Made it to Cheltenham in one piece and returned to the aptly named Pillar Room at the Town Hall, where a few unfortunates end up positioned behind the massive stone pillars unable to see very much of what is going on. I tried to keep moving around to give everyone a glimpse of my handsome though increasingly podgy form. Even my additional girth provided by the comfort eating of Easter eggs and Nando's did not make me visible to everyone.
Due to a breakdown in communication (or rather the person I told not really listening properly) the post-show moustaches were given out at the start of the show, which meant as I looked out over the crowd, a good 30% of them stared back at me with Hitler moustaches. Some under their noses, though the occasional wag had stuck one under their mouth or on the side of their head.
It wasn't a disaster to have the moustaches out early and it had been something I had considered doing in the past, but discounted for fear of it being disruptive or more worryingly because people would lose them.
The other noticeable thing looking out at my well lit audience was that it was an odd mixture of gormless men who would not have looked out of place in "Carry On Screaming" but an almost equal number of attractive women who also wouldn't have looked out of place in "Carry on Screaming". It's not unusual to see a large amount of unconventional men in my audiences and there are usually plenty of women in too, but the men of Cheltenham seemed more freakish and the women more attractive than usual. Does this say something about the town? It should be noted that the women were generally speaking not with the freakish men (and by no means did the whole audience fall into this demographic), so it felt cool to be attracting these two different types of audience, who would usually never meet (the men would doubtless spend a lot of time staring through the windows of the women, but they would only meet if they were seen skulking there in the dark and the case proceeded to court).
I had felt very tired beforehand, but was surprised to find I had plenty of energy on stage and it was another enjoyable performance. Cheltenham is a town that I have consistently visited on pretty much all my tours and I've been in this same room for at least the last three occasions, and though there might have been a slight increase in numbers this year, it wasn't a significant amount. Most places I keep going back to I get a noticeable increase, but in Cheltenham, so far, there is no danger of me being moved into the 1000 seater main hall (though I think I might have done Talking Cock in there, to a much smaller audience than I had tonight). Perhaps there is an unspoken by law where only men under a certain level of attractiveness and women over a certain level of beauty are allowed to attend my shows. Or maybe each year the strange men kill the attractive women and make suits out of their skin. I would be astonished if it turned out that none of the men in that crowd had ever attempted such a thing.
Anyway, perhaps the Cheltenham crowd is not growing because of such rudeness and to be fair, apart from the scariest looking man who just stared at me, boggle-eyed from the middle of the room who I genuinely thought might stab me through the eye with a knitting needle at any moment, they were an excellent crowd.
And seeing that sea of Cheltenham Hitlers has reminded me that I keep meaning to say that I am hoping that people will make an effort to make Charlie Chaplin's birthday, the 16th April, a day for democracy and will join me for 24 hours in sporting a toothbrush moustache.
Do start spreading the word and making plans to celebrate this idea. I want it to spread organically and I don't want to make it look like a cynical attempt to publicise the show, because it really isn't that, so will only be promoting the idea via the show and this website and maybe Twitter and Facebook. The idea for anyone who hasn't seen the show that is we reclaim the symbol of the toothbrush moustache and make it stand for anti-fascism and pro-democracy and use the day to spread a reminder of the importance of using your vote (and what can happen if you don't - cf the recent BNP successes).
So I would love it if you would join in with that and find creative and interesting ways to spread the word. If you're going to do it then it might be worth putting up some posters at work or your college or whatever so you're not the only person doing it. And be interesting to see how much we can get done through grassroots promotion of the idea. I'd feel we'd achieved success if we could get 10,000 people in the UK (though you're welcome to do this wherever you are) wearing a toothbrush moustache (or shaving down to one) for the day. It might be less than this the first time, but it's something I am going to keep promoting even once my own toothbrush moustache is swirling down the drain. I have a feeling a lot of you want to get involved with this, so please don't feel self-conscious or silly and let's spend a day remembering why our right to vote is a good thing as well as showing our opposition to the unBritish BNP. Spread the message by whatever means you have at your disposal. You have just over a month to prepare. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us unite.
