Details of the European versions of Talking Cock are coming in slowly. I know I am going to Norway on the 8th September, but do not know where the show is playing or at what time. Hopefully someone will tell me and I will then attempt to add a foreign gigs section to this and the talkingcock website.
The Finland premiere is on the 20th September. I have a gig in Leeds the next day so may not be able to risk attending in case I can't get back in time. Which would be a shame as I have been in email contact with the man who will be the Finnish me, Antti Leskinen (I don't think that means he is against Leskinens, whatever they may be) and he seems like a pleasant and funny man.
Today the Finnish producers sent me a copy of the translated script. I am not sure why they did this, as I am obviously unable to read Finnish (if that's what the language is called. It suddenly seems unlikely), so it's not like I can pull them up on their translation.
Finnish (surely not) is certainly a very strange looking language. The show is called "Kikkelikiekuu" (if I was a rubbish comedian I would say, "that would come in handy in Scrabble!!!" But I'm not a rubbish comedian - I'm not- and I also play Scrabble as you know and the word would be useless even were it allowed as it is both too long and has 5 Ks in it. There is only one K in the Scrabble set and so even if you foolishly used your two blanks as Ks you would still be two Ks short.)
Here's the opening paragraph of my show in Finlandish (that's it!)
"RICH Tervetuloa ja kiitos että olette tulleet katsomaan Kikkelikiekuuta.
(Diakuva, jossa välkkyy ”Varoitus” oikealla, ”Voi sisältää alapäähuumoria” vasemmalla.)
RICH Mä haluan rauhottaa teidän mieliä. Tää ei oo vatsastapuhumisesitys. Ja mä en aio kulkea ympäriinsä heiluttelemassa heppiäni esityksen aikana. Paitsi jos hommat sujuu todella huonosti. Tai todella hyvin. (Ad lib reaktiosta riippuen). Muistakaa siis nauraa kaikelle mitä mä sanon, paitsi tietysti jos te haluutte nähdä mun pikku veikkani… (ad lib kalukukkarosta) Tykkäättekö te tästä? Se on mun suosikkini. Näissä on vaan se ongelma että ne herättää odotuksia. Mikä vaan mikä siellä on sisällä on tuomittu olemaan pettymys…"
So now I know that in the language of the Finlandics "May include knob gags!" is "Voi sisältää alapäähuumoria".
If I do get to go to Finland then that is the only bit of Finlandish that I am going to learn. I am sure it will be very useful in everyday conversation.
It is going to be an enormously surreal experience going to see my show in a variety of different European languages. Weirdly though I can't speak any other language (except a bit of French and four words of Italian - "May include knob gags" naturally) I will be able to understand what they are saying as I know the original text.
I imagine you will be hearing more about this in future entries.
If any Finlavians are reading this, can you just confirm that all that Fineranto stuff above is the opening paragraph from the show and doesn't just say "Richard Herring is an idiot. That's right a total idiot. We all hate him, don't we, fellow Finlanders. Him and his stupid ignorance about what is the correct English name for our language. And his stupid comments about our language looking strange. Does he not even realise that to us English looks like a load of higgeldpiggeldy nonsense. The twat."
Because that's what it seems to say to me.
