I did a Hitler Moustache preview in Islington last night and today I was wiped out. Just dead tired all day. I hardly moved from my sofa and never got out of my dressing gown. This is not a good sign for the tour is it? I have something like 58 more shows to do and will have to drive a lot more than the 12 miles I did last night and most of the time will not get to sleep in my own bed. Oh dear.
But maybe it was good to have a day like this, because there are not going to be many opportunities between here and September. I don't know if I mentioned it, but as well as being on tour all round the country I am somehow managing to
sit in for Adam and Joe along with some other idiot. I am very much looking forward to it, but it's going to be an extra strain. And if you're interested in providing us some jingles for our stint then
check out Jingles Hell at collingsandherrin.com for details.
The good news it that it looks like we'll be getting a podcast for the Adam and Joe sessions, and we will still be putting out the Collings and Herrin ones whenever possible.
Today I was supposed to go on Talk Sport to discuss Hitler Moustache, but as I was about to get in the shower someone rang to tell me that the producer had spotted that today was Holocaust Memorial Day and that perhaps I would not be the most sensitive of guests. I had to agree. It doesn't make any difference that my show is anti-Hitler. It wouldn't have been appropriate to do the interview today.
I realised too late that this meant that I could have made it to the Loaded Lafta awards party, which happened this lunchtime. I had already found out that I hadn't won, so had not postponed my interview, but it might have been fun to go and watch. Adam and Joe won the podcast award and I can't argue with that.
The other results are here and there are a couple of unusual decisions, which suggest that my original feeling that being nominated was like being cock-slapped by Jesus was pretty accurate.
Instead I ended up watching a couple episodes of "Tales of the Unexpected" on Sky Arts 2. It was nice to be transported back into my childhood. The theme music and the naked lady dancing in front of those flames are both iconic and slightly discombobulating. They were early episodes so even had Roald Dahl sitting in a chair and introducing them. But as has often been noted the show is anything but unexpected. In one a man is staying in a creepy guest house, where the landlady has lots of animals that she's performed taxidermy on and the only other guests' names in the guestbook are vaguely familiar, but the man can't quite place why. I wonder what will happen. It could only be truly unexpected if the man, convinced he is about to be murdered, strikes out and kills the woman, only then for the two other guests to arrive, horrified that their nice host has been killed.
But that isn't what happened.
In the other Joan Collins is the annoying wife of a Lord - and this one really was an all star affair with John Gielgud playing a butler (I wonder if he ever got fed up of being the go to guy for all butler parts) - who gets her head stuck in a priceless work of Henry Moore style sculpture. I wonder how the Lord would get her out. I expect he'd happily cut up his beloved piece of wooden sculpture. That's the only way out of this. Anything else would be entirely unexpected.
But really these were tales of dark humour and whoever named the series missed the point. The fact that you know what is coming is what is good about them. Roald Dahl himself discussed the nature of the humour of these pieces saying if a man gets a tin of paint poured over his head that is funny, but if the paint can hits his head and fractures his skull and kills him that is tragedy. But if a man falls into a sausage making machine and the sausages get sold to unsuspecting people, that is funny. And tragic. But mainly funny. Dahl claimed he didn't know why, but that black humour was what he was trying to discuss in the show. And the fact that we knew the man was going to get stuffed and that Collins was going to get decapitated was all part of the tantalising fun. Because even today, most mainstream dramas wouldn't dare to end each episode so bleakly.
And although the dialogue, direction and acting seem a little plodding by today's standards, there is still something engrossing about these mini-dramas. And the theme music and the dancing lady are both unbeatable. It doesn't matter what happens in between. I was transported back to the exhilarating fear mixed with pleasure that I felt when I heard this music as a kid.
Finally if you're filled with anticipation about the forthcoming release of my book "How Not To Grow Up" then you might like to know that there is a special offer with
Waterstones where you can pre-order your copy for just £7.99 (RRP £11.99) if you use the code DK4253. If you do it via them you can enter a competition to win the very skateboard that I used in the show "Oh Fuck I'm 40!"
According to the site it's 97 days to publication!
