4867/17787
My decision to eat a breakfast that probably didn't contain glass was vindicated. I am still alive.
Oh and Giles wants me to point out that my suit trousers turned up in may wardrobe at home, so either I mistakenly didn't take them, thinking they were on the same hanger as the jacket or, much more likely, once Giles had had his way with the trousers he arranged for them to be dry cleaned and then broke into my house and hung them up in my bedroom. The pervert.
A long drive up to Chorley for tonight's gig at the start of another week of criss-crossing the country (Lincoln on Thursday, Wolverhampton on Friday and Reading on Saturday). Even without the driving it's exhausting, so I was glad there were friendly faces and typical Little Theatre hospitality when I arrived. My Marks and Spencer salad had come open and exploded all over my bag, so I was pleased that there was a generous supply of sandwiches, crisps and sweets awaiting me. Plus Chorley cakes, of course. I always insist that I get the local town cake wherever I am playing. Which is why I never gig in the Belgian town of Urinal. I am sort of glad that all venues are not this generous as I would be 30 stone by the end of a tour, but it's lovely to be treated with some respect by people who run a theatre because they love putting on shows. They actually apologised to me that they hadn't been able to get me any Richard Herring cheese and mango chutney chorley cakes as the woman who made them had been ill (probably because she's been eating nothing but since last year).
This was the gig where last year a woman walked out after 30 seconds, and the man she was on a date with was back in the front row tonight. He was with a burly man this time and I applaud his lifestyle choices. Once again during the first routine the person accompanying the unlucky date man got up and walked out, but this time it was because the big fella had a cough and didn't want to disturb the show. Given this led to a three minute discussion of what was going on I was able to say, “Well that worked out thenâ€. I was a bit under the weather, with a croaky voice and a snotty nose and fighting through the tiredness, but it was a good performance. At least I thought it was, until I realised in the last ten minutes that I'd missed out a crucial routine, early in the first half, which pays off at the end. I had to crowbar the routine back into the show and nobody noticed, but these kind of errors do crop up due to fatigue and over familiarity. It's bizarre that I didn't even notice until it was nearly too late. I felt very in control of the gig and then suddenly realised I had no right to be and yet I took the error in my stride and found a way to rectify it.
And I wasn't entirely clod-brained and ad-libbed quite a lot of new stuff and imagined that the audience were composed of ghosts from Victorian times, for some reason. I guess you might find out what happened if I can get round to updating the Happy Now? podcast. Which I might not do. But you never know.
Everyone seemed happy afterwards (which as I understand it is the point of what I do). I wish all theatres were like this, but I would die of Vimto bonbon poisoning (there were four big jars of sweets in my dressing room and I was tempted to eat all of them to see what they'd say).
Retro video RHLSTP with Jenny Eclair now up here youtube
vimeo and on iTunes.
The Motorcycle Clothing Shop Sketch is ready to be seen, but we're not releasing it until the Kickstarter has hit £50,000. Unless something spectacular happens in the last fortnight I don't think we're going to make the £100K total, but you never know. Let's see how close we can get. And thanks so much to everyone who has donated so far. It's an amazing level of support and I really appreciate it.
