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Saturday 29th August 2015
Saturday 29th August 2015

Saturday 29th August 2015

4656/17315

Back to the Hitler Moustache for one (surely?) last time. But I wasn’t planning on having it outside (though I had hoped to get my photo taken with the Leicester Square Charlie Chaplin statue, but they moved it recently and I didn’t have time to find where it was), so this afternoon I shaved off my beard and waited until I got to the theatre to trim the ends off my moustache. Weirdly this time round I didn’t think it looked too bad. I thought about keeping it. For maybe 2 seconds.

Another massively difficult show and I had no idea if any of it had seeped into my brain. But I came out of the gates blazing, without the usual mild stutters that come from nerves and the enormity of the task. I had another much too detailed set list and early on I noticed that my sheets were in the wrong order. Even though I knew what was coming next it was disconcerting not to have that  safety net. it slightly threw me.

And as I was approaching the end of the first half I had a bit of brain freeze and could not locate my place on the sheet and thought I’d actually lost the relevant page and for about 30 seconds thought I wasn’t going to be able to remember what came next. The large crowd (the biggest one yet - Hitler Moustache sits briefly at the top of the charts, selling one more ticket than Happy Now? has done at this stage) were behind me though and shouted out words of encouragement (including I think someone saying “Heil Herring”), which actually just flummoxed me further. But then my brain shifted back into gear and I realised it was obvious what followed. It annoyed me that I had essentially fucked myself up by having the set list. But as George said, it showed that I was human to have made an error and of course the audience liked me more for it. And though it always felt like the next word wasn’t on the tip of my tongue until the second that I needed it, somehow this complicated show came out pretty much in the right order. And the second half, which I had been very worried about, found it’s way out of my skull without me having to look at the sheets (I think) though there were a couple of close calls. It was certainly the best audience response to a show yet and a show that had felt a bit didactic and laugh free to me in going back over it, proved to be mainly light and got laughs throughout. I don’t think the DVD recording of this show was very typical. I am sure it usually got more of a positive response. But then it was in front of a tiny crowd at the Chapter Arts in Cardiff (the last time I did one there I think).

I shaved the moustache off after doing some Adolf selfies in the foyer with the largely rather lovely crowd. But as I used the electric shaver and not my razor blade there was the six o clock shadow of a toothbrush with me for my journey home - the ghost of the moustache may never quite leave me.

I am so enjoying these shows. Especially when they are over.

Now two thirds of the way through and most of the hardest bits of the challenge are done (though writing the new show is not exactly a walk in the park and it’s still some way from being ready). I hope I can sell a few more tickets for What is Love, Anyway? and We’re All Going to Die, which are still jockeying for last place, but Happy Now? seems certain to sell out and Lord of the Dance Settee is doing surprisingly OK, given that I’ve only just finished doing it.

The chart goes like this

1) Hitler Moustache

2) Happy Now?

3) Someone Likes Yoghurt

4) Oh Fuck I’m 40

5) The Headmaster’s Son

6) The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace

7) Christ on a Bike

8) Talking Cock

9) menage a un

10) Lord of the Dance Settee

11) We’re All Going to Die!

12) What is Love, Anyway?


It would be great if I could sell at least 200 tickets to every show. And 240 is the number to beat for the remaining shows if they are to eclipse the wrongly less popular menage a un. At the moment the average is 285 but next weekend may bring that down a bit! Thanks so much for supporting this endeavour either live or via the downloads at www.gofasterstripe.com. Things have gone a lot better financially than they did last August. But man I'd really have had to go some to do worse (maybe set fire to the theatre).

Lord of the Dance Settee has a good shot at mid table respectability and I have been selling a lot of tickets later on so shows 11 and 12, which I consider some of my best ever work may lift themselves up the table and avoid relegation. Oh did I not mention that the bottom two shows will be destroyed?



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