5102/18022
Utterly exhausting day, not helped by my dumbass sexcrement waking up at 2am and needing some comfort. She hasn’t done this for ages, so it’s like she knew it was my turn.
But somehow motored through and the third AIOTM in we are getting better at the logistics. Dan couldn’t do the show today due to a work commitment, but we had the brilliant Matthew Crosby in as a super sub. The cast met up early so we could have some lunch, talk about Emma Kennedy meeting some ghosts on a recent TV show and then have a read through of what I’d written. The main show was a bit shorter than the last couple of times and the bits we had to do a bit shorter and easier to learn, but we still had to work out where we were going to stand, whether we had all the props and if there was anything worth cutting.
It’s hard work, but not compared to any kind of job and Emma and me often catch each other’s eye and are clearly thinking, how are we still doing this after all this time. I realised that we’d known each other now for almost 30 years - we first performed in sketches together in the early Spring of 1987 (Emma thinks we may have met a couple of years before that as she applied to the college I went to to do History and talked to one of the other candidates as she waited - and I kind of remember that too). If anything the stuff we were doing back then was more sophisticated that what we put together today. But it’s funnier to be still doing it as we hurtle towards our fifties.
I spent quite a bit of the afternoon trying to make a yo yo out of a biscuit and some cheese and we had to try and make a turd for me to slip up on and Matthew came up with an excellent suggestion (via George Egg) of using some squashed up Soreen Loaf. It worked so well that I later saw a confused and disappointed fly landing on it, only to discover it wasn’t delicious poo, but horrible actual food.
As my grandad’s friend said upon hearing my first radio show, “What a waste of a good education.” I hate the fucker who said that, not because of any personal slight, but just because it must have been crushing for my grandad who had just sat down and listened to the thing. Ah well, whoever it was will be dead now, so the joke’s on them.
No one is more surprised than me when the scripts I have somehow thrown together actually work. We had lots to talk about with the topical audio one, though really, what is there to say other than a general howl of despair. Trump continued to be funnier (and more awful) than we could about him by announcing that his Mexico wall will be “part fence”.
It was terrific to see the cast and crew all beavering away trying to make this madness work and though I crashed a bit before the show and thought I might need to sleep forever, once we were on stage the energy was there and there was enough messing around from all concerned to keep that buzz going through the whole night. You’ll be able to hear the audio pretty soon, but the video versions will be ready when they are ready.
Unbelievably I have to return tomorrow to film two RHLSTP interviews, but thankfully this is the last of the consecutive records as RHLSTP will be finished by the 11th December when the next show records. Come along. It’s a lot of fun. Maybe more fun live than it will be on tape.
