I am back from - for the first time ever - working at Butlins. I didn't have to wear a redcoat once, nor did I have to be pushed into the pool in a hilarious manner, nor was I woken by Ruth Madoc playing the glockenspiel. Although if I were her husband, I'd probably insist on it most mornings, just for the novelty value.

No, I was at Spring Harvest. If you're not of the Christian persuasion, you probably have an instant prejudicial impression of happy-clappiness. Actually even if you are of the Christian persuation, you probably have the same impression. Yes there was clapping, and yes there were happiness, but not a tambourine in sight, nor any sandals that I could see. The only guitars I saw were on stage in front several thousand people - none in chalets playing Kum-by-arr to six gathered-around teenagers sitting cross-legged.

Good, cliched expectations out the way, I can tell you it was an excellent week. I was doing a nightly resident's show there, which meant 5 hours of unique material, since people came back night after night. So it was a challenge, now working on my 4th Edinburgh hour, so I'd say I have at most 3 1/2 hours of jokes, and when you cut out the naughty stuff, it's embarrassingly little. But I'm delighted to say that, with much hard work, the time was filled with merry japes and tomfoolery, so it took more of a magazine show feel than a stand-up show. I hosted, introduced some silly videos from youtube, some bits of the past Edinburgh shows I've done (especially the one on Genesis, of course), and introduced some church-based spoof gameshows each night. As follows:-

- Tue: Darwin, Lose or Draw. Contestants compete to draw a biblical phrase, preferably one that Darwin wouldn't be happy about, to make it relevant to the title. Worked pretty well. But you try drawing Joseph & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat using only one colour.
- Wed: The Generations of Adam Game: Two teams of two watch an expert do something (the world record domino rally) and then try to recreate it (using Weetabix). Messy, but I loved it. Twas riotous. Oh, and then for the final conveyor belt round they had to memorise all the things I past from one Sainsburys bag to another. They walked away with a pack of raisins, a CD I wanted to get rid of, and a map of Butlins, among other (useless) things. A very fun night.
- Thu: Catchpharisee: Worked okay, but a few too many groans. But then I was posting pictures of, for example, Jesus with a broom in his hand ("Jesus swept"). I'll attach one at the bottom of this blog - see if you can guess it. Oh, and the final problem with this one was when a contestant called Mike fell off the stage quite nastily. Youch. We all thought he'd broken something. Thankfully he had not.
- Fri: Blind Curate: My favourite. A churchgoer without a church asks 3 vicars (behind a screen) questions to decide which church to go to. We had a Baptist minister, a Methodist minister and an Anglican vicar all vying for the attendance of Tasha. Such questions as "If your church worship were a holiday destination, where would it be?" gained such answers as "New Orleans. Cos we're culturally diverse, and if you come on the right week you might get immersed." The audience oooooohed at that one, I can tell you. I never wrote that one - that was the Baptist going off-script. She chose the Anglican, by the way.
- Sat: Church Family Fortunes: Another thoroughly enjoyable one. Two teams from two churches compete to guess what 100 churchgoers had answered to things like "Name something you're thankful for" (Facebook was no.1) or "Name a saint" (Bernard and Ivel were both there) or "Something you'd find in the Church News" (Top answer: Tony Maytum. No idea who he is, but I happened to ask a lot of people from St Paul's in Bournemouth, and this bloke Tony Maytum is always in their church news. No one guessed that one.)

That's more than enough about the show I was doing anyway. I hope to go back, and the feedback seemed to be good, so here's hoping I will be. I managed to make a few seminars and events, and the teaching was excellent. Jeff Lucas was a joy to listen to (his main message: too many Christians are looking to be offended, and we should have fun more often. Here here.), and I even bought a Limerick Bible (the Bible in limerick form). Throw in a couple of dips in the Splash water park, a walk on the beach, some excellent and lovely people that I met throughout the week, plus all the talks/worship/challenges you should have thrown at you at such an event, and it was great.

One of the big differences about going to an event like this, full of Christian types, is that people will help you without wanting anything in return, even recognition for it. So there are many unsung heroes. The kind and tactful steward who navigated a particularly eager audient away from me and the stage when I was setting up the show (thanks!), the bunch of guys from Bournemouth who bought me a Whopper when I didn't even ask for it, the couple from Bradford who come up and gave me a T-shirt on the last night for no real reason, the MD/conductor who came to the show every night and gave it his all, the Ipswichian steward who came over and shared lunch with me when I had nothing to do but read the paper... What good samaritans they all are.

Anyway, enough of the love-in. Now I'm back in the secular world, I'm sure some negativity will be waiting around the corner...

In the meantime, see if you can guess this biblical Catchphrase. Guesses welcome...

Happy Easter!

I went to see The Eagles on Sunday night. They were fantastic. A bunch of 60-somethings who were proper musicians - and what I didn't know about them was that there's no lead singer as such. They all take it in turns, so while it's Don Henley (drummer) singing Hotel California, it's Glenn Frey (guitar) singing Take It To The Limit. They did the perfect mix of old and new, and just when you think there are no more Eagles songs you know, out comes Take It Easy, or Peaceful Easy Feelings, or Desperado, or Lyin' Eyes.

The O2 Arena is great - the perfect 21st century music venue. No part of it too far from the stage, the video feed is as from a static CCTV camera as you could get, yet you still never once see a camera swooping in front of the band blocking your view. The bars and lavs are queue-free, cos there's lots of them, it's not too hot, and the audience are nice and gentle, but that could be because on this occasion they were mostly my dad's age (who, incidentally, was my excuse for going, and who, incidentally, said it was probably the best concert he's been to). It wasn't sold out, so we got to move down and have slightly better seats. Woo.

I am now off till Sunday to Butlins at Skegness. Rock 'n' roll. I'm entertaining at Spring Harvest festival for 5 nights - an hour a night, but here's the twist... It's the same audience each night. So yes, that means 5 hours of unique material. Youch. So I've been busy. No, not writing jokes, cos no amount of preparation can enable you to reel off 5 hours of gags, but coming up with diverting games, competitions, downloaded youtube vids, and generally anything else to distract them. My favourites are the church-based game shows we've got coming up: Darwin Lose or Draw, Catchpharisee, Church Family Fortunes, Blind Curate, and The Generations of Adam Game. Then if they go well, next year we'll do Dean or No Dean, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Well Not Me Cos Material Possessions Aren't As Important As Spiritual Wellbeing, and Vocation Vocation Vocation.

Oh, and I'm taking a guitar with me. Not just cos it seems the essential item to take to any Christian festival, but because I've been desperate to learn for ages to maybe add to my normal secular stage act. And a week away in a chalet at Butlins, with the inspiration of The Eagles still ringing in my ears, is the perfect time to pick one up. I've learned the chord of D. So that's a start. I hear you just need to learn 2 more and you can play basic songs. O2 Arena, here we come...

I got notification of my 9th point on my licence in the post today. Not happy. One more flash and I'm potentially banned from driving. I wouldn't mind if it was me doing 90 on a motorway (alright, I would mind), but they've all been roadworks-in-the-middle-of-the-night-reducing-the-speed-limit-for-no-real-reason type moments.

This latest one (and this is a reason, not an excuse - I'm well aware I was speeding and therefore did wrong) - I'd driven 4 hours back from Preston on a Sunday night, all on the speed limit, then at the last leg, at 2:30am, the last bit of the M40 was shut so I was diverted off down a small road I didn't know. Within a minute from the motorway, the speed limit goes down, and I didn't decelerate in time - so I was flashed at 35 in a 30 limit. Past a school, fair enough, kids playing, fair enough, but at 2:30am, there was no one around, not even another car, and in my head I'm still on the motorway. Anyway, as I say, tis not an excuse, cos I'm well aware I broke the law, but that still doesn't mean I think the law is right.

The good news is, having checked my licence, I've got till the end of May till those first few points drop off. So if I can be a good boy for the next couple of months, I'm slightly out of the woods. Otherwise, one more silly mistake and I'll be begging you, dear reader, for lifts.

So it was a careful drive to Northampton tonight for a gig. Nice gig, in a nice theatre, though a couple of odd staff there - I asked at the stage door if I could park there, and she said, "We have spaces, but no disrespect, but you could be anyone." Right, I'm not. I'm on tonight. "Well, you say that. Anyone could come in here and say that." Fine, where else can I park? "St James's car park is best." Right. Where's that? "You don't know where St James's is?" Let me repeat it. I. Am. Visiting. The. Area. To put on a show for you people. Fine, I'll find my own bloody parking.

Second theatre underling, half an hour later. I've got there early, parked, entered the venue with heavy bags, and want to find somewhere to set up my laptop to get some work done. Is there anywhere I can do this? "There's the cafe bar." Okay. Do you have a room at all for us? "A room?" Yes, for the comedians. For the show. "No, not really." Okay. It's a big theatre. Is there not a dressing-room somewhere. "Of course we have dressing-rooms. This is big theatre. We've had a refurbishment, you know." Okay, can I set up in one of your dressing-rooms? "Our dressing-rooms are for performers only." I am a performer! "I thought you were a comedian." Comedians are performers! We don't just talk about the first thing in our head. We perform a show. "Well, you're best off in the cafe bar." Forget it. I'll go get some food. Is there anywhere that does food around here? "The cafe bar." Anywhere outside this god-and-customer-service-forsaken venue? "Do you know St James's?" Aaaargh. Okay, I'll go down that way. My bags are heavy. Can I leave them here? Perhaps in a room backstage? "Ooh, I don't think so - it's for performers only." Oh bog off the lot of you.

I'm now working on two topical radio shows - The Now Show and the new Tilt for BBC7. So I'm reading the paper more than usual, in fact several papers, in fact every waking moment I seem to be reading a paper or an online version of a newspaper or trying to catch the radio news on-the-hour, or having BBC News 24 in the background. I will scour carriages on the train and tube to find a paper I haven't read. "Ooh, 4 random pages from The Guardian - haven't seen those yet... Yesterday's Metro? Lovely, get a different slant on the news... London Lite? If I must... The financial pages of the South Korean Chronicle? Well you can't be too informed..."

And I've learnt some things. I'm not going to report back actual news - you can do that yourself very easily. But here are some trivia nuggets that I thought I'd share...

- There are 13 wars going on right now in the world. 11 of them are civil wars. The only two that are between nations are the US-led invasions of Iraq and the US-led war in Afghanistan. So apart from America, everyone else is just about getting along.
- The M62 splits because of one single farmhouse, who refused to sell up his land when they were building the motorway. So it goes around him.
- You can't search for 'June 4th' on any Chinese internet search engine. Any other date is fine, but that one date will yield no results, because they don't want you to read about Tiannamen Square.
- There is a secretive PR company called Editorial Intelligence (or something like that), who specialise in creating PR for things without it looking like PR. For instance they'll be employed by the McCanns to cajole columnists to be sympathetic towards them, or get editors to focus on particular issues over other ones.
- Captain Birdseye actor John Hewer died yesterday, but he first had an obituary written next to his face in 1971. This was when Birds Eye decided to retire the Captain character (briefly), so The Times printed a fake obit. Captain Birdseye also came top in a poll of Most Recognised Captain. Second was Captain Cook.
- There are special retirement homes for actors and entertainers. Madge from Dame Edna, who died recently, was in one, as was Captain Birdseye.
- The average person has less than 2 legs.

A couple of gigs away, in Bournemouth and Cardiff. I stayed over in Bournemouth, thinking well, they're both west. Must be close. Aren't. Plus it was a chance for a nice weekend away with MBH (my better half). Both gigs weren't exactly a walk in the park to be honest, due to faulty sound systems at each of them making it darned difficult to hear what you're saying, and even hearing if the audience were laughing, booing, talking amongst themselves or even still there.

At the first gig, a fella walked past the stage to go to the bar, asked to speak into the mic (I let him), and commented "I thought Rick Astley was dead." This is because I look a little like Rick Astley. We laughed and moved on. End of the night, I rushed off to another pub for a few drinks, cos I didn't want to hang around the gig which was ok but not a-rockin'. And in walking back to the taxi rank (near the gig), a gaggle of lads walked past, drunkenly singing some song. I'm thinking, "They've probably come from the venue where the gig was - hide in the shadows and they won't notice you." So I turn, pretend to look at a thing over there, and they walk past, singing louder and louder. "Just go!", I'm thinking, till I realise they're singing 'Never Gonna Give You Up' by... Rick Astley. So I turn, play along with their joke, and we all go our separate ways. But I'm feeling a little foolish that it looked like I just didn't get their joke (which I didn't), while in fact it was largely that I just wanted to hide away from drunken audients.

The next day was great - we went to Monkey World near Poole in Dorset. Go. It's great. There are chimps, orangutans, macawcques (sp? either way I thought that was a type of parrot), lemurs, gibbons... and all have their own name and plaque detailing their history (most are rescued from labs, or idiotic and ambitious pet-owners) and a little about their character. My favourite was Paul the gibbon, who was by far the loudest monkey in the park, who sounded like he was dipping his toe into a hot bath. He was hilarious, and I filmed him on my mobile. If I can work out how, I might post it up here. I'm also trying to work a way of getting this video clip into my Edinburgh show.

In the mean time, here (hopefully - don't fail me, technology) is a picture of my favourite orangutan from the day, called Joly. There are more pictures of Joly (and me looking through the window at him, or vice versa) on my Facebook photo album I have called Monkey World.

This seems as good a way as any to spread word... My phone broke so I've lost all phone numbers that I've amassed over the last ten years. So if you think I should have your number (a fairly safe test is have you got my number?) then please email me with your number on paul@paulkerensa.com. Thanks.

Oh, and Vodafone are morons. My other half went in to the store to pick up my repaired phone, because it had been sent to the Oxford St branch and I wasn't in London for a few weeks, and apparently they can't send the phone between Vodafone stores for reasons of idiocy. I tried calling the Oxford St store but they never answered. Zoe asked them why they never answered the phone. Their reply? "Oh yeah. We lost our phone." With a smile. You lost your phone. You're a phone shop. There are a lot of them about. So how do you expect your customers to contact you? "Well they can't."

I'm moving to Orange.

So yes, please send me your phone number. Thanks.

With a few days away on the road, I've caught up with a few filums and TV shows. Six episodes of Lost season 4 has whetted my appetite for more of that please. And I was intrigued by The Other Boleyn Girl - I quite enjoyed it (but I'm a sucker for a Tudor romp), but I did wonder about the casting. It's the tale of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary - all fine English characters from English history. And those parts are bestowed to an Australian (former Incredible Hulk, Eric Bana), and two Americans (Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johannson). I have several problems with this:

- I think they should have, if anything, swapped roles. Portman is too sweet to play conniving Anne, and Johannson would have been much better as Ann rather than the wretched Mary.)
- Could they be sisters? Has there ever been a greater difference in sisters' chest size?
- Now come on. Were there really no British actors who could fill the roles? The British cast (Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tyres from Spaced...) were great. More of those please? Rather than The Hulk, Queen Amidala and the girl with the pearl earring?

Alright, they're actors. Actors can, mostly, do accents (except for the 'Irish' woman in Heroes 2, who is clearly basing her accent on the leprachaun from the Lucky Charms cereal commercials.) And it happens the other way too. Brit Lena Headey currently stars as Sarah Connor in the TV spin-off of Terminator. Ex-Eastender Michelle Ryan is the new Bionic Woman. So with Portman and Johannson coming over here, and Headey and Ryan going over there, that's quite a carbon footprint the entertainment industry is currently sporting. Save the environment - let Lena and Michelle be the Boleyn girls, put Natalie in the Terminator series and make Scarlett The Bionic Woman. Four return airline tickets spared.

Okay. The Boleyn Girls - I understand that American actors help sell the film to American audiences. Accepted. And Lena Headey does make quite a good Sarah Connor. Accepted. Zoe Slater as The Bionic Woman? That's the one I can't quite see. Which episode of Eastenders did the producers catch on BBC America and think, "Yes - that crying little girl-child with the mockney accent is the perfect mechanised action woman we're looking for..." What next? Jim Branning as The Six Million Dollar Man? Dot Cotton as Wonder Woman? The new version of The Dukes of Hazzard starring Phil Mitchell and Minty?

Last night was the debut performance of the new musical Rubbish - it's the brain-child of a chap called Damian Reynolds, and I'm writing the book (which is musical theatre talk for 'the non-singy bits'). I hadn't been to any rehearsals, had only heard a few of the songs, and so I turned up at 3pm yesterday not knowing what to expect. And I was overwhelmed - a massive theatre, with a very impressive set, a band of saxs and trumpets and guitars and drums and keyboards, several of each, and impressively a cast of very talented singers and dancers, many of them West End veterans.

After a dress rehearsal, we did it for real in front of a paying audience. I haven't done the bulk of my part of the process yet, so I narrated/warmed-up, just to link between the songs, and I was well-received, which was a pleasant surprise, as I didn't know how an audience there for the musical would take to having a comedian there too.

The cast and crew were lovely people, and I only wish I'd been in on rehearsals too. It reminded me how much fun it can to be part of an ensemble. Stand-up can be a lonely job! Yes there's camaraderie, but that only goes so far. There's something about singing and dancing together that's fun, uplifting and unites you with the others. Lucky buggers. Well not lucky - talented. Well done them.

Anyway, Rubbish The Musical will debut properly in Edinburgh this August. Go see. And I don't just say that cos I'm involved in it. The songs are actually very good (it's quite tongue-in-cheek - more Little Shop of Horrors/Rocky Horror Show than Les Miserables...), and the production values are first-class. Makes you realise that when doing a solo show in Edinburgh, it's not really enough to just walk out in front of a black curtain and talk for an hour, to justify charging a tenner for it. The ante has been upped, folks. Edinburgh-bound people - put a bit of love into your show, and spend a bit of time making it a 'show' rather than a 'gig'.

For more info, song snippets, etc, check out the Rubbish website - http://www.rubbishthemusical.com/

All you people who said "Ooh, wisdom teeth - that's going to hurt... Your teeth will go mouldy... Your cheeks will go green... Your jaw will be dislocated... Your skin will be bruised... Your head will fall off..." - You're all wusses.

I'm well aware I'm not out of the woods yet. I had it done on Wednesday - it's now Friday night, and it could still inflame further yet. Plus I've only had my left ones out so far, with the right ones to follow in a few weeks. So it could all go wrong yet, but so far, so good. Viewed on the left side, I look a bit like Quagmire from Family Guy, or Mr Incredible, but that's no bad thing. It's a little sore, and I had a little bleeding to start with. Alright, and chewing sausages today wasn't easy. Anyway, I'm coping.

Only slight hiccup was that I spotted a chip on my front tooth. The doc was obviously pretty forceful in yanking out those bad boys, so I figured it was a possibility that she chipped it. So I called up the hospital to let them know. I don't know what the drill is (of course I know what a drill is - I heard it in my mouth)... Do the NHS give you free crowns if they chip your tooth? It's a moo point anyway, because...

Having phoned to make an appointment (the doc said, "Are you saying I did that? If I had I'd have let you know at the time..."), I then thought I'd better check through some old photos. And sure enough, a photo from Christmas shows that I've always had that slight chip in my front tooth. It just took the extraction of two wisdom teeth to notice it. So I phoned the hospital back the next day, a little bit grovelly. Because I don't want them to think of me as a problem (and possibly litigious) patient. After all, I'm going back there for the right side, and I don't want them to seek vengeance on me. I've seen Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors...