The mini autumn tour continues and this afternoon I drove off to Bristol for a two night engagement at the Comedy Box. Every time I do the show I am remembering a bit or two that had slipped my mind. It's like a moon that has been blasted apart in some kind of massive asteroid collision, but slowly as the eons pass find gravity pulling it back together, with some new bits added and some bits inexplicably in totally the wrong place. OK, it's not very much like that. But I was astonished tonight to realise that I had totally forgotten one of the funniest call backs in the final routine in Manchester and Windsor. Sorry about that if you came to see those shows.
But I am enjoying turning a 65 minute show into a 90 minute one (and I think it will only get longer as I tour it) and although I occasionally lost impetus a little bit tonight (once when someone's phone going off made focus blur for 30 seconds) it was overall a solid performance and I could sense the emotion coming off the crowd at the sad bit at the end.
Tomorrow is already sold out, but I am back in Bristol next April and coming to most places in the UK with the show.
Here are the dates. Book ahead though as it seems finally after nine solo tours people actually want to see me! And Londoners do note that I am doing far fewer dates in the capital than usual.
This is the link for the Soho Theatre dates.
The full on touring experience doesn't kick in for me until next year. I will be able to go home after all the other November gigs, but tonight I was back in a hotel. I have learned to cope with the solitude now though. When I did the menage a un tour I found the loneliness overbearing at times and even this year, when I'd been away from home for 13 nights, it was a little psychologically unsettling. But I am happy enough with my own company now and trying not to stay in the kind of hotels that have bogeys on the shower curtains. I still haven't quite recovered from my weekend of writing and was so blasted by the time I got back to my room that I pretty much just passed out anyway.
The last time I played the Comedy Box in 2007 I had a mini-adventure/non-adventure in which I was whisked off into the night (you can read about it in my book, though I changed some of the details to protect the innocent and guilty, so I pretend it took place in Cardiff). My priorities have changed a lot since then and I am much more settled and happy and whilst it was nice to have had a couple of drinks with friends and strangers in the bar, it was also much nicer to know that I had a big bed waiting for me and I was going to be able to stretch out alone in it and sleep. There is no denying the fact that I am middle-aged. But as I sat in the dressing room, a messy room piled with flyers and posters and old boxes, I felt content to be still out and performing live. As I am sure I've said before once, when I used to go to the Edinburgh Fringe, it was all about the drinking and partying with the show as a slightly annoying distraction in the day and the same, to an extent used to be true of touring. But whilst I feel sad for my lost youth in some ways, it's really great that it is now the show that excites me and I am glad I haven't yet found the travelling and the solitude too much to bear. I am doing my 10th solo tour now and I've come a long way. It would be interesting to see where I was after another 10. But I wonder how long I will be able to keep this up.
Funnly enough Twitter took me back to those less professional and more rock and roll (though honestly only barely so) tours of the 1990s: here's
an old photo of me and Stew when we were 12 which was tweeted by Lesley De'ath today. Ah cruel time, how you doth take your hammer to the faces and bodies of those who dare challenge thee by not dying young. If you'd liked to see more of these handsome young gentlemen then don't forget to
preorder Fist of Fun series 1 from gofasterstripe.com. It should be with you in just a couple of weeks. If you prefer the more gnarled version then get
Christ on a Bike instead. Or buy both and watch them simultaneously on two different TVs and laugh at the tragedy of the transcience of youth.
On Thursday I am taking part in the
First Direct Dialogue Festival which looks like being pretty amazing. Check out the other nights too - some great line-ups.
