It was another all day writing extravaganza and another day of wondering if I could possibly pull it off this time. The complicated arguments required for these Objective shows make them much harder to complete than AIOTM (aiotm) and the grinding of my brain and stomach was only exacerbated by the fact that I knew that this was the last one, whatever happened we'd be recording it tomorrow, so this was nearly over. Alexei Sayle is the guest this week. He is one of my comedy heroes (both as a stand up and as one of the main characters in the TV programme that meant most to the 14 year old me - The Young Ones) and it made me nervous to think of him sitting through the show and thinking it was crap. And to be surrounded by a couple of hundred people thinking the same and then a few thousand at home feeling disappointed. These pressures can get to a man.
When I came up with the idea for this show I thought it would centre around my own experience as a member of the Oxford Revue of experiencing the prejudice directed towards public school kids when I wasn't even actually one myself. As well as the irony of being lambasted my comedians who had built their careers on ideas of treating everyone as equal, knocking down stereotypes and not judging people by their background. And though I have managed to put it quite succintly there I found it impossible to do so in the script. I spent hours on it and it always came out sounding wrong or took too long to explain or just looked bitter or unfunny. I might have a go at just discussing the incident ad lib with Emma (who was there) or Alexei, but funny how the whole direction of something can change at this late stage.
My day was complicated by the fact that I had to go to a friend's birthday dinner at 8.30, right on the other side of town near the Tower of London. I had hoped to get my work done in time, but of course I was miles off. It added an extra stress/excitement to the day. I could have just cried off at the last minute, but this lack of organisation was my fault and I figured that a break might help me in the long run, even if it meant working into the night.
Dinner was over relatively quickly - it was a barbecue place and we shared a massive plate of meat, with a tiny bit of coleslaw to give us some veg. It was very nice, but in the middle of this slightly surreal mindfuck of a day a belly full of five different kinds of animal was maybe not what the doctor would have ordered. Or maybe I would ingest the comedy abilities of a cow, a pig, a chicken, a lamb and an unidentified beast (possibly human). I hopped in a cab, which proceeded to get stuck in a traffic jam - the comedy gods were wanting to ensure my complete humiliation in front of my comedy hero tomorrow (if he brings Rik Mayall and Michael Palin along as his guests the punishment will be complete). The meter ticked over £40 in the end, but the cab driver rather kindly offered to knock £5 off, because he didn't think I should pay for the roadworks screwing stuff up. What a nice man.
But I got home to find that next door was having a loud Halloween party in the garden, which seemed to go on all night. It was going to be distracting for work and for sleep, but I had to try and ignore the shouting drunks. I kept working until 2am, when in a bit of good luck the comedy gods decided to turn back time and give me another hour. It was rather magical seeing it go from 1.59 to 1.00 on my phone. I gave a little prayer hoping that they could knock a couple more hours off, but it didn't seem to work. By now the script was close enough that I could fill in the gaps in the morning. Women shouting in the street did their best to stop me sleeping, but I did my best to ignore them.
I had been through a horror more terrible than anything they could make through artifice with black lace and fake blood. My girlfriend told me that when she'd been in the pub and everyone was dressed in Halloween clothes there was someone dressed as Jimmy Savile, who hadn't even been dead for a day. I admired the topicality, but wondered if that person had had the costume and then had to murder Jimmy Savile to make it relevant. Or maybe he thought Savile creepy and horrifying enough to be his costume choice anyway and this was just all a wonderful coincidence.
RIP Jim'll.
