7499/20428
The drive to New Milton (which was built in 1888 - time to drop the New guys) was long and convoluted. My sat nav actually took me through London, which suggests something awful was going on on the M25. I had hoped to do all my prep for the show in the three or so hours I’d have after arriving at my hotel, but I finally rolled into the car park at 5.15pm, only just over two hours from show time.
But once at the venue and having set up I had a cool 60 minutes to get all my work done (and luckily I had done my research for Ola Labib yesterday and had listened to Markus being interviewed in a couple of podcasts on the drive). I did it in 45.
New Milton is the gig I was doing the night before I went on the nightmare holiday that starts the book of “Can I Have My Ball Back?” And I spent most of that night rowing with my then girlfriend on the phone about whether she was even going to come on the trip at all (she did, sadly. It might have been more fun on my own and I bet my ball wouldn’t have expanded to four times its size either). And I also recall a tour gig here where I was getting nothing from the audience and just blasted my way through the second half. It was the wrong thing to do and I learned a lesson from that (and similar gigs) that you have to give the people in the room the same performance (or even better) that you would if they loved you.
Tonight’s sell-out crowd (only 140 seats, but to be fair it sold out very quickly and that’s more than we’ve had to any of the Leicester Square Theatre gigs this series - roll on the tour) were much more engaged and up for it and in one case a little bit too keen to join in, but it was all manageable. I was very impressed with Ola, who unusually I didn’t know much about before I booked her, but she’s a localish act and I’d liked the clips I’d seen of her. She was extremely good fun and had some amazing stories.
Lovely to see Markus again. Like me his dad worked at the school he went to and like me he’s had some health issues that he’s turned to comedy (though his rather more severe than mine) and he’s just completed a successful stint on Britain’s Got Talent so there was much to discuss.
Both interviews flew past in double quick time and I was knackered afterwards. It had been a long day - I’d had quite an intense morning of lugging stuff around and doing some unexpected chores and the five hours in the car had taken its toll. I have four more interviews to do in the next three days, but luckily can relax a bit in my hotel room too (and hopefully sleep beyond 6.30am).
