A long drive up to Newcastle for my annual last preview gig at the Live Theatre. I think I might have done all my shows from the last ten years here as I believe the original Talking Cock from 2002 was the first one I performed here. My director Jeremy was working here then.
It's meant to be a convenient stop off on the way up to Edinburgh, but that is less the case if you've been in Cardiff the night before.
Funnily enough it's a pretty similar journey to the one my family regularly did when I was a child from Cheddar to Middlesbrough. As an 8 year old the six hours in a car felt like a lifetime and I recall much pushing and pinching as I sat between my older brother and sister on the back seat of my dad's green Renault 16. We'd have competitions to see who could make a Polo last the longest in our mouths (it would be easy to make it last for ages if you could just put in your pocket)- a genius bit of work from my parents to keep us all quiet for ten minutes. I bet they appreciated the calm. We'd stop off in Ashby-de-la-Zouche, approximately the halfway mark, where there was a ruined castle with a gift shop where you could buy a book knights to colour in and cut out and I think just stand up on a rudimentary cardboard stand. But I loved all of that, being a bit obsessed with castles back then, especially ones with creepy underground corridors like this one had.
No such fun on the drive today, but the six hours passed a lot quicker too. We were treating ourselves to a stay and a meal at the Malmaison hotel, like we have for the last few years
though we didn't get the cheap deal we managed last time. Still I suspected that I could more than make up for the shortfall in shampoo theft.
No one but me and my wife knew but it was my second day of going commando - I had failed to pack pants in my overnight bag and though I had several pairs in my suitcase that was buried deep in the back of my car and I couldn't be bothered to extricate it and then open it and rummage around in it. I had managed to buy socks and a T shirt at a service station, but not pants. I was quite liking the whole pantless thing. But tonight, when I got some unexpected laughs, I wondered if the seam in my suit trousers had split. But no, I was just unexpectedly funny. I had thought about wearing some of my wife's pants today, but that's a slippery slope. Or it would be by the time I had finished with them.
On the way back to the hotel to have dinner after teching the show a drunk man lurched towards me asking me if I knew where the Beefeater was. I didn't. He said "I know you from the telly don't I?"
I said I was a comedian. He told me that he had been on a stag night with his future brother-in-law, but had got separated from the rest of his group. He was quite badly drunk and even though his name probably wasn't Richard Herring I decided to help him anyway and as we walked and he talked I searched for the Beefeater on my iPhone. He thought I was bored of his story - which I wasn't, even though it was a bit disjointed - and I told him I was just trying to help. He called me Mr Boorman - but it was impossible to tell if he was someone who knew who I was and was joining in with the joke or if he really thought I was the 6ft something motorcyclist. I played along either way, although I was a bit annoyed that he was going to think that Charley Boorman had been the helpful one and not me. I am meant to be making Boorman look bad, not good. It turned out that the nearest Beefeater was a few miles north of the city (according to my phone at least) so suspected this man was in more trouble than he realised. He called me Charley and I talked about motorcycling around the world with Ewan Macgregor. "But that's not all you've done, mate," he chipped in, "You've done stuff on your own too." I had no idea if he really believed I was Charley or if he was taking the piss out of me or I was taking the piss out of him. It was a lot of fun. I told him to tell all his friends how nice Charley Boorman had been to him, but he said he didn't have any friends, so I think my mission to destroy Boorman (and according to last year's blog Chris Packham) can continue.
The last preview went fine. Afterwards I sold a DVD to one of the cast of Man Stroke Woman. I have now met two thirds of the cast of Man Stroke Woman, having interviewed Nick Frost and acted alongside the Nathan Barley one and the Psychoville one. This one was the one who looks a bit like he might be the child of a Chuckle Brother. I didn't ask him if he was a child of a Chuckle Brother (probably luckily as I don't think he is) and managed to stay cool and not say, "Now I've met two thirds of the cast of Man Stroke Woman!" I still have to meet the Canadian Woman One and the Curly Haired Blonde Woman One who is married to Tim out of the Office (out of Sherlock). I can't wait to complete the set. The Not Chuckle Brother One is working on Game of Thrones now, so he's already won, so I hope he won't be affronted if he reads this blog. I think he's really good. But not so good that I am going to give him the dignity of looking up his real name. Only Nick Frost has earned that honour from the Man Stroke Woman team.
I have the best celebrity fans. Though you know there is every chance they are only coming to my shows because they think I'm someone else.
