A full day to write and nothing else and I started out with verve and enthusiasm and made some progress with scene 3 (which given that scenes 1 and 2 are very short did not augur well) and even started to kid myself that with a prevailing wind behind me I might even get to the end of this thing today. But I came to a juddering halt in the afternoon and whilst I did make a tiny amount of progress it was clear that I wasn't going to get anywhere near completing this by the proscribed deadline. If I had five days with nothing else to do, then it wouldn't be impossible. But my schedule is packed.
God at least seemed determined to stop me watching Deal or No Deal by sending a mighty storm of such intensity that it distrupted my satellite signal, but the thunder and lightning and rain pounding on my roof was a bit distracting. God can be a bit of an idiot sometimes. He gives with one hand and takes away with the other.
I emailed my manager and asked for another two weeks, which he agreed to and that immediately lifted a lot of the pressure off my brain. For a fortnight at least. Then we'll be back to the exact same situation.
Having postponed one of my deadlines, I decided that the best use of my evening would be to pick off a couple of the other jobs that were imminent so I wrote the text that will go on the back of my Edinburgh leaflet, which is tricky to do when I know so little about the show, but I gave it a good go.
Here it is:
"“What is l-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uhve anyway?
Does anybody love anybody anyway?”
So asked the insane, Welsh, poet-philosopher, Howard Jones in 1983. But in the intervening 28 years no one has dared to answer his questions?
Until now.
Comedian Richard Herring returns to Edinburgh for his 20th Fringe. Having sorted out religion (Christ on a Bike), politics (Hitler Moustache) and penises (Talking Cock), the star of award winning podcast As It Occurs To Me and Radio 4Â’s Richard HerringÂ’s Objective seeks to define and destroy love.
Before love destroys him.
Again.
Is love just a chemical reaction in our brains by which our body selects potential sexual partners or is it a magical force which guides us unerringly to our soul mate, oddly usually waiting until weÂ’re off our tits at a night club to do so?
Could a romantic gesture involving Ferrero Rocher chocolates get so out of control as to destroy the economic infrastructure of the United Kingdom?
Is the word being devalued if Richard’s dry cleaner claims to “love” all his customers, or is he actually only enamoured with Herring and too shy to tell him directly?
And the real jeopardy is that if Richard succeeds in proving that love is a metaphysical nicety born out of the basest human needs, then his girlfriend will be furious. HeÂ’ll be sleeping on the couch for weeks.
“What is love, anyway?” is a heart-warmingly honest and personal examination of the romantic (and not so romantic) adventures and misadventures of the UK’s most prolific comedian.
“A consummate comedian at top of his game” Time Out
“One of Britain’s smartest solo comedians” The Guardian
“Childish and juvenile” The Rev David Robertson of St Peter’s Free Church, Dundee"
I then pressed on with writing the contents of the programme, which I am keen to get printed up as soon as possible to maximise revenue for SCOPE. If you want to get your name in there then you only have til the end of the month, so
do it now!. The current highest donation is £500 so that's the price to beat if you want to win a load of cool extra stuff.
At least I had spent most of the day and the night up in my office, which is the first and hardest part of being a writer. If you can just keep your arse stuck to your chair and your fingers on the keyboard then you will usually get something achieved - if you can keep off Twitter and Yahtzee for long enough.
The signs are slightly more positive today, though I wish I had done a bit better. By Monday I hope to have written all my bits for the programme and be halfway through AIOTM
, so slowly I can tick everything off. But I wish it was September.
An interview with RTE that I did a couple of weeks ago can be heard here.
