Chris Evans (not that one) from gofasterstripe came up to the big city from his hovel in Wales this afternoon. He's here to record Stewart Lee and me doing commentaries for the forthcoming release of Fist of Fun series one on DVD (it will be out before Christmas probably exclusively from
Go Faster Stripe. We have bought it ourselves, so we need you to buy it so we don't bankrupt the company! Series two should follow next year and if we don't lose our shirts we'll look into doing TMWRNJ too.
But for today we were looking at the Christ on a Bike DVD (which will be out at the end of October). Chris has a first cut of the performance for me to watch and make suggestions on. I don't really like watching myself and haven't bothered with some of the shows, but thought I'd give this one a look. I remember it being very hot in the theatre and not being completely happy with my performance. I am uber critical of myself and felt that due to the unpleasant conditions I wasn't quite as nuanced as I might have been (or probably how I imagine I am), but I doubt anyone else will notice. It's great to finally have this show committed to film and if you buy from gfs you will get a total of three discs that are completely packed with extras.
But there was no time to hang around to chat about blocked toilets with the seaweed eating misfit as I had to head to Nottingham for a preview. It was a bit of an arduous journey with more traffic jams to contend with, though I bumped into 6Music DJ Sean Keaveny and his son at the services when I stopped for some dinner. Even though we've met a few times it took us a second to recognise each other out of the context of the 6Music studio. But we had a brief, slightly awkward chat, as if we both felt we'd been caught doing something we shouldn't. Even though neither of us had. Unless Sean had just kidnapped a small child - it seems unlikely. But I am going to feel a right charlie if that news breaks tomorrow.
I listened to this week's charts on Radio 1 as I drove and I must now be officially old because all the music seemed identikit and awful to me. Maybe it's not me and all music that young people like has just become shit, but it seems more likely I have finally crossed the threshold that we must all pass through at some point. I have never been a big fan of music and even when I was young I thought most of the chart music was shit, but now it all seemed to be (though I missed numbers 10-3 as I was having dinner, so maybe there was some good stuff there). I laughed at myself. I wish I could have got to 44 still liking some young people's music, but I have failed by two days.
I arrived in Nottingham with minutes to spare and struggled to carry my programmes from the car park and to find the new Just the Tonic venue. When I finally got there, I opened the door and was hit by a smell of stale farts. I wondered if I had caught the doorman at an unfortunate moment. But the smell seemed to be everywhere. Two people had tweeted me to tell me that someone in the front row was doing the worst possible farts - but it seemed unlikely this was the work of one person as the venue was massive. I suspect it might have been some larger sewer based issue for the whole block. Or the kitchen was cooking up a massive omelette made of rotten eggs.
Anyway I didn't really notice the smell on stage, where heat was the main issue. It was another big crowd and the show is going from strength to strength. I only have a couple of previews this week as it's my birthday and then I am going to Latitude, so it's good that it's flying along so well.
It was a long drive home, though at least this time the M1 was not clogged up for two hours. I was home by 1.30 and in bed by 2.30, hoping I would get enough sleep to do some good work with Stewart tomorrow.
