We're really relaxing into this stupid project, now we are halfway through the run. Despite the stress and the writing challenge we do have a lot of fun putting it together. It really is an excellent team of talented and easy going people and there are no twats to have to deal with. There's usually one somewhere in the woodwork on any show, whether it be a useless producer or a difficult actor or Stewart Graham Lee (I'm joking), but Emma, Christian and Dan just get on with it and don't complain about how many lines they've got or what their motivation is. And Ben who is helping us with the production side of things is also great and actually volunteered for the job. I am glad he did because I don't think I'd have been able to get it all together without him. And the staff at the Leicester Square Theatre (who I am getting to know quite well as I have worked with many of them for several years now, both here and at the Arts) are also really excellent and supportive. It just makes things a lot more pleasurable than they could be and I am grateful for that, that's all.
Today before the first read through I had to do an interview on camera which will be used to promote "How Not To Grow Up". The interview itself went fine, but they wanted to film a bit of the rehearsal of the show to intercut into it. This week's script is almost entirely crude and childish and I felt surprisingly embarrassed reading it out in front of a couple of grown up strangers who were not aware of the previous episodes. As we talked about cumpkins and semen and gloy glue I could feel myself actually going red. Hopefully this would all be OK in front of a couple of hundred people, but with an audience of about four it just felt a bit pathetic. But in quite a funny way.
But what if it was this embarrassing on the night?
Luckily it wasn't. It was the biggest audience yet (over 200 people) and a real feeling that most of them were regular listeners who were excited to be there and liked the show. Now we're all a bit clearer about what this is and what's going on it is definitely coming together. It feels like it's working. Which is gratifying as this whole thing has been a bit of a crazy leap in the dark.
You can judge for yourself by subscribing at iTunes or by
going to the British Comedy Guide (and many thanks also to Orange Mark who gets the show on line within hours of it being recorded - he doesn't even had any orange juice for this show yet). The machine is beginning to run smoothly. Be interesting to see how things progress.
As it was right up to the minute I was able to include some stuff about
Gordon Brown's letter to the mother of a dead soldier. Much as I can appreciate the grief of the mother this whole episode just makes me feel sorry for Brown, who it seems can't do anything right and if he has made a mistake here, it is just to have spent his time running the country rather than having calligraphy lessons. It's debatable whether he has mis-spelled any names in the letter anyway and I think it's wrong for the Sun to exploit this woman's grief for political purposes. Once again it seems that the wrong part of the issue is being emphasised. If the mother has anything to complain about it is that the government has sent her son overseas to be killed in a questionable conflict, but it seems a bit churlish to complain about penmanship in a letter from the Prime Minister. I almost feel that I now have to vote for Brown because this constant hounding of him is so unfair. I probably won't though. But I might. I love the way he spells cumfort.
Oh by the way, the cumpkin mugs are all too real. If you want to buy one
visit Urban Dictionary and click on the link. I will not make any money out of this, but quite like the idea of some confused person in America (I'm guessing) wondering why loads of people suddenly want a cumpkin mug.
