Warming Up

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Off to Tring tonight for my first Tring Festival gig since 2013. I have been back to the theatre a couple of times since, but am surprised it’s so long since I previewed here. It was a pretty packed auditorium of 200 or so people, so a real test of the new material. I managed to get through an hour fairly comfortably and didn’t have to refer to my notes very much at all. 

I had arrived whilst the previous act, Flo and Joan were on. They were wowing the crowd with a well rehearsed and complete show including intricate songs with beautiful harmonies. I worried my ragbag load of nonsense might be shown up after such professionalism, but perhaps the ragbag nature of my stuff is what make me endearing.

I had parked up my car to load up my stuff through an open fire door. A member of theatre staff came to ask me who I was and that I couldn’t park there. I told her I was me and that I was going to move the car. She said there was a space for me round the back. So I drove round the back to find there wasn’t a space for me. The lady suggested that I park in the disabled parking spot, but I wasn’t too keen not that. "Everyone’s here now,” she said, “So it will be fine.” She sensed I was uncomfortable with that, “Are you uncomfortable with that?” she asked.

“Yes, a bit. I do a lot of work with Scope. But anyway, you know, you’re not meant to do that.”

She managed to find me an unofficial space that still left access for the emergency services, so I hadn’t transgressed any moral boundaries. Off stage at least.

Again post show analysis of the gig seemed pretty good from the audience members I talked to. I feel it’s about 40% of the way there personally, but there’s a good three weeks of previews to sort out the issues I have and to make the structure sound and add in a few more jokes.

I got home, a bit too buzzy from the gig and the drive to go straight to sleep, so watched a disgusting Piers Morgan talking to Nigel Havers, basically just licking his lips and saying “Did you fuck her?” every time the name of an attractive woman came up. Then I marvelled once again at the fact that there’s TV shows which are just a chance to gamble on roulette. Without these shows I would never have written the sketch that led to the use of the AIOTM roulette wheel sound effect, but I don’t think that is enough of a benefit to make up for having to live in a world where a major TV channel turns into a gambling website for several hours each night. I assume the people who work on the shows justify it to themselves somehow. But there is no justification.

I stayed up much too late, playing roulette on my Twitter feed (just punting pretend money and saying what number I was going for). I kept backing number 17 and then it was revealed as the coldest number on the wheel, having not come up for something like 280 spins. I thought I couldn’t go to bed until it came up. But when it eventually did I actually missed it.

The show seemed concerned that the game was just for fun and people should only bet what they could afford, but they weren’t fooling anyone. They offered possibly the worst deal to new players that I have ever seen in which they offered to double your initial deposit up to £200. But you had to gamble both your stake money and the bonus money 25 times before you were allowed to withdraw any winnings. Which would mean betting £10,000 if you’d gone for the £200 option, before you could take out your winnings. I am no mathematician, but I think the chances of you taking any money out with those kind of conditions is very slim. And though I’d hesitate to call it criminal, it certainly is morally questionable. It sounds like a good deal and it would be if you could take your money back after gambling it once. But it’s mathematically speaking just a way to more or less guarantee that 24/7 Jackpot company get your money. Which seems unfair given that the game is weighted in their favour already.

I felt a chump playing along for no money. There’s something very tragic about it. And wrong. But there’s so much that is wrong in the world at the moment, that a TV station dedicating it’s early morning output to taking money from insomniacs is maybe not too high up the list.

RHLSTP with Adam Buxton is now up on video here

And on audio here and on iTunes.

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