I was back at
The Old Fire Station in Oxford for the second time in as many months. Later on I would be gigging at the Free Beer Show, but this afternoon I had agreed to come in and meet some of the students in this year's Oxford Revue, listen to some of their sketches and offer them some advice. My old Oxford Revue colleague TV's Emma Kennedy came along to chuck in her two pence worth. I think she is over valuing herself.
The students weren't a bad bunch and their sketches showed some promise, but it was a little sobering to be reminded of those days twenty years ago when Emma, Stew and me were in the same position, writing and putting together out first Edinburgh show. One of the girls who was at the workshop had not been born the first time we did the Edinburgh Fringe, though I was relieved to work out that everyone in the room had been alive when Emma and me were in the Oxford Revue in 1988. The girl might only have been 3 months old, but she was alive and out of her mother and that is all that counts to me. It officially means I am not old and decrepid.
We had a such hard year in Edinburgh in 88 that it was enough to pretty much put Emma off becoming an actor and comedian and seriously dented my confidence as a performer, leading to my mistrust of the medium of stand-up. It would take Emma seven years to return to the profession that she was surely born for (as she is useless at doing anything else and merely competent at writing and performing). To see these young faces so full of hope and dreams was slightly depressing. Soon their hearts will be run through a mangle and their dreams sucked up by the gigantic dream Hoover and buried in the landfill of broken aspirations.
My main note to them all was to keep their sketches as brief as possible, aware that they were going to come and see me tonight talking about a potato for twenty minutes and old people on a bonfire saying pretty much nothing for even longer. But you have to learn the rules before you can break them.
Hopefully we helped them a little bit overall. By which I mean I pray that my correct advise was strong enough to outweigh all the poor advice that Emma gave them.
It was nice to have a friend along for the gig. Emma had promised to act as a kind of unevil Myra Hyndley for me and entice beautiful women in the audience to come back to our hotel bar for my delectation. But she signally failed to do any such thing, though she came close to getting a couple of comedy nerd boys to come back with us. I can manage that on my own, thanks very much Emma. You are useless!
We had a nice drink together though, and Emma got to experience first hand the ennui of touring. It was better having someone to share this with. Emma isn't really getting any work at the moment apparently and I think was trying to pitch herself for the position of my tour manager next year. But to be honest I need someone more adept at enticing women to the hotel. So don't tell her, but that's another job she won't be getting.
We headed off to our separate rooms, but anyone in the bar might have assumed we were together. I was recently in the spotted section of Heat and just hoped and prayed that no-one had seen us leaving the bar together. Otherwise I might be in Heat again, ironically enough being spotted with the woman who used to advertise Heat, before the people at Heat realised she wasn't really very good at the job and got someone else to do it instead. I don't want that kind of gossip getting out into the real world. In a magazine which is read by people who largely will have no idea who I am.
