I was feeling a bit down this afternoon for no real reason and though I had headed down towards the gym I had not got beyond the nearby cafe, feeling too tired to make the effort. I had been reading about the 7/7 bus bombing, which wasn't the most cheerful of reading, feeling fury with the idiots (on both sides) who think that blowing people up is a justifiable way to make your feelings known. If there was anything positive to take from the story (and this is clutching at straws, but is interesting), it is that the dozen or so fatalities on that bus included a pretty accurate cross-section of Londoners: people from Asian, black and white backgrounds, Christians, Muslims and Jews (and atheists I imagine). If you take a punch at London, you take a punch at the world. It should make this already futile and pathetic gesture even more futile, but that's not enough. Life is precarious enough without this kind of shit going on. I felt pity for the stupid bombers who believe that any God would be happy with them destroying stuff that He/She has created. But also for giving up their own lives to kill, in broader terms, so few people, of so little importance. I think one of the tube bombers took four people with him. The guy in Sweden recently managed zero. I am not trying to encourage them to kill more, but it just seems a big sacrifice to make. You stupid pricks.
Finally though I roused myself enough to start walking into town and just by it immediately lifted me out of my fug. It seems I am bound to be a nomad comedian, which is the first step before becoming a tramp. I even had a big bag full of my possessions, though in my case that included a computer and about 100 show programmes which I was carrying to boost stock. I managed to walk from Hammersmith to Knightsbridge in about 45 minutes, which given my heavy load can almost count as a gym work out in itself.
And I am determined to do more walking, because not only did it cheer me up and get me thinking after a good hour in the cafe thinking nothing but negative thoughts, I also saw some interesting stuff on my travels. I saw a large cloud of what looked like smoke coming looming over the horizon as I approached Olympia and wondered if it was a bombing on the tube but it turned out to be the debris of demolition from a building site. I carried on along Kensington High Street, passed the Odeon cinema which I used to go to quite regularly back in the mid-nineties when I was dating a girl in the area, so it stirred up some memories and reminded me of the passage of time. I hadn't thought about the cinema (even though I must have passed it in cars) for over a decade and a half. When you're walking you have more time to look and think. Maybe the blood flowing wakes up your brain.
I nearly got run over by a man on a bicycle, racing to get through the traffic lights as they turned red. So walking has its dangers too.
I realised I wasn't going to be able to make it all the way into the theatre in time as I had to meet someone at 6, so as I walked up past the Albert Hall I started looking for a bus, but they only passed me when I was between stops. It started to rain, but I didn't really mind - it was refreshing and made the whole experience more Biblical and like a baptism. Hardly anyone walks down this road and I was alone for big stretches, so was surprised to see a gathering of people in the distance waving flags and shouting. I had no idea what the flags were, but thought they might be Turkish. What was going on? Was I about to end up in the middle of a riot.
The protest, it turned out was smallish and well behaved. Maybe 100 people standing on the pavement by the park, holding up signs. I had to step in the road to get around them. I found out then that they were in fact Tunisian flags and men, women and children were holding up placards of a man I didn't recognise, with a largish toothbrush moustache, next to pictures of Hitler - were they fans of mine who had heard I was in the area and organised an impromptu celebration of my work? No, they were protesting about their president (and I think they might have added the moustaches themselves, but not due to my sterling work in the area). It was an exciting moment in my quiet promenade. Something I wouldn't have seen if I hadn't been walking. I later saw news stories about Tunisia, but for once I got this news first by being out and about rather than in front of a computer.
I wondered about becoming a genuine comedy nomad and like a troubador of old and doing my next tour, walking around the country and performing in whichever town I ended up in, talking about the things I had seen in the day. It's a shame that Dave Gorman did a similar thing on his bike (though I am not sure how much of the show was pre-written as I didn't see it) and Mark Olver also did a show (as I remember) about walking up to Edinburgh and Eddie Izzard did his insane and amazing Marathon tour of the country. Then again, old time troubadors and minstrels did it first. I guess it would take a long time to do it, as I would think 20 miles a day would be about as far as one could walk, but that might not be a bad thing. It would be amazing to visit the whole country at this pace and actually see the things that were going on around you. Plus I would get pretty fit. And reduce my carbon footprint.
It could be a new show every night, like a blog come to life, about what I had seen and thought. Or a show that accumulates routines as it goes, giving highlights of the trip along with that day's events. It wouldn't be something I would want to do at this time of year, but I wonder if I spent the summer months as a nomad how far I could go and how many places I could perform in. I could do a Festival of Britain instead of an Edinburgh Festival one summer.
I very much doubt that this will ever happen and I will tell you one thing - I'd be posting the SCOPE programmes to each venue cos even carrying 100 today made the journey tricky, let alone enough for four months! But even in just the few London walks I have done I have been surprised about the stuff I have seen - yesterday I was amazed how empty the streets off Oxford St were even during rush hour and how quiet the middle of the city could be.
But it doesn't really matter if I have a ludicrous and unworkable idea while I am out on these walks - the important thing is that it is giving me ideas.
And my blues were banished and I had my most enjoyable show yet. I do my best every day, but just recently I have discovered a new level to this show and I probably added about ten minutes of brand new stuff to it today - although just by elongating and exploring stuff that is already in there. I don't know if it's a coincidence that the two days that I have done a fair bit of walking have been the best shows from my point of view. It also helps that more people were in - over 180 today (still well short of my pre-run hopes, but encouraging nonetheless), but really I think that most of it comes down to how I am feeling and how hard I try and how focused I am. I love the fact that I am still learning all the time at this job and that every six months I have a day where I think I have finally got it now, only to have another epiphany six months down the line. To give you one idea of the way I am making tiny differences to improve the show, it is only in the last two performances (of the couple of hundred times I have done this show in 2001/2 and 2010/11) that I had the idea to actually mime the Kinder Egg when I am talking about stealing it. I hold an imaginary egg in my hand and shake it when I wonder what might be inside. It is an imperceptibly small change to the audience, but I think it makes the bit a little bit funnier. And if one of the 180 people tonight spotted it and it made them laugh then that makes the show almost imperceptibly more successful. But there are thousands and thousands of tiny things like this that can be improved: a change in pace or volume, the addition of a new word or facial expression, the removal of unnecessary language. The show is like a song that I am subtly changing every night, but it is getting better and every night I realise that as hard as I have worked on it, I am still lazy and there is still much to do.
Only seven more nights in London, but then it will be coming round the country - in a car rather than on foot.
Come and see it. I am quite good at this now.
