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Another appearance on the surreal Sunday morning Channel 4 show, “Sunday Brunch” today. I am always so tired when doing this that it feels like it might be an odd dream where disparate celebrities have been brought together for weird, light chat and delicious food. I am never convinced that these things make much difference for PR (I didn’t notice any upsurge in ticket sales for tonight’s gig as a result), but I get to eat some nice food and consider doing something very inappropriate on live TV, before deciding against it.
I felt it was quite a subdued performance from me today, but I was very happy to tuck into the food and drink - the fried chicken and American whiskey segments being my preferred bits. I got to sit next to Charlene Spiteri, who is almost the same age as me, but still looking the same as she ever did and who turns out to be a very funny and sweary Glaswegian. Tinie Tempah was also on the show and he is an unfeasibly handsome, but also incredibly charming man. He turned up with an 11 week old bulldog called Pablo and a smiley entourage, who greeted everyone they saw with genuine enthusiasm. I do envy that ability to be effortlessly sociable. I always feel too self-conscious to introduce myself to strangers, even in this kind of situation.
I got mildly merry and was stuffed with food and to be honest that’s all I wanted from the experience. I managed to slice mango without cutting myself, even when I teased Tim Lovejoy by looking at his scared face rather than at what I was doing.
I then had lunch with my-laws, to ensure that I was stuffed to the gills and would need no dinner today. Unsurprisingly I fell asleep on the drive to Brighton. And then needed to have a lie down on the sofa in the dressing room. The Theatre Royal Brighton was the setting for the most successful Lee and Herring gig ever (I thought we’d sold 800, but the theatre only seats 600 or so) and this is the first time I’ve played there in about 20 years. I had insisted on trying for a bigger venue in this town, as I usually two gigs here and sell around about 500 tickets so thought that I might do well. But sales were just over 200, which was fine, but a little disappointing.
Still it was nice to be in this historical theatre, the dressing room decorated with playbills from the 19th Century and the 1940s (one advertising a play called “The Jealous Wife” and the other including one called “The Naughty Wife” - so things don’t change much. The ancient looking loo was down a little corridor and I wondered what famous arses had sat on that porcelain. If anyone from the 22nd Century is researching this subject, just to let you know, my arse sat on that toilet.
Old playbills are fascinating to me, as I love the way they indicate the largely ephemeral nature of fame. Most of the names up there meant nothing to me, though Margot Fontayne had danced here in the 1940s, so occasionally stars shine on.
The show went well as I walked in the footsteps of giants, both remembered and forgotten. The stage had a little squeak in the middle as I walked around. I wondered if Fontayne had noticed that.
After the show I had another slightly weird punter at the signing table. She said, “Can I whisper something to you?” and I said OK. She leant in and then rasped in a whisper that was louder than her speaking voice, something along the lines of “If you had spent as much time donating sperm as you had wasting sperm you’d be a much better person.” Whatever it was didn’t really make sense, though clearly referenced the end of the show where I discuss the lost billions of people who never lived due to the wastage of semen. But what she meant by donating it - to whom? A sperm bank? To her herself? I didn’t know. I think she was saying I shouldn’t have wanked as much as I had. But the admin involved in ensuring every sperm that I had produced had become a person would be exhausting. She walked off without elaborating. I think she was an annoyed Christian. Or maybe she was an artist who made sculptures out of frozen spunk. We will never know.
I had sobered up for the show, though I did feel like I was fluffing things ever so slightly. Not so that anyone else would really notice, but I want to keep my delivery as precise as possible, which can be tricky in places, given the speed at which I perform. And it just got a bit fluffy round the edges. I think it was tiredness rather than the effects of alcohol, but I can’t believe I used to perform quite regularly with a couple of drinks in my stomach and one in my hand.
A few days off from the tour now before the historic gig with Me1 vs Me2 snooker in the interval at the Reading Hexagon.
Don’t miss it.
