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This is another full on week for podcasts - recording 8 episodes in 8 days and I didn't feel like I'd fully bounced back from Monday's shows as I headed to Norwich. I was falling asleep a bit in the back of the car, with both interviews still to research and had a few little memory slips as I prepared for the shows. As I stood back stage I said to Bec, my tour manager, "We're in the Theatre Royal, right?"
"The Playhouse" she corrected.
I always play the Playhouse. Where had I got that from. I was five seconds away for welcoming the audience to the wrong theatre.
The venue was two thirds full and there's a slightly bigger audience for tomorrow's show, so it was just about worth doing two nights here (but only just about). Usually I sell out the venue fairly comfortably for two nights, but the sales have been unpredictable throughout this tour - usually pretty good, sometimes better than usual, sometimes worse. I'd say I am on course for selling two thirds of the tickets throughout the whole thing, which will be an acceptable outcome. And weirdly with a podcast tour, there is the additional revenue from putting the podcasts out, so I will not be going broke this time.
As I checked into the Premier Inn I looked at the TV above reception which showed the closed circuit TV of the whole area. I was standing there, next to Bec, but something seemed a bit off. Perhaps the image made me look a bit opaque and ghost like, but also the Richard Herring on the screen was not doing the same things as me. Or at least he was a couple of seconds out of sync. It made me feel like I wasn't myself, which I already felt a bit because of tiredness. For some reason it made me think about the fact that one day I won't be here anymore. It felt like my own ghost, but it was a living ghost. One day there would be the absence of me recorded on that camera.
Of course that was true almost immediately - I will only be on that TV, slightly out of sync for a few minutes of my life, but somehow it felt like it would register when I wasn't anywhere any more. I still can't get my head round that. It seems crazy that we just stop being and disappear. What was God thinking?
So yes, I was disconnected which isn't necessarily the best way to go into a comedy show. Luckily the audience were great and the guests were better and the two interviews flew by with the very impressive Alasdair Beckett-King and Emma Sidi more than making up for my scatterbrain.
I have played Norwich with pretty much every tour I've ever done and I hold the city in great affection. So thus feel free to take the piss as much as possible.
Four of the eight podcasts down and hoping that no travel tomorrow will make things a bit less surreal for me. But maybe surreal is good. I ended up insisting on talking to Emma Sidi about Sale of the Century, a show she is far too young to have ever heard of, but that made it even more fun to do.
Still tickets for Thursday's show if you're within spitting distance of Norwich. Jeff Innocent and Joe Pasquale - I think it will be a very funny evening. Neither of these will need much input from me.
Perhaps I am already a ghost. Who knows?
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