So I am in Balham, sitting on another man's bed wearing only an undone shirt and a pair of pants with a posing pouch on the front and the man is asking me to move my leg to a different angle and the strange thing is that I am not thinking, "Wow, this is a bit weird." I'm just thinking, "OK, this is just another day in my life. I will simply get on with it." The realisation that I am not freaked out by any of this is what actually freaks me out a bit. This isn't that unusual an occurrence.
Indeed the last time this man photographed me I had even fewer clothes on. For the man is photographer Dave Tuck, who also took the photos for my Edinburgh show "Richard Herring is Fat" and to ensure the beautiful shot was not ruined by some underpants creeping into shot we agreed that it was best that I just take everything off. At the time this seemed like a good argument, but now I think about it, maybe Dave Tuck just wants to see me without my clothes on. Or maybe the fact that I was so brazen last time was one of the things that made him think that I might be up for doing the shoot today.
And I don't think he is a strange pervert who is obsessed with seeing me semi-clothed once every dozen years or so, because this photoshoot is to promote
Amnesty International and the
Secret Policeman's Ball and I am recreating the shot of David Beckham in his Armani pants. I am not sure how this really helps the cause, but it's a good one and I am happy to oblige. As I said on my arrival at the flat, "If me stripping down to my underwear releases just one political prisoner, then it's all been worth it."
It would be marvelous if some evil dictator saw the picture and said, "Look it's the bloke from one episode of early 1990s TV show Loose Talk. And he's in some pants. Like David Beckham. Ha ha. I have realised I am wrong to imprison people for having different political views to me. Let the dissidents go!"
Of course it's unlikely to happen, but luckily the bloke from Bo Selecta and Paddy McGuinness are also doing it, so it's almost guaranteed to work.
Clearly I don't really mind showing off my body, though I do so out of a sense of how ridiculous it is, rather than any kind of vanity. But I have appeared completely naked on stage and on TV and chances are if you're a fan of my work you have already seen my bum, if not my actual genitals, so seeing me in pants (however brief) is going to be nothing new to you.
I was thinking about that today and how when I saw Life of Brian I couldn't believe that Graham Chapman did the scene where he opened his shutters in the nude and gave everyone a two second display of his penis. I thought he must be insane or weird. How could he do such a thing? Wouldn't he die of embarrassment? Sadly he did die all too soon, but I don't think embarrassment was something he ever suffered from. Weird that I was so self conscious as a teenager, because only a few years previously I had been more than happy to walk round the house naked, at pretty much any time of the day, regardless of who was around. Cute perhaps when I was 4, but when I was 12? Which I think I was.
But now, as an adult and a comedian myself, I have lost the temporary self-consciousness and can appreciate the humour and hilarity of a fat man falling out of a bath and showing his arse, or a drunken archaeologist attempting to seduce a younger woman by stripping off naked and attempting coitus with a skellington. Or a tubby old man parodying the arrogant pose of a multi-millionaire footballer. I have little to no shame.
I should have been embarrassed by the Armani pants (in the photo the logo on the waist strap will be replaced with the word Amnesty) as they are an unpleasant design where the genitals are cupped forwards in a little pouch. It was suggested that I added some cotton wool padding, not as any detrimental comment on the size of my package, but because, they had realised, that without anything extra in the pouch the public would be given a rather graphic illustration of the outline of the wearer's genitals. If I had had any doubt that Beckham's own lunchbox had been artificially enhanced it was now dismissed.
The shoot was over fairly quickly. I will doubtless post the photos for your delectation and/or disgust when I have them. Unless it all turns out to be a sophisticated con and Dave Tuck has sold them to some specialist website already.
It was nice to be back in Balham and I went for a coffee and then looked round the posho shops (it's changed since I lived here). In Smiths I saw two things that amused me. Firstly I discovered that there was a biography of Fearne Cotton available to buy. Now no offence to Fearne, who seems like a perfectly nice person, but has she really done enough in her life to warrant a biography? She can only be about 25 at most and as far as I know hasn't really had any kind of scandal in her life (which might justify in some part the slightly ludicrous books about Jade Goody or Kerry Katona). She is just a nice girl who has presented some radio and TV shows and surely hasn't done enough to justify a whole book about her life. Maybe it would be something that teenage girls would like, but it's hardback and costs about £18. It's clearly aimed at an adult market. It made me despair.
But I enjoyed how the staff of Smiths had chosen to categorise their magazines. Under the heading "Gay" where you might expect magazines about homosexual lifestyle like (I wouldn't know what they are called, obviously) "Gay, Today" or "What a Gay Day" or "Bumming Monthly" (I apologise for this. If only there were some way to go back and edit those out), instead there are loads of magazine about interior decoration. So it no longer looks like a sign describing the magazines, so much as someone's opinion about anyone interested in such a hobby. Interiors are gay. According to the staff of Smiths in Balham. I can make no comment. I hate the childish use of phrases regarding homosexuality.
