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My wife took the early shift and I got to sleep in until an unprecedented 8.30am and felt like a god as a result. I had gone to bed at about 9.30pm, plus had a snooze through Doctor Who and it’s incredible how much difference that made to me. I have been tending to wake up at 6.30 regardless of the baby, so this was very much a luxury lie-in. How my life has changed? I can’t tell you what a result this was and how happy it made me.
But it meant that I was on properly sharp form for the RHLSTPs this afternoon and though we had a small audience of just over a hundred, they were brilliantly responsive and both guests were ace. I chatted to Robert Popper about Friday Night Dinner, Look Around You and the many other shows he’s been involved with over the last twenty years. I’d also been re-reading his utterly hilarious “Time-Waster Letters†and listening to his Robin Cooper calls (just search for them on Youtube) all morning and can recommend them all very heartily. Backstage we discussed Robin Cooper’s attempts to get 200 concert standard clarinettists to turn up at his house as a surprise for his wife. The surprise would be that they would appear with their instruments, not play a note, place their clarinets on the floor and leave. Which would be a surprise. The response was a wonder of passive aggression which suggested that clarinettists are generally taken advantage of and gave a weird insight into the sad world of professional clarinet lessons. Do buy these books - pretty much every page has at least one laugh-out loud moment.
It was fascinating to talk to Robert about his career, but that’s a particularly interesting section about the time he wrote for South Park and the amazing way that that show is put together, seemingly by magic.
Luisa Omielan is a newer comedian (though she’s been working for a decade to achieve her “overnight†success) and is well worth catching if you get a chance to see her inspiring shows about being a woman, which are an irresistible mix of confidence, honesty and vulnerability. With some new emergency questions and my usual obsession with sex, robots, puppets and death, this felt like the perfect mixture of jokes, seriousness and total inappropriateness. I am still not sure that the 4pm Sunday slot is right for the show and the turn-out was a little disappointing. But quality not quantity and this really was a great little crowd.
Next week I will be interviewing John Finnemore, which will be ace fun and then I have decided to film the interview with myself (for the DVD that is one of the kickstarter rewards) in front of any audience. So if you want to see me spill the beans on my career, answer all my emergency questions and possibly drive myself genuinely insane by attempting to keep up a conversation with myself, then book now. This show will not be released as a free podcast and will only be available on DVD, so don’t miss the chance to see it. Book NOW! It’s going to be an experience. It might be a deeply embarrassing experience, but surely you still want to see that.
After the show my wife and I got a rare night out and went for dinner and then to the Museum of Comedy to see Amy Howerska, who did a fabulous show about her crazy, extreme sports family (some of whom we went on that skiing holiday with last year). The Museum of Comedy is worth a visit too, with lots of fun little props and artefacts from comedy history, both famous names and some that have been forgotten. You can browse through old Radio Times and they’ve got an impressive collection of old comedy books and records and it’s all down in the crypt of a church which adds a spookiness to it all. With sleep and a proper night out I felt almost like a regular human being again.
Never have children. They destroy your life. Don’t do it.
Then again having children really makes you appreciate the sleep and nights out that you take for granted, so maybe it's worth it for that.
