I went to a surprise birthday party this afternoon. It was a surprise for two friends one whose birthday is in August and the other whose birthday is in December. There's no better way to surprise people than to give them birthday parties when it's not their birthday. They're kind of expecting it on the actual day.
As I walked up from the tube station I began to wonder if this was all a clever ruse and said to my girlfriend, "Is this actually a special surprise party for me? You've tricked me into thinking it's one for someone else, but actually it's going to be all my friends waiting to greet me, just to let me know what a brilliant bloke I am!"
I have to say she played the part of making it look like I was being a ridiculous idiot really well, so well that I was sure I was right and readied myself to pretend to look surprised when it really happened. And my friends were playing it very cool and keeping up the pretence because when I got there everyone was making signs wishing happy birthday to Dan and Paul. I knew this was part of the trick. I played along with it.
The way that they had got rid of the (not) birthday boys was to cleverly tell them both that there was a surprise birthday planned for the other one, and that it was their job to get them out of the house whilst things were prepared. Genius. The only downside of this was when they both finally arrived they each thought the party was for the other one and turned to him smiling broadly, unaware that, in fact it was their day too. It took a while for the penny to drop. Making it possibly more of a surprise and even more discombobulating. And possibly even upsetting. I took the birthday boys champagne. I felt like congratulating them on playing their parts in my surprise party very well. They had nearly even convinced me that the party really was for them with their bemusement, when in fact we all knew that their surprise was just a ruse and soon all their friends would whip off their elaborate disguises to reveal that they were actually my friends. Then the real party could begin.
But it seemed everyone was really going to try and play this surprise for all it was worth. And I hung around for hours and still they kept up the jape and didn't remove their expensive and impressive prosthetic masks. In fact the surprise is even more sophisticated because the reveal didn't even happen today. My friends are carrying on living the lives of Dan and Paul's friends even now, waiting for the right moment to jump out at me and show that the whole thing has been a gag and it's my surprise party after all.
I've never had a surprise party so it's good that when it's finally happened that it is so convoluted.
This was still much better than the last surprise birthday I went to where my friend's wife was pretending she was just taking him out for dinner, but when they got to the venue all his friends were there. He had looked not only surprised, but a bit shell-shocked by this stunt. It was only later that I found out that he had been planning to use this intimate dinner as an opportunity to tell his wife that he had fallen in love with someone else and was leaving her. But that had to wait. There were surprises in store for everyone that year. Ah life.
Maybe my surprise would have been forthcoming, but I had to come home to do some more work on the Radio 4 show - which is progressing well. I think it's going to be a fun night on Tuesday, if you've got tickets. Or on the radio in October if you haven't.
And I am now allowed to exclusively reveal, just to you folks, that the special guest at next Sunday's already excellent Lyric Hammersmith gig is none other than David Baddiel.
So book now to see him, Miles Jupp, Nick Doody and Gary Delaney (and me).
Also don't forget Londoners that there is a live Collings and Herrin podcast on the 27th at the Bloomsbury theatre (plus some exclusive stand up from us both that won't be podcasted and a Q&A session that might be). Tickets are selling OK, but it's a big space and it'll be much better if it's full, so support us if you've been enjoying all the free output and
buy tickets here. There are also gigs coming up in Bristol (which I think is sold out) and Cardiff (which isn't yet) and hopefully we will get the chance to go further afield in the future.
