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This afternoon, still a bit ill, I drove to Brighton to do my fourth show of Happy Now? And though it's maybe a bit too early to call it, I think the signs are positive. It was my third sell out in four outings for this show (and tomorrow in Havant only has a handful of tickets left, so that one should be full too) with 300 people coming to see me and though I felt light-headed and a bit unprepared it was a pretty strong performance of this new material. It feels like I have the makings of something a bit special here and though there's still some work to do (as there is with every show at every point of its life- never perfected, just abandoned) it's in really good shape for a show that is so new. And I get to do the show three times over these four days so I am hopeful I can really start cementing what I have and adding and improving.
And the sales are very encouraging. When I first started doing podcasts my live audiences grew quickly, but for the last couple of years things have just been holding steady, but if early indications are anything to go by (and they might well not be) then things are picking up again. I am certain that I didn't sell this room out last year. Perhaps by not going to the Edinburgh Fringe the people who would usually see me there will have to come and see the tour instead or maybe the fact that RHLSTP has been going well and coming out regularly for most of the year has kept me in people's minds. The poster image is good which might be helping, but I would say it was too early for word of mouth to have got around that this is a good show (indeed I worried that without the buzz from a successful Fringe people might not have heard of the show) but it could be that the years of touring and producing a new show every year are finally paying off. Or it might just be a blip (London was only a one off gig, so likely to sell, I always do well at the Frog and Bucket and Brighton is a town that I usually do well in) and let's not forget Newport which was some way from selling out (though a great audience in spite of that). My only major worry about touring is that my appeal will drop away as younger, hungrier and more famous comedians appear out of nowhere, so as long as I can maintain my crowd I am very happy. And if I can carry on steadily building then like the tortoise that I increasingly resemble, by the time I am 70 I will be playing the Albert Hall for reals.
We will see how the rest of the dates go, but thanks so much to the people who came tonight. I got some great comments afterwards both from long term fans and people who were completely new to me.
I am finding the subject of happiness fascinating. It's something we all say we want and that we pursue without really having much of an idea of what it is. And now I have thought about it a bit I realise how elusive and ungraspable it is. It is something that creeps up on you rather than the other way round, but is ethereal and will disappear if you notice it's there. As I discuss in the show once we lose our innocence it's almost impossible to he happy, because we are aware of its fragility and once we realise we are happy we are filled with the dread that something will go wrong. So we find temporary happiness in activities where we can lose ourselves like drinking, sex or fairground rides and for a moment recapture the uncomplicated bliss of childhood when we had no understanding that happiness can disappear or be replaced by misery at any moment. I am too self-conscious to lose myself in anything, though I had a good go at obliterating that inner monologue through drink and sex when I was a younger man. But tonight on the drive home I realised that for me being a comedian and performing on stage is my main outlet for trying to lose myself, even when I am discussing and analysing the fact that I can't. A laugh is the ultimate escape from the harshness of reality, even when we are laughing in the face of potential disaster. You are happy when you laugh, of course, that's most of the point, but also it's a release. And for me making other people laugh can sometimes bring that kind of carefree contentment. Not always of course and in many gigs the voice in my head is telling me how badly I am doing and how everyone hates me, but increasingly I am ignoring that negative monologue and realising that the audience are not my enemy and that I am good at what I am doing.
And don't get me wrong, being with my wife and my daughter gives me a more genuine and lasting contentment than the approval of strangers, as much as that contentment then grips me with the fear of all that could go wrong. It just struck me as interesting how laughter perfectly encapsulates that escape from fear and unhappiness, even when the joke acknowledges the thing that frightens you and tackles it.
Perhaps I am not expressing this very well, but the exciting thing was that as I drove home my mind was full of ideas and questions and as tired and ill as I was feeling happy and fortunate.
But then I needed to stop for a wee and when I came back to the carpark I couldn't find my car even though I'd parked there just three minutes earlier. It was very confusing as there weren't that many cars around at this time anyway and pressing the button on my key wasn't making anything light up. Was it possible my car had been stolen? I was sure I'd parked in this part of the carpark. But my car wasn't here and so I considered just lying down and dying as the alternative of getting home from a service station on the M25 at 11.30pm was too much to bear. I was sure I hadn't parked further to the left as I remembered turning right, but that was the only other place the car could be. And that's where it was. The only conclusion is that my VW, along with cheating on its emissions, also has some Herbie-like programme in its computer and had moved itself. It couldn't be that I was too tired and ill and possibly delusional and high on Sudafed and the adrenaline of a good gig to be allowed to drive or think. Anyway I got home alive. Or died on the road and am now a ghost doomed to carry on thinking I am still alive, endlessly writing blogs without realising that no one is reading them. Which might be true if I didn't die.
