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We were staying in the poshest hotel in Wrexham, which as you can imagine was quite impressive. The Cannibal and I were on different floors, but in the same position at the end of the corridor, right opposite the plant room, which was humming gently as I went to bed, so either the plant was a Triffid or it was radioactive in some way. There was a massive boiler in the corridor which was cordoned off and clearly either waiting to put in or take out. We hadn’t got the best rooms, obviously. And this morning workmen started up pretty early, banging metal on metal and doing some major operation on both floors. I was already awake, but it was a bit annoying as I was trying to record some podcasts, but they woke Giles up.
I went to the gym and when I came back to have a shower I was surprised to find the water was freezing cold. Clearly this had something to do with the work on the boilers and it might have been nice if we’d been warned about it. I had a cold wash with a flannel, but it was hardly the start to the day that I had wanted.
The receptionist was bright and breezy and asked if my stay had been OK. I said I was a bit annoyed about the work going on next to my room (maybe they should have closed those rooms while renovations were happening) and more annoyed that there was no hot water. “Yes, sorry about that,†she said, “We were not told that that was going to happen. We only just found out ourselves.†Which seemed unlikely or at best incompetent. “I can only apologise,†she said, as if this was something out of the control of the hotel.
“Well that’s not all you can do really is it?†I said, “You could refund our money.†And surely they had to. They had failed to provide the service required or give us any advance warning of what was going on. They clearly saw themselves as quite a slick hotel for business people and just because I am a grubby comedian who can get away with smelling of sweat all day long doesn’t mean this is acceptable.
“You’d have to speak to the manager about that,†she said. So it turned out they could do more than apologise.I thought that was weird. I think we worked something out in the end. This is the kind of thing that happens when you go abroad and different cultures have different ways of doing things. So we shouldn’t judge the Welsh too harshly for this. We come over here with our fancy English notions of expecting to sleep and get washed in a hotel…. But next time I have failed to deliver something within my job description I am going to try saying, “I can only apologise†and see if I get away with that.
After having a lot of time to kill in Wrexham (very much the Loughborough of Wales) with very little on offer to do, we headed across to Sutton Coldfield for my annual fun gig at the Comedy Junction, one of the best small comedy clubs in the country. They somehow squeezed a sofa on to the tiny stage - though I was in danger of dashing my heads on the lighting rig if I bounced too enthusiastically or kicking out the teeth of the people in the front row if I made a wrong move. After playing theatres for a while it was fun to get back into a venue where the front row is less than a foot away from you. It’s always a great crowd here, though one man, a little worse for wear, was commenting a bit enthusiastically during the first half (though quietly enough that I could ignore him). By the second half he’d got to that stage of drunkeness where he didn’t know what was going on. He was clearly enjoying the show, but he kept in throwing in unamusing comments, or thinking he was adding to the joke by explaining it. In the end I had to put him down quite cruelly and wish death upon him, but with a bit of coercion from the people who run the gig he did more or less shut up in the end. It will probably in part make the podcast at some point, though like my other heckler video it’s all about the impossibility of dealing with someone who is so drunk that they have no idea what they’re doing.
Chris Evans, not that one, forgot to factor in VAT to our kickstarter total (he is delightfully incompetent, like a Welsh Mr Bean - that’s a Mr Bean who has had to wash himself in cold water with a flannel and hasn’t had any sleep). So as I write we have four hours to raise £3600, so if you haven’t helped yet,
bung us a couple of quid here. Obviously we’ll go ahead regardless and we’ll find the money somewhere, but any help appreciated! We’re not really businessmen, we just want to bring you top comedy without losing too much money. That’s no kind of business model is it?
