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Somehow I didn’t feel too awful today. I got the train to London and then the tube to Leicester Square and I found myself back at the Leicester Square Theatre for the first time in 18 months. This place has been my spiritual home for a decade and a half and in that time I’ve never been away from it for more than a few months. But it only felt like yesterday since I’d been here.
Even so it was awesome to be back, see the LST staff and have Chris Evans (not that one) and the rest of the filming crew there, all ready to test the streaming feed. And though it was a smallish crowd in for this weird Sunday afternoon bank holiday weekend, they were quality and the guests got a great reaction.
I met my collaborator Stevie Martin for the first time in the flesh. This was always going to be strange. We’d worked together several times over the lockdown and have a good comedy synergy, but how weird to feel to have worked on so much stuff and yet never been in the same room. She is surprisingly tall. Or maybe I am surprisingly short. Aside from that she’s the same very funny female Stevie that we all know and love. And Tessa Coates who she presents the Nobody Panic podcast with is also extremely funny. She had great stories of getting the green light for a project in America (that went awry due to forces beyond her control). They are extremely talented young writers and performers and have produced amazing work, but it takes so long to rise through the masses of talented people who attempt this job these days. I am confident these two will be big stars (and are already well on the way) and they were fabulous first guests for series 22.
I was feeling a little dizzy when standing up and was a bit frazzled from tiredness, but Dr Theatre came good. Maybe it was a mistake to close theatres during Covid times. Maybe everyone should just have put on shows and we’d all have got through this. You may call me a dreamer….
It was an utter delight, as always, to spend an hour or so in the company of the legend and powerhouse that is Barry Cryer. He’s a little frailer and deafer than the last time I saw him, but still smoking, still drinking (not this afternoon) and still fizzling with comedy energy and jokes. I got him to tell my birthday joke from this year, which went down a storm and he gave us some great anecdotes from his 60+ years in the business. He has pretty much worked with every notable comedian that you can think of from those times. And then spoken at their funerals. He is immortal and I have booked him to speak at my funeral. So delighted to have finally got him on this show (he was meant to do one a couple of years back, but had to pull out).
The whole thing lifted my jaded spirits and made me forget about failing to sleep in a bath last night. And the streaming was a big success and worked perfectly. I am not sure we’re going to sell enough streams to cover the costs (not an issue this time as we’ll cover the filming as the proceeds are going to charity) so this might not become a regular thing. But it would be nice if it did. It will really take very few people of the 7 billion on the planet to tune in to make it work.
By the way if you’re going to sign up to be a badger just to get the discount and then unsign up again it might be nice if you gave us maybe three months of patronage, as the stuff we send out to you for joining costs way more than one month’s badgering, It’d be a shame if our kindness to badgers bankrupted us! But we’re cool. I have mentioned this loophole and again charity is the winner.
I had the genius plan of booking a cab to pick me up from Stevenage train station whilst I was leaving London. Waiting times were about 40 minutes, but so was the train journey. I could step off the train, right into a cab, all on account. I could also just have stepped off the train on to a waiting cab, but sometimes they don’t take credit cards. Plus I liked the elegance of it.
It all seemed to be going perfectly as I watched the car on the app, which was ironically heading up from just a little further north. Then it made a weird detour and I thought there must be bad traffic. It seemed stuck for a while and then got on the move again. It was only when I was waiting for it to arrive that I realised it was heading for my house. The driver had somehow got the pick up and the drop off mixed up. It would have been perfect but for this mistake, but as it was I had to wait 20 minutes for the driver to get from my house back to the train station. He was very apologetic and we all make mistakes. As much as I’d like to charge the taxi company waiting time (which they would do if I’d fucked up to the same degree) I wouldn’t want to get him into trouble (even for a pretty elementary error). I got to sit outside Stevenage Cineworld in the twilight for 20 minutes so we’re all winners.
The nice thing about the afternoon show was that the adrenaline was dissipated enough for me to get to bed at 8.30pm. And now the kids were in their own bedrooms (ironically and charmingly Ernie had fallen asleep in Phoebe’s bed, so they actually slept together, which they didn’t manage at the hotel) I slept pretty solidly through the night.
When do they go back to school?
