Warming Up

Enjoying meeting the audience after the Bill Murray try outs, some new to me, some fans from the olden days, some of whom haven’t seen me for nearly 20 years (and it’s frightening to think that my stand up shows are over 20 years old). One young man informed me today that the plural of scrotum isn’t scroti, but scrota, because scrotum is (ironically) gender neutral. You don’t get service like that from most fan bases. Sure people who like me are huge fucking nerds (if fucking nerds isn’t a tautology), but they’re my fucking nerds. And I am their occasionally fucking nerd.

I tried to do most of the show without a script tonight, using note cards to begin with and then just flying through it and hoping for the best. I forgot loads of good stuff and it was a bit more hesitant unsurprisingly and whilst it wasn’t quite as magical as last week’s show, it was still a solid effort. I had meant to use a speech to text app so I would get a readable record of the night, but forgot and then when I tried to use it part way through discovered it needed the internet (and I was on airplane mode), but I don’t think I ad libbed anything too amazing. And I probably wouldn’t have read it back.

I’d got to Angel a little early and went to have a coffee (at 7pm? Am I mad? I don’t care what I do) and look through my notes. A man wheeled past me on a futuristic wheel and I wondered if I had travelled through time, though in my mind I was heading to the past. I would have first come to this part of London in 1989 or maybe early 1990 as there were lots of gigs here and in the early 90s Patrick Marber had a flat here and we did some writing for the dum show. It’s incredible that a man who was under 25 could have had a lovely flat in Islington, whilst we were renting in a wasp infested (but still roomy and by modern standards ridiculously cheap house in Acton), but I wasn't struck by the privilege then and was just envious, without considering how it was possible.

There was a new material night at one of the pubs, maybe the Meccano, which Stew was a part of having found his feet on the stand up circuit in a way that I wouldn’t do for another 15 years. Occasionally I’d pop along to watch and the then nervously accompany the proper comedians to Pizza Express. I can’t remember exactly who was there, but it was the likes of Alan Davies, Bill Bailey, Jo Brand. I felt out of place and didn’t say much. Or got drunk and said too much. I don’t remember now.

Once I was back doing stand up in the mid noughties I would be in the Angel a lot, for a new material night that I was now a part of at the Camden Head, plus other gigs and previews in the area. I was doing a gig at that pub the night that I first went on a date with my future wife. It wasn’t officially a date, as she had just moved to London and I’d offered to show her round the comedy scene a bit. I may have had an ulterior motive, though I blabbed and told her of my feelings in that pub. I didn’t tell her that I strongly felt that we would get married and have two kids. But she told me she didn’t feel the same, and then clarified that she couldn’t as she was in a relationship. But I’d seen the future and there was no escaping it. 

The Angel feels like a place that I hung around in when I was young, because it was and it’s hard to believe that I am now an old man, bedazzled by men riding around on single wheels and concerned about the smell of marijuana in the air. 

But I feel comforted by the fact that I am still here doing stand up. Still trying stuff out. Married to the woman that I drank with here, with the two kids that I somehow knew were coming right from the start.

Another of the audience at tonight’s show was Darren, a man who had come to see me perform (as it happens) almost exactly 20 years ago (and 6 days) in Brighton. I had seen him collapse into the aisle as I talked about snapping banjo strings. 

Weirdly I had then also ended up at his wedding (or here for the wedding day), as he happened to get married in Trinidad when I was on holiday in neighbouring Tobago. I got the invite when he realised the coincidence and it seemed rude not to go.

But I was only there because he’d fainted during my show. I was up for adventure then and newly confident from doing Hercules Terrace and if I am honest, I was holidaying alone, which was a bit weird and it was nice to have the opportunity to hang out with some people and maybe snog a bridesmaid (sadly failed on that score, but I had a laugh with a taxi driver). 

Anyway nice to see him again, though given the nature of humanity and time he is with a new partner now. And kudos to him. There is quite a graphic description of how a cancerous testicle is removed and he didn’t faint into the aisle this time. So that’s some kind of progress.

One more gig at the Bill Murray - they've all sold out so far, so book now.