I had the energy to lug the exercise bike into central London (with some help from the tube system) this evening, but hadn't quite constructed it in time for the show. It is now sitting in my dressing room, almost complete, though I require lubrication to slip on its rubber handlebar sheaths and I have a couple of screws left over (like I am in a rubbish piece of observational comedy). It will make its debut tomorrow for all fans of cheap and shoddy exercise bikes. That news will hopefully boost sales. Tonight was hard work, despite valiant efforts by the few dozen who showed up. The stag party (I presume that was what they were - or they just had one man dressed in a frilly cowboy hat and women's underwear because he was eccentric) did not enjoy it enough to stay for the second half. To be honest it's not really great stag night fare. If you are in Soho on your stag night in the next month then there are better places to celebrate. If you are prepared to look around I am sure you might find some deluxe pussy.
Someone stepped in late to do the sound and lighting cues and things went quite badly wrong for a big section, which didn't help matters. The cock kept coming in at the wrong point. Which sounds funnier than it was, but I battled on against its crowing, and my mum coming in to berate me at the wrong time. Which makes all this sound like the plot of a terrible nightmare.
I am trying not to let my head drop over these early set backs, but it's hard not to worry a little bit. I have probably chosen a stupid time of year to start a show and the weather has not helped, but four shows in it is hard not to project and start to calculate how little money I will earn unless things pick up. After slogging away so hard for the last few years it would be a psychological blow if this tour does worse than the last one. But it could also have financial repercussions on the rest of my work. It's less easy to justify doing so much free work if the work I charge for isn't making me any money either. I am pretty sure things will improve and if the last couple of weeks of the London run do well then that will probably be enough to pick up the slack, but it's sometimes hard to cope with the insecurity of this job and as I now sit in Starbucks, surrounded by the strange night people (a German man next to me is on his computer and occasionally shouts things like "awesome" for no apparent reason, like he has benign Tourette's) it is hard not to feel a bit bummed out. But at least I can make myself laugh by using the word "bummed". So all is not lost. And I will get over myself in the cold light of day. Just at the moment my heart feels a little heavy that I have not done enough yet to banish these more difficult days. But it keeps me grounded to know that I still have some distance to go.
I can't believe how close to Christmas it is. It can't be the 22nd December already. But now I look at the date more closely I see it's also 2010, which doesn't seem right either. I thought it was still about 1987. Time has passed over me like a tsunami.
I had a fun morning though, doing the now annual podclash between Collings and Herrin and Jupitus and Wilding. It's the third year in a row that we have done this, which makes it a Christmas tradition. We do it in a proper studio and there are stings and everything, but Collings also tapes it in his computer, so you can hear the lo-fi version
here or wait until the technicians and lackies that the double Phil(l)s employ get their hi-fi version out on iTunes. I may have to go out with Patricia Routledge next to check if my approximations of the elasticity of her orifices are accurate.
Just as much fun as the podcast is the drink in the pub after where we all had two pints (though mine were lime and soda) and four grouchy old men grumbled about the business and other comedians and thought about giving up and going back to school (in some cases). I am sure we will all bounce back. It would be strange if this hob was not often disheartening, but there are enough good things to make it more than worth persisting with.
Here's a couple of fun links for you -
an interview I did with asylum.co.uk (in two parts) and if you fancy it you can watch
the full version of the chat I had with John Humphreys during Celebrity Mastermind. Be warned though, at the end John mentions how many points I scored in the first round. So if you don't want to know then don't watch it yet. It will be on BBC1 on the 27th December at 8.30 (I think - tweet and ask the Radio Times' Andrew Collings as he loves being a walking, talking listings magazine). And then we will all discover if I won my episode or whether I lost. I can hardly bear the suspense! Let's hope we end 2010 on some kind of victory, hey? We all need the occasional pick me up!
