After a couple of slightly reticent audiences and me worrying that maybe the show wasn't as funny as I thought I had a real rip-roarer in Bristol tonight. It helped that there were nearly 300 people in the packed Tobacco Factory and they certainly were a lovely crowd and everything worked about as well as I could hope and it felt like a real show now. And this was despite the fact that we could only get a smallish image with the projector and the audience could only see what was on the slides if we turned almost all the lights out. Due to multiple hold ups on the M4 I hadn't arrived quite as early as I hoped and I think that when I return here on my tour (and I will be furnishing you with provisional details of all the confirmed dates soon - now up to 90 gigs) we will be able to do a little better with that.
But I can tell you that you can book free tickets to see the first two episodes of my as yet unwritten Radio 4 show (and there are only four episodes in the series despite the bold claims of this site)
by going here The website also announces "Please not there will be swearing." which might be a promise that I can't keep. I hadn't planned to do any swearing and it seems presumptuous of them to suggest that there will be ("might" might have been a better word) and now I feel duty bound to put in some swearing just in case people turn up demanding there be some thanks to this loose promise.
I also allowed myself to get very lightly embroiled in Cheggersgate (the current furore over the fact that Keith Chegwin is passing off the gags of working comedians without attribution on his Twitter feed). I have been following Chegwin for a while and his gags have been mainly harmless, mostly in fact just very old jokes that don't really require a credit. But I had remembered him getting a tiny bit shirty with the fact that some of the gags he tweeted were turning up on radio on TV and was pretty sure he had complained about his jokes being stolen. At the time I had found this amusing enough because I hadn't seen a joke yet that Chegwin could have claimed to have originated. But in light of him telling the miffed comedians (and as far as I could see everyone was being quite polite and unhysterical about this and certainly not bullying - they had just calmly pointed out that it might be good etiquette to give a credit to the lines that had been directly quoted, which is just good Twitter form. It's nicer not to delete the name of the originator and take the kudos for a line that isn't yours) that they were wrong to complain these earlier tweets at least showed a level of hypocrisy, if indeed I was right that they had happened. If he hadn't liked it when he felt "his" lines were being requited without a credit then he should have more sympathy for the people who he had seemingly done the same thing to. I had looked for these earlier tweets and either I had imagined or dreamt them or (more likely I feel) Chegwin or someone on his twitter feed has gone back and deleted them. One would imagine to avoid any charges of hyprocrisy.
I merely asked on Twitter if anyone else remembered those tweets. I made no comment or judgement. But even that led to some accusations of bullying and call that I should leave Chegwin alone. But I hadn't said anything about the situation and had not @ed Chegwin in to the conversation in any case. Twitter can do some amazing things (Go Frank Chickens and long may the award website designer fail to come up with a way of stopping people voting multiple times) but it can lead to some odd hysteria. And the comedians more central to the debate have caught some flak for mainly just asking nicely if Cheggers will credit his sources where possible. It's not a terrible thing to ask. The comedians who put their gags up on Twitter are doing it to gain followers and fans and support. And you can understand why it would be a bit galling for them if they then see the joke being retweeted to 30,000 people without attribution and indeed with someone else heavily suggesting that it's all their own work. The whole thing would have been over very quickly if Cheggers had just said, "Oh sorry, didn't realise that," and then said he would @ in Gary Delaney next time he did one of his jokes verbatim. Everyone would have been happy.
Lots of people seem to think a joke is a joke and once it's out there it belongs to the world, but that isn't really the case and Chegwin does have a link to Cheggers Bingo on his twitter site, which means that he is, in some way at least, profiting from people visiting his site. It is thus more akin to stealing and there has been an element of dishonesty (and I think also hypocrisy there). And refusing to back down from this and then basically encouraging his followers to contact the complaining comics and let them know how they feel is not the most honourable reaction.
But yeah, it's Cheggers. And lots of us love him with his ridiculously varied career and his struggles with drink and his love for Maggie Philbin and his tiny naked penis. It's not nice to see your ideas being used by someone else, especially for profit. I've seen a few adverts over the years which I would contend have been possibly influenced by my work and it's annoying to think that some advertising executive is being paid for watching "You Can Choose Your Friends" and then thinking it would be a good idea to do their (almost exactly the same) version of a scene in it. Especially given that the drama did not go on to become a series. This is life though and this kind of thing happens. But jokes are hard to come up with and in this situation the whole thing could be resolved and everyone would come up looking good if Cheggers just held up his hands, admitted he wasn't a comedian and agreed to at least acknowledge the gags that are retweets.
I now await the storm of anger on Twitter. Though maybe it's time to move on. Ironically by bringing the subject up the jokes in question have now been broadcast via TV, newspapers and the internet to millions more people. Hopefully all concerned have got some publicity out of it. And Cheggers has more people playing his Bingo. None of us want to see the tiny-cocked, swap obsessed, Children's Film Foundation star who also played Fleance in Roman Polanski's Macbeth. And now has his own Bingo game on the internet. I love Cheggers. And wish him only happiness and success. I just thought the disappearance of those tweets was a little telling.
But you're right. Let's move on.
