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Well I nearly did it, but alas only got two thirds of the way through the tour before experiencing my first sub-100 audience. There were somewhere around 80 in tonight at the Scarborough Spa and although it made my heart drop a little to hear the news, I have sold over 1000 tickets for the next two gigs on the tour, so I can’t complain. And there was a time when 80 people would have been one of my better audiences, so I have this all in perspective.
But so close to the 100+ tour. The pressure is off for Bedford now though.
It still blows my mind that 80 people will pay to come and see me talk for 90 minutes though. I hope it never stops blowing my mind.
I am over the moon that I can feel briefly disappointed with a crowd of this magnitude. Though I am bamboozled by how wildly my appeal varies from town to town.
And the Scarborough crowd were lovely. There was a somewhat inebriated man at the back who would occasionally chuck in a comment, at a volume that was too high to be a conversation with his neighbour, but too low for me to be able to hear. I lightly mocked him a couple of times, but as I closed the first half and told the audience this was a good time to storm off and send me an email in 12 hours, he tried again.
I couldn’t hear him and so chastised his poor heckling again. So he yelled, “What’s your email address?â€
I commented that this didn’t sound like the first time he had shouted that question and had done it outside strangers’ houses at night and that it was his first line in any chat up attempt in a pub, “What’s your email address!!!?†- why aren’t women interested in me? What’s wrong with them?
It was a fun little diversion. I do admire the bravado of the drunk people of Britain, who think they have a shot at being funnier than a sober man who does the job for a living. But he was benign and having fun I think.
And there was genuine warmth from the people who came to the show when I signed autographs afterwards. Some lovely slightly-older-than-me ladies who you might not have pegged as Richard Herring fans if you hadn’t seen them at my gig (because of your own PREJUDICE) told me that they’d been coming to see me since Excavating Rita. “You’ve seen my cock†I exclaimed and they agreed that they had (in the play obviously, but who knows where else, the 1990s was a wild time).
What if I had gone on in a mood and blamed the people who’d turned up for those who hadn’t (a shithouse act that I am sure I have been guilty in back in the dark days of trying to build an audience from next to nothing). How disappointed these people would have been in me!
Scarborough is another beautiful town and only 29 miles from where I was born and spent my first 4 years. Presumably I played on these beaches as a nipper. Again I regretted the fact that I have so much to achieve whilst I am touring. If I do ever tour again (and I really hope I do) then I want to ensure it is the only job I am doing at the time. I’d have liked to take a trip up to the castle tomorrow or taken the tram down to the beach. But I must press on with writing Emergency Questions and the second series of Relativity.
But very much looking forward to the gig in Leeds - which in perfect contrast, looks like it will be a sell-out. City Varieties is the perfect mid-sized venue for comedy and if it’s crazy that 80 people want to see me in Scarborough, it’s off the fucking charts that 450 people are waiting to watch me in Leeds.
And if you want to see the show filmed in what I think will be a little celebration and faux-finale of all that I have achieved since 2001, the come to
the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday. There's a free Christmas Emergency Questions book for everyone who comes to that one.
I loved meeting her and she is one of the most genuine and down to earth comedy superstars I have ever met. And she’s brilliantly funny of course. What a delight this last series of RHLSTP has been.
