4872/17792
I did a try out for a new panel show in a little room above a pub tonight. It was just a chance to show the format to TV commissioners and I’d been asked to sit on the panel. I might not be able to get on TV, but TV executives sometimes have to look at me on stage. So they can’t escape me. Obviously when it gets on telly they will have one of the proper panel show men on, but it’s nice to imagine for a night that I am David Mitchell’s shadow.
It was actually a rather neat and classy idea for a panel show, focusing on the arts, making it accessible without talking down. There was a classical pianist and an art expert on the show and they made the subjects come alive, as I attempted to slip in the occasional gag about gametes. If I was a TV executive this would be a definite commission x 12 for me. But I am not a TV executive and that’s why hardly any good stuff gets on TV because only I know what is good.
Although we weren’t being paid much to turn up (beyond the dangling carrot of possibly being on the show if it aired) we did get a free Nandos before the recording, so Richard Herring 1 TV 0, and as I was sitting in the dressing room for a while waiting for it to start I had drunk a couple of bottles of water. That’s one of the disadvantages of not being a twot and insisting on Extra hot - you do have to take on more liquid. This is always one of the dangers of the panel show. They lay on free stuff, you drink too much coffee and coke before the show and then the recording turns into a feat of endurance as your bladder blows up and threatens to explode.
So I wasn’t going to make that mistake this time and waited until just before the show started to go to the loo. Take that, my self-harming bladder.
Except the loo was in the dressing room that we were all sharing and it was a bit embarrassing trying to go and though I did a wee, it was maybe cut short by the shame of potentially being heard by my fellow contestants. I didn’t want to relax so much that I added a fart into the mix of what might be heard by the people I was working with. Or it might be that case that I just broke the seal. Because once I was on stage I needed to go to the toilet almost straight away. I was in quite a bit of discomfort and also it was extremely hot in the tiny,but packed venue. I felt a bit faint. I felt a bit like I was wilting. Or about to be sick. It was quite hard to concentrate on the really tricky quiz. But could I get up and leave to cool down and empty my busting bladder? It wasn’t a proper telly show, but then again there were important people in and I didn’t want to let down the team and create a weird atmosphere. But then again if I wasn’t able to perform to the best of my abilities that would be sabotage too. Could I just say I needed fresh air for a minute and sneak out whilst the other team were fielding a question?
I decided not, though it did come very close. I removed my jumper halfway through and cooled down a bit and things weren’t quite as desperate. When there’s an hour looming ahead of you and you need a wee, your body will do all it can to persuade you to get out. But when you only have ten minutes left, it’s somehow not as bad. The show ended, I managed to say a couple of funny things in spite of the distraction (as well as knowing one obscure art fact) and then I headed to the loo.
But again everyone else came into the dressing room, including the executives and I was so desperate for the loo that I now couldn’t go, like my body had solved the problem by turning my liquid into gel. I haven’t been in so much pain from this condition since we were coming back from safari in 2006 and I needed a wee pretty much as soon as the car left on the journey of many hours and was too embarrassed to ask the driver to pull over so I could wee in the wild. After two hours we stopped at a rest stop, but when I got to the loo I had worked myself up into such a state that I couldn’t go at all. And everyone was waiting fro me, angry at the delay, which just made it harder to go. I assumed I had broken something by holding it for too long. I had to get back in the car with a full bladder and go on for another two hours. It was the worst thing ever. Though I note I chose not to write about this Hell at the time
The mental scars and shame were clearly too deep the next day for me to admit what had happened. It was one of the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Which shows, I guess what a lucky life I've had.
Tonight the wee came a lot more easily, though it was still strange to come back into a conversation with the executives who all shook my hand, not knowing that the washbasin in the dressing room was round the corner and so I hadn’t had a chance to clean up. Not that I had weed all over my hands (if I’d known I was going to shake some executive hands I would have done obviously) but still.
I hope they don’t read this and turn down the series because of the mild wee peril they unknowingly encountered.
I wonder why I am not on the telly.
