What a ridiculous day.
I spent over five and a half hours doing podcasts with Andrew Collings. Five completely improvised podcasts in one day. That was an insane idea. Surely we couldn't do it. Or at least by the end of all that enforced banter in a secluded space Collings and me would want to kill each other.
Somehow we got through it alive and still awake, but it wasn't easy.
We got to the studio, which was located just above Torchwood at about 10am and we left at 5.30pm. In that time we'd done 1 hour, 6 minutes and 35 seconds about each Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. I had given it all very little thought beforehand, though I knew I had some stories involving fire and water and I'd been on archaeological digs which would come in handy for earth. But aside from my long history of farting there was nothing in my mind about wind. Nonetheless we managed to keep talking and talking. Not all of it was gold, but if it had been that wouldn't have been representative of the podcasts anyway. We only lost it once, when we collapsed into hysterical laughter for no real reason about half way through "Fire". At times it felt like we were trapped in Hell or being tortured by Chris and Felix (who were observing us through the glass), but mostly it was fun. And if that wasn't enough we then both recorded readings of some of our childhood stories.
There's going to be a lot of value when "Collings and Herrin: The Best of Earth, Wind and Fire*
*and water" is released in a matter of weeks or months or years, depending on how lazy Chris Evans (not that one) turns out toe be.
He seems pretty certain that it will be a matter of days.
I think you will enjoy these exclusive podcasts, but if not, look at them as a tax on all the free entertainment you have had over the last couple of years and buy them anyway.
I can't quite believe we managed the Herculean feat. I can't think of many people who would be capable of achieving this much talking. Especially given that that wasn't it. We then had to head over to St David's Hall to perform yet another improvised podcast to 252 excited, harp playing, seaweed eating Welshies (there may have been a few interlopers from outside of the country amongst the crowd). I was hopeful that the presence of a crowd would lift us (and it had been odd doing the others in a vacuum), but was not sure that would be the case. Every time I stop and think about what me and Collings get up to in these podcasts I can't quite believe we have the audacity to attempt it, nor the skills to actually come up with stuff that is mainly acceptable and sometimes rather wonderful. If we were different people I think we might bang on about how brilliant we are. Which seems to be the way to become successful. But instead we point out the bits where we are crap. We are a pair of fucking idiots.
The Cardiff crowd were awesome and we had a lot of fun with our stand up/secret dancing bits, but the whole evening really took off once the podcast bit began. I was even quietly impressed with Collings, who came up with some proper zinging jokes, a couple of which didn't get all they deserved in the room. He is a kind of idiot savant, I think and doesn't realise how difficult and ridiculous what we are doing is. If he was a comedian of many years experience he might be terrified about sitting in front of all these people with no idea of what was coming up next. But he isn't and like the holy fool that he is, he just sits there and gets on with it, clueless about his audacious bravery.
We were very lucky to pick on an unusual and game young man called Tyma and there were also a group of 16 year old lads who looked like they might have snuck into the venue and might possibly have brought in some surreptitious booze, who spent a lot of the time making farting noises on their seats. I took what they were doing and ran with it. I might make it my new Edinburgh show.
It was, in my opinion, the best live show yet.
You can judge for yourself here (there was a very rapid review of it
from buzzmag). As we enjoyed a post-show pint it really felt like we had achieved something and we were glowing with the tired satisfaction of hard work finished.
You can see lots of photos from our ludicrous day at a new website set up by Collings at
www.collingsandherrin.com and if you want to be in the audience for the next one in London on 1st February
then you'd better hurry up and book, because there are only a handful of tickets left.
There are plenty of tickets available for my next Lyric gig on Sunday in Hammersmith though, which has an absolutely brilliant and eclectic line-up with Sarah Kendall from TV's Beehive, Robin Ince from TV's Nine Lessons for Godless Children (that's on BBC4 on Saturday night at 9.45pm), Greg Davies from TV's "The Inbetweeners" and "We Are Klang" and Brendon Burns who won the big prize in Edinburgh a couple of years back and was also briefly a host on the ITV 2 coverage of "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" but walked off the show (as far as I remember) when they tried to make him wear an Aussie hat with corks on it. It will be fucking ace and if you're quick and call 0871 22 117 29 you might still be able to take an advantage of an offer where you get the best available seats for £10 (rather than the usual £15).
And if you don't want to pay anything to hear my stupid voice and don't want to hear Andrew Collings' stupid voice then I will be on Loose Ends on Radio 4 on Saturday evening as well. It's all happening, hey? It's non-stop til September for me now. Hope you can join in with some of the fun!
