Reassuringly my final preview at Too2Much zinged along and felt well-paced and crafted, even though I have done most of the work on stage this year. It is a little bit long still and needs a few rough edges knocked off (or does it? Are the rough edges what makes it special?), but it’s well on the way and the people (on the whole) seem to be liking it. There is still some room for messing around and I am having fun expanding bits and heading boldly down blind alleys where I myself have no idea what I will say next. Over the last couple of performances I have given extra life to a couple of characters in one routine who have to deliver a weak joke and then go on to discuss whether the joke is worth the telling and whether they should point this out, as if I go on to cut the gag they will cease to exist. Is it better for them to live the brief unsatisfying life that I am giving them or would it be more dignified to simply disappear. And are such poorly defined characters qualified to have such an existential debate? “We’re not that well defined. We have the same voice as each other. We are only distinguished by a turn of his head.” I think there’s something pretty interesting in the bit anyway and I love the way it’s just appeared from nowhere and is becoming more and more of a deal. In a few days time it will probably have stretched too far and broken its elastic and I’ll drop it (this is what has already happened to a bit in the pomme de terre bit where the French character wonders why he only says the easy phrases in French – almost like he can’t speak French. Three weeks ago this was fresh and ad libbed and somehow audiences knew and would find it funny, but now it is no longer working and I will let it go. The Frenchman character does not die with this cut though, luckily for him he has other things to say. It’s a terrible responsibility creating these beings who live and die on the whim of an audience.
Hopefully I am arriving in Edinburgh at the right time, where the show is developed enough to feel like a complete piece, but loose enough that I can make up new bits as I am going. The feeling in my stomach is that itÂ’s going to be a good one. I am as excited about Edinburgh as I think I have ever been, which is a good sign. Bring it on!
Afterwards I went with a couple of friends to have a drink in my club
Century. It’s an exclusive and showbizzy place and you’re often drinking on a table next to superstars who probably haven’t just been doing comedy to 70 people in an ex-strip-club in Soho. Sometimes it is hard to retain the necessary cool that is required for me not to have my membership rescinded. Tonight there was an embarrassment of riches. John Cusack walked into the terrace bar just as we got our drinks. My female friend was extremely excited by this and I have to admit that I felt a similar buzz at being in the same room as this brilliant actor and if he had asked, I would have. As funny as it would have been to go up to him and pretend I had mistaken him for Matthew Broderick, I managed to stay in my seat. But he was accompanied by Sophie Okenedo from Hotel Rwanda and shortly joined by the gorgeous Rosamund Pike (imagine having a surname that was a kind of fish – embarrassing). Rosamund went to the toilet with her arm round another slim and attractive woman and I commented to my friends that that was a
ménage à trois that I wouldn’t have a problem with going through with. As they came back from the restrooms I realised that the slim woman was in fact Keira Knightley from off of
Bend It Like Beckham. Somehow I had found myself in a world of A-List superstars that came close to eclipsing the guests at the
Deal, No Deal party. But in this case if I had approached any of these über-mortals I would have been given short shrift. Even if I told them that I had my own interview show on a poker channel, I doubt they would have seen me as an equal. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps Keira Knightley was looking over and thinking, “Isn’t that the bloke from the Channel 4 lunchtime quiz
Back In The Day? He’s gorge. Hey Rosamund, do you fancy lezzing up in the hope that he will want to get off with us.”
“Come on Keira, he is in the upcoming ITV2 reality show
Best Man’s Speech. He wouldn’t be interested in us. Let’s just keep talking to this posy young idiot who is insisting on wearing sunglasses indoors, even though it is midnight. He is clearly a dick, but he’s the best that either of us are ever going to get.”
“Oh I suppose so,” Keira would sigh, “Ah well, it’s one for the wank bank.”
Anyway I was a bit tired and hadnÂ’t packed for Edinburgh yet, so I decided to go home before the Hollywood A-listers got too drunk and started to pester me.
