7019/19539
I don't mind an afternoon RHLSTP. I did two interviews in Leicester today and was home by 6.45pm - the adrenaline had dissipated by bedtime and I could sleep. The downside is that it means the shows take two days - prep day and record day, when I can usually do most of the work on the same day when it's in the evening. But if I get home after midnight and don't sleep until after 1am then that often takes out the day after record too. I wonder if Saturday afternoon shows are the way to go.
As much as I pretend to hate the inhabitants of this city for stealing York's king, it was nice to be back in the Y Theatre. It's been a little while since I was last here, but it's a neat little theatre and the staff were friendly and efficient. We're in a Covid transition zone in terms of greetings. Some people still going for the weird elbow touch and some people coming in for hugs. Is it really over? Or will this prolong things? I guess as long as the weird elbow thing becomes a baffling custom of the past then it's worth a few thousand more deaths.
I don't think I've met Joz Norris before, but I like his online stuff and I immediately got on with him, because comedians are like dogs and we recognise and understand each other. We had a fun chat with some mind-blowing possible facts about caterpillars and discussion of the way that we both make comedy out of potential mental breakdowns. My other guest was my old friend Rebecca Wheatley, who used to live round the corner from me in Shepherd's Bush and who helped me buy sofas and stuff when I moved in. She was also in Time Gentlemen Please where she was blown up by Al Murray's boiler and is a brilliant singer and a very good person also. We had a good chat about her show, Menopause the Musical 2 and the way middle aged actresses (and women in general) can become sidelined.
After the show, when Rebecca had rushed off to her show I was alone in the dressing room when a man walked in. I assumed it was a member of staff until I saw the bottle of beer in his hand and saw that he was swaying slightly. To be fair if someone walks unannounced into your dressing room it is always either a member of staff or a drunk person who has wandered back stage. Sometimes it's an accident or because they want to meet you and have lost their inhibitions, but sometimes they might be cross about the show or just drunk enough to cause problems. I was aware that I was on my own here and the man was standing directly in front of my only means of escape. I was completely vulnerable and there was nobody around to help me if things turned weird.
I stayed calm, even if there was a mild sense of dread in my stomach. Sometimes even a big fan can turn nasty if they've had too much to drink and don't think they are being treated with the necessary effusive friendship.
Luckily this guy remained sweet and friendly. He just wanted an autograph and had perhaps had three too many beers so didn't appreciate that the correct way to get that was to wait in the lobby. He really liked my stuff and the podcast clearly meant a lot to him. It was all fine. Once I'd established that he didn't want to cut off my face and wear it as a mask, everything was OK. I signed his programme and he went on his way. And then so did I. Though with a little chill in my spine about what would have happened if it had been a different kind of intruder.
I was held up at the car park when the machine ate my ticket. This is the third time this has happened to me in the last five visits to a car park with a ticket machine (twice in one car park, but in different machines). Am I doing something wrong with my tickets? I just put them safely in my wallet every time I get them. Is it me or the machines? A question that will be increasingly asked as the world is taken over by robots.
I was home in time to see the kids at bedtime. And yet had done two weeks “work" in a day. I could do with a bit more of that.
