7605/20544
Two RHLSTP shows at the Newcastle Stand today, one at 4pm, so we set off at 7.30am, which might have been unnecessarily cautious for a Sunday, but like Bec my tour manager, I'd rather not take the risk! We got there without any trouble and I ensconced myself in the Stand dressing room to add to the research I'd done in the car.
I ate a pretty nasty kale, mushroom and chickpea salad that I'd made for lunch yesterday and which Catie had basically refused to eat, due to the chewiness of the raw kale. But it meant I had a healthy lunch that was pretty difficult to eat (but still quite tasty), which was lucky as the Stand doesn't do food on Sundays (making two venues where they usually feed you great food on tour coming up empty, as the Bath Komedia wasn't doing food any more either).
Lauren Pattison is one of my favourites of the newer comedians and has been good value on the Edinburgh Fringe Podcast and a lockdown remote one (though on the latter one things weren't going that well for her as she'd just broken up with her boyfriend and the van with all her possessions arrived just after she'd finished talking to me). She has more than bounced back though and was in fine form today - she's impressively determined, but I was surprised to learn that she had planned to give up comedy if her last Fringe show didn't go well. Thankfully she got nominated.
Then I had three hours to get dinner and get ready for the next show, which was weirdly at 8.30pm (I think a slightly earlier evening Sunday show might have been better and having that much time between shows can actually be quite hard as the adrenaline goes and you have a bit of a dip). Luckily my guest was Jason Cook, so it didn't really matter if I couldn't speak. He arrived nice and early and we chatted for 90 minutes before the podcast. I used to work with him a bit when I was gigging in clubs in the noughties but probably haven't seen him for at least 15 years. Doesn't matter though - we were back into total familiarity immediately. And the podcast itself was a stone cold classic. I was getting a bit sleepy so he had me on the ropes a few times and kept punching, but mainly he regaled us with brilliant stories of his time being a tiny baker in a biscuit ad and working on oil tankers in the merchant navy. We both dared to discuss the fallen sycamore, which the audience were in fake and real uproar about, but it was very funny stuff.
Always a fabulous crowd at the Stand but these two audiences (and for once they were, at least partially, different people) were excellent. Wall to wall laughter and fun.
