I felt more at ease with my Toothbrush Moustache today. In fact for large periods of time I forgot it was there. And it doesn't seem to be having affect on other people as yet. They either don't see or don't care and I've been allowed to go about my day unimpeded, though occasionally feeling like a bit of a dick.
Collings came round in the afternoon to record
Podcast 62. I was a bit tired and not on top form, though I often end up feeling the casts are a bit rubbish, but then when I hear bits back later they make me laugh. So who knows? It's all right for you lot. If you start finding these things boring you can take a couple of weeks off, or just listen to the first 30 minutes, but I'm stuck in them having to do 66 minutes every bloody week. I can not escape.
I couldn't bear to see Collings crushed little face if I told him I wanted to take a week off. He is an obsessive - the kind of person who would write a blog every single day for six and a half years and never take a day off. I feel sorry for him, that's all there is to it.
After the podcast we got the tube across London together for another date - I've realised that if you are trying to bum someone it's probably best to try and court them a little bit, before just blurting out your intentions. Gain their trust, make them think you like them, do nice things for them and then, when they are totally tricked, then the bumming can take place. So I'd invited him to come and see Al Murray at the O2 arena with me.
I've never seen anything in the main arena and it was astonishing to see 14,000 or so people all in one room to see one comedian. It was made all the more astonishing by the fact that I have known Al for over 20 years. The first time I saw him he was 19 and had a full head of hair and was carrying his drums into the Teddy Hall Music Room, where I was rehearsing sketches with the Seven Raymonds (our University comedy troupe including Stewart Lee and Emma Kennedy). Who'd have thunk that this lanky, shaggy haired ex public schoolboy would become such a successful and populist comedian that he could play to so many people at once? It was another example of a contemporary doing significantly better than me, but I wasn't jealous about this (I don't think I'd really like to play the O2 arena, which is lucky because I never will - not in my own right anyway). I was proud of him.
Back then we wouldn't have believed that any of us would be going on to success in this career that we all wanted to embark on, so we'd have been astonished and delighted if we could have looked into the future and seen Al up on that stage and Armando directing his movie and Stew doing his TV show and Emma reading out her book in front of Janet Ellis and me up in an attic with a bloke who had appeared on "I Love 1983" swearing into a computer.
Ah well you can't have everything.
It's a massive achievement for Al. Well done to him.
Meanwhile I was sitting amongst a lot of Al Murray fans with a Hitler moustache, which might, to his critics at least, might be appear one of his greatest fans. Some people claim his audience love the Landlord on an unironic level, and whilst I think this rather a patronising attitude - people seem to be saying it's impossible for ordinary people to understand satire and irony - there were a couple of points where it was hard to argue that the laughter wasn't supportive. I didn't like a bit where Al did an impression of an Indian in a call centre, which the audience cheered and applauded and there seemed little irony on display on either side. But there's still plenty of smart and scathing satire and intelligent ideas - perhaps not as many as there were ten years ago, but then he is a comedian playing in a different environment. His five minute mime, with absolutely no words delivered, would be seen as dangerous and groundbreaking if some trendier comedians did it and Al is still the master of audience interaction.
Also of course Al did a rather controversial Hitler sketch on his show. So if anyone had looked twice at me tonight, they might have assumed this was some kind of homage.
Interesting that the friends who met me who knew what I was doing found the moustache funny, but others, who didn't, mainly didn't like to comment on it, in case I thought I was looking good.
It's a strange thing to be doing, but I didn't feel as nauseous as I did yesterday. But I am more convinced that it will prove to be a bit of a damp squib in terms of producing material for the show. But we'll see.
Seig Heil Al Murray.
