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My job is weird.
Today I was going up to Liverpool to work for 20 minutes. Which would give my job an amazing hourly rate if only I didn’t have to get to Liverpool (and eventually back from Liverpool). But that’s a slog of a journey at the best of times, but today (as with last time I was travelling to this city to be part of a bill) when I got to Euston everything was in chaos, hardly any trains were showing on the board and announcements were being made to advise alternative travel arrangements. Someone had thrown themselves under a train (the same as last time I’d been here, and I’d seen some comics tweeting about the same thing last week and apparently this was the second time this had happened today). As always you feel bad for the person that has been driven to this horrific course of action, whilst feeling annoyed for yourself. And then you feel bad for not having more sympathy for the person involved. What a brutal way to die. And worse still how do the drivers of these trains cope? You’d think it would be relatively easy to make the bridges and train lines inaccessible, but that would just move the problem elsewhere. Though still somewhere else where it might not impact so much on me.
I’d just walked over from Kings Cross, but I had to walk back to try and get on a train to Leicester and then on a train to Birmingham and then on a train to Liverpool. My journey time would double at least and as I wasn’t the only one to be affected by this my plans to sit down and read and work through my emails seemed in tatters. And there was the worry that if I was any more delayed then I’d miss my 20 minute window of work, not get paid and have given up two days and £100 in train fares for nothing.
Amazingly I managed to get a seat on all three trains, though it was an exhausting journey (on top of having had only four hours sleep in the last two nights), but how lovely to get an unexpected tour of the railway stations of the Midlands and it gave me more time to read Johann Hari’s already gripping book, “Lost Connections” which looks at the real causes of depression and promises unexpected solutions. He’s a fascinating man and a very good writer and I predict that it’s going to be a great RHLSTP on Monday with him (and Jan Ravens).
Do come along.
And Dave Gorman has been confirmed for the final show on 27th November (and today a big name guest said he’d do the 6th November if work allows - which means I can’t say who it is, but it’s definitely worth taking a punt). Do come and support us live if you can.
People often suggest that I tour by train, but it’s not really practical as I have too much to carry and my shows end late enough that it would be hard to get home from even relatively close venues, adding to expenses and meaning even more time away from my family. On a one off gig where I don’t need any of my stuff and I would have to stay over anyway the train makes sense, and believe me I am aware that driving is more tiring and just as vulnerable to delays, but today was not a good advert for using public transport. Mainly though it just felt surreal that I was going through all this for a 20 minute set. As I stood backstage waiting to climb the steps to perform I thought about how pointless this would all seem if I had a bad gig. Mikes Wilmot and Gunn and compere Neil Fitzmaurice (who is a brilliant actor too - you will have seen him as Jeff in Peep Show, which we’ve been re-rewatching this week) had done great sets before me and I worried that I wouldn’t be worthy to follow them, or very match fit.
Luckily it went OK. The only joke that got a weird reaction was when I mentioned gravity’s effect on the testicles. It’s not meant to be a big punchline in itself and is there for a later call back as much as anything, but it usually gets a laugh. Tonight just a weird vacuum of a silence that temporarily sucked the laughter out of the room. I realised that on a bill with acts in their fifties that someone else must have alluded to the same thing and indeed Wilmot had done a routine about the same thing. I perhaps should have commented on the mistake, but instead jumped on to the next thing. Perhaps it didn’t need to be said. We all understood. And no one minded. It was just a brief instant of mild embarrassment. Otherwise it was a lovely but brief 20 minutes of fun. And it was a welcome novelty to hang out with the other comedians during and after the show. Wilmot is one of the funniest men alive and he was in fine and loquacious form. It was hard to get a word in edgewise, but I enjoyed laughing at what he had to say. Yet another guy that I see once every seven or eight years, but we’re delighted to be reunited. And Mike Gunn is a little quieter and more considered, but nonetheless fascinating and funny too. He’d never seen me do stand up and he didn’t see me tonight either as he was dashing off to double up at another club.
We went back to the hotel and had another drink and discussed the state of comedy and avoided a group of loud young men congregating in the bar. It’s over ten years since I’ve had a fight in Liverpool and I’d like to get to twenty before the next spouse-based punch-up.
I sloped off to bed. Usually I don’t sleep well in hotels, but I was so tired tonight that I pegged out before midnight.
