floor or into a hanky," they cried in unison.
"Do you think I am an animal?" I replied, "There must be a sense of decorum. There must be a semi-circular toilet mat to stop my seed falling on the ground."
That all really happened.
The last time I was here
I had several walk-outs plus I now remember re-reading that, a rather massive rider. Tonight there were no parsnip crisps and only a normal person's amount of sandwiches. So I don't know if the budget went on the high-backed armchair or if Derby Assembly Rooms don't like me as much as last time.
I enjoyed the show and the especially the reactions of a teenage boy on the front row, who got all the good jokes and giggled charmingly as he sat next to an attractive lady who I presumed was his mum (though she didn't look old enough). So it was fun to make inappropriate comments to her as well, leaving both of them psychologically scarred, I hope. But how cool that they can laugh together. Unless she was his girlfriend. In which case nice work son!
Unless she's your mum as well. That's just sick.
The psychological scarring continues if they both read Warming Up (which I suspect they do).
I had one of those annoying microphones which have a tripod of prongs at the bottom to keep them stable, which retract and go flat when you pick the stand up, so it's pretty much impossible to put it back down again one-handed (which I had to do as I had a mic in the other hand). I just laid the stand down on the floor, but when it came to replace the mic at the end of the first half I had to pick it up and try and get the tripod to work again. This bit of business took a few seconds and I told the audience this was my least favourite type of microphone stand. I sensed they weren't interested so carried on discussing microphone stands for too long, suggesting I was workshopping a new show "Microphone stands that I like and Microphone stands that I don't like." I said I liked them all except for this type. It was fun. For me. Which, as I understand it, is the whole point.
I didn't get any walkouts that I was aware of and the show skipped along nicely. It's a notoriously difficult room to play with its high ceiling and echoey walls, but I enjoyed it and the laughs seemed to make their way to me despite the difficult acoustics.
I was surprised to read in the interval that Kate Middleton is being driven to her wedding in the car that Charles and Camilla were in when they were poked by that stick. So not only are they using the ring of doom and leaving the ceremony in the same cursed carriage that Diana and Charles used at their wedding, but she's going to risk a journey in that car of shame. They're not worried about tempting fate are they?
