6999/19519
My daughter was itching to get on stage today, hoping to do an act with Fluffy Rabbit. She’d previewed it for me yesterday at bed time and it was pretty good. I was flattered she’d done a vent act in tribute to me, but later on today she told her mum that it was a bit like Sam from the Panto we’d seen, so it was actually a tribute to Paul Zerdin. But it was all crowd work, picking on imaginary members of the audience, asking them why they didn’t like rabbits, taking the Mickey out of a man with a moustache. I think she could have properly upstaged me.
I’d woken up early and struggled to get back to sleep. Phoebe had come in to find out what time it was at about 5am and then returned half an hour later to tell me she’d seen something beautiful. She opened the curtains to reveal a night sky full of stars. Even though I’d nearly been asleep again I didn’t mind being woken to be shown something amazing that I have taken for granted, but that had blown a 6 year old’s mind. Imagine being so blown away by the Universe that you need to wake someone up to tell them.
Ernie was more of a dervish this morning, getting clay stuff embedded in the carpet and then just before we were leaving, unrolling an entire toilet roll to turn himself into a mummy and then make snow. It was funny, of course. But the third time he tried to make snow I think his Grandma was getting a bit impatient and wondering when he was getting out of there. Though I think she was secretly pleased he’d ruined the carpet as it gave her the excuse to get a new one.
The problem is that he’ll ruin that one too.
We went back to Bristol for another show - I was pretty knackered (though not as tired as I’d be after the drive home), but the kids behaved (and seem to have charmed the people looking after them) and though my daughter asked a few people if she could go on stage, I didn’t have to follow her this time, though I suspect she’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. I had a fun chat with Jon Culshaw, who is a remarkably skilled impressionist and although I discussed with him the fact that it’s often hard to get to know the person behind the impressionist, Jon is a very normal and pleasant man with outside interests and his own personality (unlike some of those impressionist weirdos - though to be fair they have nothing on ventriloquists). He does slip into the voices at every opportunity, of course, but so would you, if you could!
It will go out as a podcast in a few weeks (and we’ll release the chat with Robin too - though minus the clips).
We got home OK and I think Catie had been glad of the rest, but she could have done with a bit more. It’s been good for me to do some solo time with the kids. They can be infuriating, but they are just making the most of life, seeing the beauty, desperate to see what everything does, always searching for the laughter. We all start as comedians and life smacks it out of most of us.
