I was at the BBC at 9.30 this morning to do some pre records for Richard Herring's Objective. The LE department was in the process of moving into new offices in Western House, three floors below the studios from which our 6Music show is broadcast. It was quite a day to be doing the first show in my series, with the entire Light Entertainment staff trying to get to grips with their new surroundings and finding out which box the pens were in. More tellingly in all the time I have found work with this particular branch of the BBC (in just over 20 years now) this is the fourth set of offices they have been located in. I think that gives you a bit of an idea of how old I am. Patrick Marber said that radio is where you begin and end your career, though I am proud to say that it has been a consistent presence in my own journey. I love the radio and am delighted to be doing my own show on Radio 4 - remarkably it was only pitched in May, but the series begins at 6.30 on October 14th. Hope you'll be tuning in.
My producer Alison was going to record me shaving down to the toothbrush once again (whilst I discussed what I was feeling) and so our first job was to find a quiet bathroom to do the deed in. Usually a series ends with you going into the bathroom with the producer (it's the only way to get a second series in this competitive market), but usually you don't exit looking like Hitler. I wonder if the man on the rowing machine at the BBC gym noticed what was going on.
We then went out on to the streets to see what kind of reaction the tache got. This was something that I had never done in all the months of having it before. I had to guess what people were thinking, but now Alison followed me at some distance and got interviews with the people who looked at me askance. I wasn't going to hear what they said until the tape was played in the studio that evening. But most people seemed to be laughing at me as usual.
I felt it would be just my luck if this was the time that someone took exception to me, but I remained unscathed.
It turned out that there was a fair amount of hanging around waiting today. A read through had been scheduled for 4pm and Emma Kennedy duly arrived to assist me (I had wanted Dan Tetsell to be involved as well, but the producer had not budgeted for his huge fee, but hopefully we will have him later in the series) and it felt odd just the two of us being on stage - though not as odd as having a pretty much finished script to work from. I had only done one show at the BBC Radio Theatre before (an episode of Matt Lucas' "And The Winner Is") and it all seemed very grown up and serious compared to our recent endeavours. I had worried that the script was miles too long (and it had been hard to cut a 90 minute tour show down- plus there is some new content that wasn't in the stage version), but the read through was over in 24 minutes. We went pretty fast, but now the worry was that there wasn't enough stuff to fill the slot. But having read it out loud there were lots of things that I wanted to work on and I added in a few extra jokes that hadn't made it into the script.
There were three hours to go until the recording so we sat around chatting and eating some strange sandwiches that got delivered, cruelly, in a pizza box (both Kennedy and I had fancied pizza). The food we got was made from unusual bread and had an unfamiliar pink meat in it and it all looked like it might have come from outer space. But it turned out it was Scandanavian and delicious, so all was well.
There had been some worry that the tube strike might affect our audience (and extra tickets had been sent out, so there were potentially 900 people who would want to get into to the 350 seat space), but luckily I have many die hard fans (I wish they were fans of mine, but they really do like Bruce Willis) and the queue was already 80 strong two hours before we started and over 300+ showed up in the end.
The actual show went by in a flash. With almost indecent haste. Including the warm up there was probably less than 40 minutes of show time, but there were only three retakes (I had picked up my many mistakes as I went along) and nothing went seriously wrong. It was good that I added a few extra bits because I don't think we have more than about 35 minutes to choose from - but everything worked well and the brave individuals who now had to find their way home in the rain, had laughed in all the right places. Emma Kennedy, as usual, was effortlessly brilliant.
The ticket website had made the bold assertion that there would be swearing, which seemed a weird thing to say, as the show goes out at 6.30 and they hadn't seen a script. They could have said that there "might" be swearing, but to say there definitely would be put me in a difficult position, as there was no swearing to speak of in the show. So I said "fuck" and "cunt" in my warm up, but from the reaction I think that not many people had turned up because they knew there would be swearing.
I don't think I have ever done a radio record that was finished so rapidly and easily, but Emma was on her way home by 8.20. I had to wait for a cab that had been booked so went for a drink (lime and soda) with some of the fine staff who had worked on the show, to the Yorkshire Grey pub, which had been our regular 20 years ago and which brought back many memories - not least of which being kicked in the head by a belligerent drunkard (buy my book for details). It didn't seem to have changed in the intervening two decades. Though I have a little bit.
At least now the moustache (and the Jesus beard) was gone. Though I think it may be time for the long hair to hit the barbers floor too. Emma wants me to get a short back and sides or at least have Hitler hair (which could be my next show), but we will see how far I dare go tomorrow.
I think we'd done a good job today. Let us know what you think when it's out.
And don't forget that the Lyric Hammersmith comedy nights start again on the 26th September. It's a great line up including Miles Jupp, Gary Delaney and a big TV star, who I am not allowed to name, making a welcome return to stand up. It will be lots of fun, I promise.
Book here.
