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Each week of doing my old shows I think that next week should be easier and then the next week I realise how little I remember of the next two shows and think I am not going to be able to pull this off, but, (so far), I have somehow managed it. As usual I had done work on the first half of “Oh Fuck I'm 40â€, but realised today that I had little to no idea what was going on in the second bit, especially the end. So I just had the show on in my headphones all day and hoped some of it would sink in and occasionally would re-listen to a routine and write down notes on what order everything happened in. I couldn't get my head round the “Free Hot Dog†routine and had to spend an hour working over it, though the fight story came back almost immediately. I clearly have a pretty strong memory (for some things) but it's generally much harder to do the bits that link or conclude a show, that I never did as stand up.
I had thought I would do the show without my skate board (which I gave away as a prize to one of the readers of “How Not To Grow Upâ€), but up early with the baby, I decided I needed one and started googling to find a skateboard shop in Shepherd's Bush. I discovered I could buy a kids' skateboard at Argos for £12.99, which seemed as much as I'd like to spend on a 30 second joke, but also seemed apt given the place of that very shop in last week's show “The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terraceâ€. I got it via Fast Track online, though to be honest it didn't seem to make things much quicker. But after a few minutes I had my chunk of orange plastic with wheels attached and a transfer on it that said “Boredâ€. I was cool.
Later when rehearsing my “trick†(I flick up the skateboard and try and fail to catch it) I miscalculated the weight of this thing and rather than sending it towards my hand it flicked right up and hit me hard in the nose. Although small and light in some ways, the plastic was denser than the wooden one I'd had before and this really hurt. But I didn't have time to think about that as there was now a massive chunk of plastic airborne in my lounge which might go anywhere. I tried to catch it and succeeded in only propelling it towards my lounge window. Luckily it fell harmlessly on to the floor, but it would have been amusing if I had bust open my face and smashed my front window within an hour of buying this thing. I looked in the mirror expecting my shattered nose to expunge blood, but remarkably nothing was damaged but my ego. There was a red mark where the skateboard had hit, but nothing was broken. Lucky I had done this at home because if I had attempted that on stage I could have seriously hurt someone in the front row. Though it was a shame not to get the laugh that this impressive piece of slapstick had deserved. It was the funniest thing I've probably ever done, but no one was there to witness it. A 48 year old man hitting himself in the face with an orange children's skateboard with “Bored†written on it (and who even though he is a professional comedian has only just realised that that is a pun), is funnier than a fat woman falling out of a hammock. I didn't think that was possible.
For all my fears the show went off almost without a hitch. I got a bit of the fight routine in the wrong order, but managed to rescue it. There were over 300 in, propelling this show up to second in terms of sales and though the crowd were a bit more reticent and hard to please, I did a strong performance of the material. It was fun to pretend to be 40 and I think this show does a better job of showing the frustrations I was feeling, but making it clear that the things I was saying about women were a reflection and satire of men. Plus there's some sweet and honest bits that show my vulnerability which don't even try to go for the laugh.
I can't believe I've got halfway through this. I genuiely don't know how I am doing it.
I was feeling good until I thought ahead to Headmaster's Son and Hitler Moustache and realised how little I recall of either show. And the whole merrygoround starts again.
