A couple of months off doing the Hercules show had left the script a bit misty and befuddled in my brain. Also I've been doing some re-writes to bring the show up to date, so that complicated the issue further. With typical lack of aplomb I went over the first two thirds of the script quite thoroughly, but didn't really bother looking at the end. Which made for an interesting experience in the last twenty minutes at Tunbridge Wells tonight - for me at least. I got away with it, but only by the skin of my teeth.
It was a small audience in a medium sized space, but they were very giving. I don't know if my stand-up experience is making me a better performer, but the opening went about as well as it ever has. Working on the script has rekindled my interest in writing the book version (which stalled before Christmas with only the introduction written). Hopefully the upcoming Hammersmith run (please book your tickets now) will help crystallise interest. I never expected this show to be a big commercial success in the same way as Talking Cock was, but I am surprised at how little press attention the show has garnered. I would have thought the 50 dates thing at least would have captured the tiny imaginations of Britain's moronic band of journalists (oh, OK, maybe that's why the press aren't writing about me). I will have to rely on you lot to spread the word. If you saw the show in Edinburgh or before then it's really worth coming to see the extended version - you know, unless you really hated the version you saw, in which case why put yourself through that again. All right- enough desperate plugging!
The Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells said they would not be providing food, so you'd imagine that that might give them a low sandwich rating. But you would be wrong. Because in lieu of food they gave me and humble Dave Taylor an envelope containing two ten pound notes for us to go out and buy our own food. If only everywhere did this! We went to Cafe Nero and I had a coffee and a vegetable lasagne, which were terrific. Dave had a meatball panini and a coffee and we were left with over £5 in cash! Bonus!Plus when we got back to the theatre they had provided us with fruit and two large plates of salad (including pasta and rice - easily a meal's worth). We were too full to eat this, and it was a shame we didn't realise we'd be getting this before as it would easily haver been enough to keep us going and we could have kept the £20. That would have been ten pounds each! I could have bought an LP!
A sandwich rating of 8.5 for Tunbridge Wells.
Now I think about it humble Dave Taylor pocketed the change with some story that we'd stop at the services on the way home and spend it all on sweets. And yet conveniently, when we drove home, this plan was forgotten. And Dave Taylor did not offer to give me the £2.70ish that was due to me. I suspect he has used it to buy presents for his young son. When that money should have been keeping me in prophylactics for the next four or five months. If quizzed over the issue I am sure that Dave Taylor will claim that he simply "forgot". Well I have not forgotten Dave Taylor. And be wary because I will be stealing items from you up to the value of £2.79, bit by bit, over the next few months.
For all his humility, Dave Taylor is evil to the core and sometimes I miss Simon Streeting. For all his arrogance he was always scrupulously honest (often telling hotels that they had forgotten to charge us - ie me- for some service or other).
But Simon Streeting is gone now. He was found towards the end of last year, naked in a ditch, asphyxiated - his gullet stuffed with over ten boxes of raw vegetarian sausages. His mysterious killer, still at large, had for some reason chosen to staple the poem Ozymandius to Streeting's forehead. Forensics indicate that this was done whilst he was still alive. A complicated system of mechanics also moved his lifeless fingers back and forth, so they were flicking a switch which continually turned a set of headlights on and off. It was the beams from this odd device that first alerted police to his whereabouts. Some say that even in the rictus of death his face was frozen into a mask of superiority and disdain, but I can not confirm that, because I never saw the body personally. And anyone who says I did is lying.
