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Up to Birmingham pretty early today, so I could deliver our cameras to be set up for the biggest selling RHLSTP (or Richard Herring gig) ever. 1100 Birmingham idiots had nothing better to do than come and see me asking Adrian Chiles if he’d ever tried to suck his own cock (I didn’t ask him, but he volunteered quite a lot of much more disturbing information). All the RHLSTP gigs on the road seem to be doing better with sales than my stand up shows have done, bit Birmingham is about four times better than my last gig here (in terms of sales) and given it sold out months ago I think we could have done way more. It’s a bit of a mystery, but hopefully indicative that the on the road gigs will be worth it. My progress up the ladder has been steady, but slow and my stand up sales have been pretty good recently (not putting me up there with the big boys and girl, but putting me in a select band of acts who can make a living from touring). So as always it means an awful lot to reach milestones like this and after pretty much 20 years on the road (plus an extra five or so as part of a double act) it’s been quite a journey.
Adrian Chiles was my guest. I have only met him once before, when he was sitting next to me in Caffe Nero in Hammersmith and I noticed he had the same Sony Vaio as me and I asked him how he was getting on with it. I suspected he’d be an interesting guest though, as his own journey through show business has taken some unusual turns and had great success as well as some notable failures. And it turned out that he talked very candidly about what it’s like to be told you’re not on TV anymore ten times a day, as well as some personal stories. It’s a really cracking podcast, where I don’t get to do too much, as the loquacious Chiles answers questions that haven’t been asked, but it was made better by the brilliant atmosphere in the room and the fact that we were being signed for the deaf. It’s always fun to find out how various offensive acts are signed, but a lot of stuff got extra laughs because the audience were turning to the signer to see how drooping testicles or ejaculation were signed. Hitler was also a good one, though I suspect they make up a few of these as they go along.
And I have to feel sorry for Chiles’ brother-in-law who had booked tickets to see the show months ago, only to find out who the guest was in the last few days. But some of the stories might even have been new to him. I hope so anyway!
Anyway you’ve got to wait 15 weeks to see or hear it.
I met a fair proportion of the audience after the show as I sold and signed books (a couple of you got free ones due to my poor use of my card machine, but enjoy them with my compliments) and it seemed to have gone well. I hope we can come back and do another one in the city soon and if the tour shows keep selling this well then we might abandon fussy London all together!
Still loads of tickets left to see legend Nicholas Parsons on Monday (this has still been the best selling run at the Leicester Square Theatre incidentally, so thanks fussy cock-knees).
Anyway it was fun doing an afternoon gig and helpfully a sign of what is to come. Lots of the tour dates already selling well,
so book ahead.
