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I had a meeting about the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe and the good news is that even if I don’t sell a single ticket I will not lose as much as I did the last time I went up!
But I have a venue and a show time - I will be on at 7.30pm (not sure if I am allowed to say the venue yet) for “Oh Frig, I’m 50!†On the 30th anniversary of my first Fringe appearance, my 40th Fringe show in my 50th year. I have not really started thinking about it at all - beyond writing my 40 words for the Fringe programme on the drive to Bristol. I have maybe two new jokes.
But it’s happening. I am coming back to Edinburgh to claim my crown. Hopefully I will enjoy it more than last time. And fingers crossed that I break even.
I arrived at the Colston Hall to discover that Ricky Gervais was on in the big room, whilst I was in the (at least long ago sold out) 250 seater room next door. I think I could sell 800+ tickets in Bristol as it’s probably the city that likes my stuff the most, but there is no 800 seater venue here. The Colston Hall is massive and though I suggested playing it to see how well I did, the venue preferred to put me in the small venue and (as it turns out) the international superstar in the big one. Who can say if they made the right call?
Everything was done to keep my feet on the ground. As I climbed the stairs up to the venue a security guy on the landing said hello and then asked me if I was Richard Herring’s tour manager. I told him I was Richard Herring, though on many tours the answer would still be yes. At least he didn’t ask me if I was Richard Herring’s dad.
The dressing room at the Lanterns may be the worst dressing room in the UK and that is saying something as behind the scenes is not where a theatre wants to spend money. There was a huge expanse of untreated damp on one wall, that bubbled out and turned the flat surface into a 3D adventure. It was more like a cauliflower than a wall. It was also as cold in there as it was outside. A small heater stood in the middle of the room and successfully made the two inches of air above it, every so slightly warmer than the rest of the air in the room. The window had also been left open.
Any hope that I might have recovered from my illness was now tempered with the fact that I would have some kind of cauliflower wall virus to contend with, if I didn’t die of exposure first. I got into showbiz for the glamour.
I had been feeling much better today, but was now flagging and life was trying to teach me about my place in the world. I kept my coat on and played myself at Pinball on my iPad. Me 1 claimed a remarkable victory, coming back from nowhere to just pip Me2 by mere thousands of points, still needing Me2 to have an immediate gutter ball and succeeding. I bet Ricky Gervais wasn’t playing Me1 vs Me2 pinball in his dressing room. I feel sorry for him. I wonder if they had heated his dressing room. Probably not. If they treated a local boy like me so badly, what punishments would they have for an outsider from Reading of all places?
I got such a warm reception from the crowd that none of this mattered. I was sort of amazed that anyone would choose me when they could have been next door and I thanked them for their excellent taste. I did feel a bit woozy and ill on stage again, annoyingly and made a few mistakes and had to pull back a little bit on the energy levels. But actually the low key delivery improved some routines and I don’t think anyone else would have spotted most of the errors. Gervais even managed to upstage me with illness though, as reports came through that he died on stage. Being a comedian I was pleased that the material of a more successful artist was bombing, but the show had been going very well. Ricky had apparently thought he was having a heart attack. This could have been my opportunity. With him down and out I could have rushed over and done my stuff to a much bigger crowd and become an overnight (if a night can be said to last 30 years) success.
Sadly Ricky Gervais didn’t die. Tragically, he lived.
But there is time in the second half of my sixty year long career in showbiz to be playing the Colston Hall main room. Or indeed to look back at the time that I could play the smaller room wistfully, wishing I was that popular again.
If this tour is teaching me anything it is that I am older and that maybe trying to do 60+ gigs whilst writing two sitcoms and an internet sketch show is too much for me. I have fallen asleep in the car quite a few times now and did so again on the way home tonight, so let’s thank God that I am no longer my own tour manager.
There’s a bonus interview on the RHLSTP channels - me talking to Marcus Chown about the Creation of the Universe. We’re putting out all six of the interviews that originally featured in RHMOL and were previously only available in full to series subscribers. Hope you enjoy them.
