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I think I might have played Warwick Arts Centre on every tour I’ve ever done, even the ones in the 1990s with Stewart, so it’s always nice to return, though today the place was in a bit of disarray as it’s in the middle of a refurb and big parts of it have been knocked down. A good crowd of over 350 in to see RHLSTP with Caroline Quentin and Bobby Mair. Perhaps it was a mistake to try and do another long drive and some podcasts the day after the mammoth trip home from holiday and my brain wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders throughout and still a little bit in holiday mode, but luckily my guests were a little bit sharper.
I hadn’t properly met either of them before - I said hello to Bobby when I was working on a pilot show some years ago and had been at a party with Caroline in the late 90s or early noughties where I had been bet by Peter Baynham that I wouldn’t sing Bohemian Rhapsody on the karaoke, but had done so and my obviously drunken and dire performance had been partially rescued by Caroline and some of her friends who had jumped up to join in and do the four headed ensemble bit from the video.
She was a little nervous as this was her first ever podcast, but she’s clearly a lovely person and was a lot of fun and it was good to meet her properly.
Bobby too is a charming man (and a very good stand up), who had an extraordinary story about a funny (well unsettling) thing that had happened to him on the way to the gig, which perfectly illustrated my digs at the city of Coventry (at one point, in response to a heckler, I basically sided with Hitler, which is a bold move for any visiting comedian). I also made much of the fact that the University of Warwick and the Warwick Arts Centre are very much part of Coventry however much they want to pretend otherwise.
I was bone-tired by the end of it all and thankfully didn’t have to drive myself home. The journey was delayed by the now almost-inevitable night-time roadworks, but we made it.
It’s sometimes hard to fathom why sales in some venues are high and others low. Given how regularly I have played the Warwick Arts Centre I would expect by now to be able to fill the medium-sized theatre here, but I suppose it’s a little way out of town (and a long way out of Warwick) and as is the nature of a University, the population is ever-changing. I don’t really understand why I easily (months in advance) sold out the 1100 tickets at the nearby RHLSTP gig in Birmingham (even before I had announced the guest) - it was a little cheaper and in the daytime and part of a festival, but it perhaps gave me false hopes of how successful a RHLSTP tour might be (I should say that I am very happy with the sales I am getting and almost everywhere it’s at least slightly up on what I get for my regular tour shows). So I am not complaining, just confused really. Perhaps I am misremembering, but I think I might have sold out this room in the past (though there was definitely a time when numbers were going down again and I got demoted to the small venue one year, before bouncing back). Anything over 300 is a great result for me. I just don’t understand why things swing back and forth. But maybe I should try to understand why Birmingham became so suddenly interested in me this year. If you have any ideas then let me know!
And tell all your most Kenty friends about the gig in Canterbury on 17th July with Vic Reeves and Shaun Williamson (Barry from Eastenders).
Still loads of tickets here.
The Adrian Chiles RHLSTP is now up on audio after a few technical issues.
Get it here or at your regular podcast output spout.
