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Another hugely enjoyable RHLSTP recording this afternoon and for the first time this series I had had a reasonable night's sleep and didn't have a cold, so I was a bit sharper and more lively than of late. My first guest was young buck John Robins who is well worth checking out if you get a chance to see him live. If not you can pay what you like (but give him a fiver) for the audios of his last two Edinburgh shows here. It's sometimes a nerve-wracking gig for the newer comics, especially if they are in front of an audience who have come to see the star name, but John was relaxed and funny and very open about his drinking and working with Noel Edmonds (not necessarily connected). It was the third sold out show in a row and again the audience were up for it from the start. I haven't loved doing these in the afternoon and with an enforced end point, but this felt like it was an evening gig and there is no better compliment than that.
And it was a real pleasure to have David Mitchell back on (unbelievably three years have passed since his first appearance). If you were to create a robot RHLSTP guest in a laboratory then it would probably come out as a mind clone of David Mitchell (though I would probably make it look like the actress Gemma Chan). I listened to his first appearance again, largely to prevent us repeating ourselves. It was the 13th show we did and I felt slightly embarrassed about my own performance. Though I liked to play on the relative failure of my career with the early guests especially I feel I over-egged it in that podcast and occasionally crossed the borderline into unnecessary rudeness. But luckily David took it very well at the time and responded to me perfectly by treating me as a precocious but intelligent 5 year old child that he wasn't really able to tell to just fuck off. And his pedantry and lightning sharp brain make him the ideal person to posit an emergency question to. He aced the ham hand one last time and this afternoon did a similarly spectacular job of the Spitting Image puppet holiday.
I was less rude and childish (but these things are all comparative and I took a couple of spectacular plunges into puerility and inappropriateness) and there was some enjoyable badinage, plus some insights into the downside of being a celebrity dad, the most average episode of Peep Show and the reason that so many people (and I can't claim innocence here) are so judgemental of the work of Ben Elton.
Doing these podcasts has, I think, given me a more realistic idea of the level of my own talents and I am pretty good at what I do, but when you interact with the absolute best you do understand why they are on the telly (and I am not). David is a charming and intelligent man but his brain is so fast and his ability to formulate a nonsensical argument that is genuinely improvised is so impressive that he surely deserves all that he has achieved.
And it was nice that we both able to be a bit soppy about our new daughters, even if having seen the Daily Mail Online's paparazzi shots of the supposed news stories of him and his family going on two walks made me glad that I have remained a cultish figure outside of mainstream news interest.
Overall I think this podcast was better than the first one (and not just because I was less of a twat) and was only mildly disappointed that we had to curtail it at the point where things would usually get languorous and interesting.
Sometimes I leave the podcasts feeling a bit sick or worried that I was dull or pointlessly offensive, but today I left happy and feeling very lucky that somehow this is my job. And if every show sold as well as this it could be my only job! There are plenty of tickets left for all the last three recordings and thus I must do other work (which is for the best).
These podcasts won't be out until the end of this year and the beginning of next, which will make David Mitchell's correct decision to wear a poppy on Remembrance Sunday insane and overly jingoistic.
