Warming Up

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Up at 6am obvs. I could see the Liver Birds from my breakfast table. Who'd have thought Nerys Hughes and Polly James would be staying at my hotel. I am funny. Though you have to be 60 or over to get that one, so to anyone under 60, just laugh, it's really, really funny.

Even I am too young to remember Polly James in the Liver Birds.

I give up comedy.

To the Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot this morning to take part in an episode of the brilliant podcast You're Dead To Me. Greg Jenner hosts, of course, and the historical expert was Professor Farah Karim-Cooper. The subject was Shakespeare as it is almost 400 years since the publication of the First Folio and there was an actual factual First Folio exhibited in the theatre.

Greg and Farah had scripts, but it was my job to say funny things about what they were talking about and to try to answer tricky questions in a humorous way. There was no prep and no clue as to what I'd be asked. It struck me during the first question, where I initially felt I had no answer whatsoever, what a tough gig this was. I was just expected to be funny out of nothing. And look back at the Liver Birds gag. I was out of my depth surely.

But I have got so used to talking with no idea of what's coming next, often just to myself, that I just bouldered onwards and usually answers or funny stuff came out. I was asked what would be on the Herring coat of arms and avoided mentioning fish, but plumped for cock and balls or rather just one ball, which would sum up my life. Afterwards I was told that that would not be appropriate for the Radio 4 broadcast which was going out at 10.30am during the school holidays, so I had to come up with another answer. So I said that as I played a lot of snooker it would have to be snooker balls. Balls of all different colours. Just balls.

I am cheeky, me.

It's a really excellent and properly successful podcast that leaves my nonsense in the shade, but such fun to be a part of. And I got plenty of laughs, so that Liver Birds gag was not the death of my comedy career as I had feared. A few things occurred to me just a few seconds too late. Farah described the theatre district of London back in the day as a place with brothels, bear baiting and the severed heads of traitors on the bridge. Just too late I realised I should have said, "So you got heads on the bridge and head after it" - again wouldn't make the radio edit. And when Greg revealed that Shakespeare didn't go to pubs to avoid the violence there I should have said "Also he was bard", but to be fair I managed to slip that one in later. Luckily I did manage to keep my old brain sharp enough for a few on time zingers. I think I did an OK job of conjuring comedy from nothing. In the retakes Farah had to redo a line about the Ur-Hamlet (an early text of the play by unknown author) and I said, "Oh when you said "Er Hamlet" I just thought you'd forgotten the name of the play. I thought she's not a very good expert, that's probably his most famous play, even I know that one." I don't know if that will make the edit.

It's nice to be the silly one.

The podcast and radio show are out soon.