I am feeling jet-lagged and I guess something a little bit similar is happening to me, as my body tries to adjust to the shift in sleep and work patterns that come with touring. I only got about six hours sleep last night and was out of sorts for most of the morning, though I somehow managed to record a slightly weary Talking Cock podcast (which is now up
on the British Comedy Guide and
iTunes). I had to go back to bed after lunch.
But not for long as I had to head off to Bridgend. One of the actually lovely things about the level of touring that I have found myself at is that I play both massive theatres (the York Opera House seats over 1000 - not that I am going to sell anywhere that near many tickets) and tiny clubs. Hobos in Bridgend is probably the smallest and for the second year running I was put in the smaller of their two tiny spaces. I'd sold around 50 tickets. But it's quality not quantity that counts and this tiny brigade of Bridgendians was one of the best audiences I have encountered. I had been wishing I could stay in bed and certainly wasn't relishing the drive there and back, but once on stage I was delighted to be here. It was clear that they really appreciated my (slight) effort and it lifted the performance.
Plus I got another make your own sandwich - a huge baguette, a bag of ham, a block of cheese, some salad and a tub of butter (just like last year). It's the Bridgend special. This is all the people here eat.
I had had the historic event of the last day of Popery for Benedict on the radio to keep me entertained on the way there. I hope he raided the stationery cupboard on his way out or at least got a big bag of communion wafers up his cassock (they make excellent substitute for popcorn when you're watching DVDs). I wondered that if I just turned up at the Vatican as he left and claimed I was the next Pope whether people might just believe it. I don't think the application is going to go through this year. Maybe next time.
Nothing could dent my good mood. Not me finding out that the "i" paper was blaming me
for Radio comedy being shit, even though they were reviewing my non-radio podcast (why episode 2? I think episode 1 would have given her all she wanted, but odd to criticise me for not being funny when I wasn't trying to be). Not a stranger tweeting me to say "anyone told you your not going funny?"
Mind you the latter mainly made me laugh, not just for its illiteracy. I guess he was trying to find out whether anyone had told me that I was not funny. Or maybe he was trying to reassure me that I was not going funny, which is a good thing. A lot of people on Twitter thought that that should be the name of my next show "Richard Herring is not going funny". Maybe I will.
The impact of the truth bomb was a bit lost in the grammatical nightmare that this man had created. But even had he got the complicated tweet right I don't think it would have hurt me. It's not like I've been walking around for the last quarter of a century assuming that everyone in the world thought I was hilarious. I step on stage in front of strangers all the time under the understanding that I will make them laugh and many of them have let me know that I have failed. But it's nice that this fella was ready to take me down in case I had reached a level of celebrity delusion where I believed I was indisputably amusing. The heady glamour of constructing my own sandwich whilst reading a review that blamed me for the destruction of radio before walking into a bar to play to four dozen people might have gone to my head without him.
You can't please all the people, but I think I managed to please most of the Bridgend 50 (apart from one man who was a bit cross that I refused his offer of a pint afterwards - "You can't come to Bridgend and not have a pint," he told me. It would be like coming to Bridgend and not constructing your own crusty bread ham sandwich. I did try to explain that I was driving, but he wasn't having it). Having limited appeal is not a bad thing. Tonight was a special gig that only someone with my my own unique blend of success and failure would get to experience.
The drive home was tough. I think it might have been harder after a pint.
