7725/20666
The road into Brighton is very familiar to me. I used to come down here for gigs a lot, but I don't think I've been here since 2019, which is weird. It's still hard to process that the great reset of 2020 was nipping at our toes four years ago now.
My main memory, apart from drunken shenanigans, is how hard it always was to get here. There was nearly always a traffic jam or a snarl up on the outside of town or more likely getting out of South London, but today, with the memory of the stressful Leeds journey rekindled by the release of that podcast, it was a smooth ride. Even the M25 couldn't stop us.
I needed a wee though, so we stopped at the service station. It was busy and I am still a little bit of a shy-weer (better than I once was, but I prefer the solitude of the stall) so I went into a cubicle, but I left the door open behind me, to show the world that I wasn't too terrified to urinate in company. Someone (or something) passed behind me and as they went they laughed. It was the impish laugh of an evil goblin. An evil goblin that was playing tricks. It didn't really sound like a human being, but even if it was (which may seem more likely than a goblin), it was an odd place to be laughing at all, but certainly in that cartoonish and impish manner. I actually turned round and peered out of the cubicle to see who could have given such an unearthly and frightening guffaw, but there was no one there. It had passed behind me and yet the direction it travelled in led to a wall and one further cubicle. If the goblin had gone in there he had travelled at superhuman speed and had made no noise opening and closing the door.
I was pretty sure I'd been cursed by a goblin. The magical folk are always trying to get me, like that time I was cursed on a train in Italy, only 38 short years ago. And now they had come for me again. Though last time I was sick on a train with inexplicably locked toilets and lost my wallet. This time I went to Brighton and had a good gig. So their powers are waning. Or mine are stronger.
It was weird though.
Lovely to be back at the Komedia - again this used to be a regular haunt, but not sure when I was last here (the last two podcast gigs in Brighton have been at different venues). Two terrific guests: Rufus Jones who incredibly I've never met before (but as I remarked backstage if he, the actor Kevin Eldon or Justin Edwards doesn't show up at some point in a movie, is it even a movie?) and Maisie Adam who I have met. The last time I saw her we were in the Never Mind the Buzzcocks writers' room in (I think) 2021, though certainly during lockdown years. I had taken the gig as a favour to Greg, as I hadn't done anything like this for years and it was Maisie's first time working on a show like this. The producer came in to say that one of the guests had got Covid and wasn't going to make it. They needed a replacement. I thought that maybe they'd ask me, with my years of experience (though I am pretty sure from the way I was treated on that project that they had no idea who I was and that I was maybe some charity case that Greg had taken pity on by giving him a fake job). They went for Maisie (which was the correct choice) and from that moment on she has barely been off our screens. It should have been me playing with the Lionesses.
Anyway she proved again tonight why she was the right choice - effortless funny and also down to earth and genuine. There's many comedians who live by the old Bob Monkhouse gag of faking sincerity, but Maisie is the real deal and I am glad she's doing so well and feel lucky to have been in the writers' room to witness that moment where she crossed the rubicon.
Was fun to chat with Rufus backstage, as well as on stage, though the non-recorded chats are often as good or better. He too knows the divide between writer and performer. When you do both you really get an understanding of how differently treated you are as a writer or actor/comedian. Writers are not treated well and because of the nature of their job usually spend most of their time locked in a room working whilst the people who interpret (or let's face it, usually just say) their words are out taking drugs at parties. And it's the actors who get the credit for the work (if it's good) and the writers who take the flack if it doesn't work.
Kudo to Rufus - he's great at both jobs and Home is well worth your time if you haven't seen it. Though annoyingly it wasn't given a third series... there's an American version in the works though, so hopefully there will be 100+ episodes to enjoy at some point.
