It's indicative of my current workload that a five hour drive to Manchester followed by a 90 minute gig felt like a bit of a holiday. There aren't many venues that far away that I would be prepared to spend two days driving to and from, but the Frog and Bucket is one of my favourites and they've been very good to me there over the last six years and the audience there is fantastic. It's always one of the highlight gigs of any tour. The truth is that I could now play a bigger venue in Manchester (this gig has been sold out for quite a while), but I am loathe to move on a gear in case the next venue up isn't as much fun. I will be back here in March as part of the tour proper, so book ahead Mancunians! (Quite a few gigs in the vicinity though if you miss out).
I was very much looking forward to shaving the moustache off again. It's only been a few days this time and I have really had difficulty remembering it's even there, but every now and again I catch someone staring or sniggering at me and think "What's your problem?" before then thinking, "Ah yes, of course." As I shaved it off in the hotel afterwards (though I used clippers to get it down, so a faint shadow of the tache remains as it is ever so slightly less trimmed than the rest of my facial hair) I thought it would be typical if Question Time got in touch right now, as some people had suggested they should, to have me on the panel next to Nick Griffin. Probably lucky they didn't as I don't think I could have resisted the temptation to tell him to "fuck off back to Africa where he belongs" (that will make sense if you've seen the show).
Tonight was the first time I would be doing the show as two halves and so I had the opportunity to add in some stuff from the previews that I had dropped. It was a stretch to remember some of the bits, but then I am also struggling a little bit to recall all the stuff that was in the Edinburgh show. I realised that I left out one of the punchlines to the phone theft story in both Brighton and Manchester. When I got to the point in the story I felt like there was something that was supposed to be there, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Luckily my girlfriend noticed it was missing and reminded me of what it was. And she's only seen the show about 3 times and I've done it 70 times. How is it possible to forget something like that so quickly, when my brain seems capable of remembering hours and hours of material some of it from years ago.
I perhaps rushed the first half a little and even with the additional bits it only came in at about 40 minutes, but I managed to ad-lib a great end line to the half, which I am sure I will use in the future, creating some faux suspense which is then immediately broken in the 2nd half. It was interesting to have the break as the 1st half is all quite jolly and fun, whilst the second now begins with me basically berating the audience and calling them cunts. I can't quite work out if this is brilliant or terrible and maybe I need a bit of 2nd half banter before I get back into it. But I suppose it's quite a theatrical and jolting return to the show for the audience. I had been a bit nervous in the first half and concentrating on remembering the script, but the second half was much more assured and was one of the best performances yet of that material. Without coming across like
Peter Kay it really is an exciting show to be performing and the reactions from the crowd and the comments afterwards were very positive.
Aside from the traveling I am very much looking forward to touring this show. All the confirmed gigs are
in the gig guide. All 2010 shows (apart from the Lyric Hammersmith) are Hitler Moustache shows. A couple more venues should be added, but if your town isn't represented don't blame me. Get in touch with your local theatre and complain to them about it.
It's going to be nice to put Hitler (and the moustache) to bed til January. Though God knows how much of it will have slipped my mind by then.
