A really fun way to end this tough month of touring and this relatively quieter week, with a Colchester Arts Centre, an ex church, full of 300 people on Good Friday Eve. If God didn't kill me tonight then He never would. If I could just get home alive, I figured I would be immortal. But best no get complacent. After all God let John Lennon walk around for 14 years after saying he was more famous than Jesus, before sending a mentally ill man to kill him. God is tricksy and a bit strange and doesn't seem too concerned about Mark Chapman ending up in jail as a result of the beef that God had with Lennon. But maybe Mark Chapman had mocked God at some point. Probably.
I had been very tired today, having woken up at 5.30am and been unable to get back to sleep, yet somehow the momentum of being on my final show before a 5 day break (and a 3 night mini-holiday) kept me going and the roar of the crowd lifted me to one of the more enjoyable and inventive performances for a while. And God let me live. For now. Though you never know when he is waiting round the next corner.
Indeed after the letter I saw from a Christian with a poor grasp of grammar, composition or syntax that might be sooner than I think. I think he was just threatneing me and the staff of one of the theatres I was performing at with eternal damnation, but to be honest it could be read as a more immediate and less imaginary threat. So for all those people who say that comedians wouldn't mock Islam for fear of the repercussions a) go to see some comedy, it happens quite a lot and b) there are as many funda-mentalist Christians capable of harming someone over a show they haven't even seen. I am not too worried about any of this (Stew and me had proper death threats back as early as the first series of Fist of Fun - a rather chilling voice message in which a man said he would blow up the BBC if the next episode of the show was broadcast - you can't allow it to alter what you are doing and the chances of anything really happening are not massive) but I feel fortunate to live in a country where we have free speech and we're all allowed to believe what we want and express it how we wish and I think it's important not to allow bullying and intimidation and ignornace to stop that. I am just as likely to be killed by an aggrieved member of the British Knitting Association as anyone else. There is no guessing what will upset people. Especially if they are going to get angry about a show they haven't seen.
I didn't want to try and use the protests for publicity, but I am getting so fed up with the people who are doing them that I might try to use them as an encouragement for people to come along, both to be entertained by the crazy comedy characters in my unpaid support act and to try and preserve freedom of expression. As it stands Lowestoft is going to be a very poorly attended gig anyway. So if you feel like a day out in East Anglia then you know where to come. I had better try and organise some protestors in Inverness and Dundee as well, because ticket sales are poor there too. Hopefully God will provide.
Like Jesus I get to take a few days off this weekend and will be quiet and probably making an image of myself in my shroud with whatever fluids come to hand. But I will be back next week.
These protestors had better watch out because I think there is an outside chance that I am actually Jesus returned as possible and they're really going to get in my bad books if they piss me off. They are going to burn for all eternity in Hell. Does that sound like a threat? I think as long as its couched in religious imagery this stuff is fine.
Have a happy Easter everyone and try to remember the real message of Jesus, who if you bother to see my show, you'll know was a terrific guy with a lot of good ideas about how we should try and get on better. Now if only he'd thought to get someone to write it all down in a book so people would have a guide to live their lives by.
