I had hoped to get some work done on the new stand up show today, but I woke up much too early again and was exhausted all day and my brain went on strike. Which is fair enough of it really. It deserves a day off. Yesterday I had mistakenly introduced team captain Des Clarke as Des Bishop (another comedian) which was pretty dumb and embarrassing given I'd been working with him for two days. Today I kept thinking that I was in Cardiff. Hopefully this is just tiredness rather than the onset of dementia. But it was time to veg out, not think too hard about anything and observe the fallout from Monday's podcast. I feel a bit like a bystander witnessing it all, open-mouthed but not really being part of it. I am there at the centre of it, but understandably the focus is elsewhere. But I saw myself jiggling around in my seat on the TV news. I'd always thought I'd be on one day, but assumed I would be dead or in handcuffs (or possibly being carried around on people's shoulders after foiling a terrorist plot and saving the world or winning the sexiest man in the Universe Award or completing my COBNOBS). Up in Glasgow or Cardiff or wherever I am (who am I again?) I felt detached from it, like I was observing someone else who just looked like me (and it's possible that it was Charley Boorman).
I was getting calls and emails from the press asking if I would be interviewed about the experience for this or that, but I'd been disappointed to see that Stephen had tweeted in some small despair about being door-stepped by journalists this morning. Some people felt that he should just expect that, being famous and saying something like this and that they were just doing their job. But as he had said he'd already said all he wanted to say in a medium that he felt comfortable saying it in. How is people turning up on his doorstep a thing that he has to expect to happen? What are they really hoping to gain? Those people know that he's given the whole story and they must also know that he's highly unlikely to say anything except "No comment" or "Leave me alone". Certainly once he's said "No comment" or "I've already said everything I wanted to say" then they should leave, shouldn't they? But of course they wouldn't because they're not there to ask questions. They're there to provoke. They are hoping he will get angry or afraid and lash out verbally or even physically and give them another story to put on the front page. They aren't journalists doing their job, they are thugs trying to intimidate and cajole. And in this case trying to intimidate someone who has just talked eloquently about their own mental turmoil and suicidal actions. He's given them plenty to work off if they can be bothered to transcribe the podcast. The fact that such behaviour is accepted by anyone as fine or people just doing their job is insane.
It's like someone who fancies you who you don't fancy and have explained you don't fancy waiting outside your house in the morning running at you and saying "Come on, go out with me," and then when you say, "No" and "What are you doing outside my house? Go away!" they wait outside your house and if you come out again chase you down the street saying, "Come on, go out with me. Why won't you go out with me? Will you or won't you go out with me?" You stay in the house to avoid this happening, but they still wait outside the house, in a pack with a load of other people who you don't want to go out with, but who want to go out with you and if you go near the window they take photos of you.
I don't think anyone would think that was acceptable behaviour and I don't really understand why it's OK for journalists to do it. Especially when it really has never had any results in getting further comment. It's only about provoking someone to act desperately when cornered and get a shot of the looking harassed and sad as they run the gauntlet of twats.
So in the spirit that Stephen had already said what he wanted to say I turned down the requests to be interviewed.
On the plus side though I got many, many tweets and emails from people who have gone through or who are going through something similar to Stephen's mental issues. Here's a typical extract, "The fact that Stephen has handled his situation with such dignity and that the reaction to his disclosure has been so warm, it has helped me to realise that it is not an issue that I should keep hidden from others. It has also had a positive effect on those that were privy to my 'secret', yet did not comprehend it to any real degree - the BBC's short piece on today's news went a long way to helping my parents realise the extremes that 'low moods' have. "
I think that taking the sensational revelation out of context that perhaps some journalists made Stephen look unhappy or in danger, though the message of the whole podcast was really about how happy, funny and relatively sorted out he is now. It was a story told to help others rather than a cry for help for himself. I was glad that
this article in the Telegraph highlighted what fun the evening was and how even the admission was surrounded by jokes and joy. Indeed on the night the moment that most shocked the audience was when he revealed
that he'd never read the Hobbit. And here's another
funny clip.
See the whole thing
by buying the video and the series pass looks like increasingly amazing value (the Russell Brand show is sold out so it's the only way you can see that - surely if anyone can get me back on the news then he can).
If you can't pay or won't pay, the audio version of the podcast is now
up at the British Comedy Guide and
and on iTunes. But if you don't want to hand over money all I request is that you recommend the podcasts to a friend who hasn't heard/seen them. Word of mouth and genuine recommendations are worth much more to me in the long term than even the publicity that has been generated this week.
