Phew - not easy this 'being a celebrity' lark...

Just got back from my first PA (Personal Appearance) since becoming famous after my career-defining appearance on Doctors earlier today. Tonight I hosted the quiz at East Dulwich Comedy at the Hob pub in Forest Hill (it's only confusing if you let it be).

It's a good crack hosting that quiz - I've done it many, many times and always enjoy it. It's particularly lovely that you can go onstage and just read the questions if you so desire, there's no requirement to be funny so if you are it comes as a bonus. I had some friends there tonight who (rather embarrassingly) ended up actually winning it. It screamed of 'fix' but it absolutely wasn't - there was a tie breaker at the end to decide who won it and I was relieved by that -I couldn't have fixed that. One of the rounds tonight was called "Old Jokes" and basically involved me reading a feed-line and the teams in the quiz supplying the punchline. It's not the same thing as a joke competition at a comedy gig because there is actually an existing 'correct' answer. My favourite tonight was; What lies at the bottom of the sea and quivers? The answer was meant to be "A nervous wreck". However the team that wrote as their answer "Steve Irwins aorta" also got a point (and a round of applause as it goes).

So - I was going to tell you about Doctors wasn't I? Even though there's probably nobody reading this because you are all watching it again on video and marvelling at how gorgeous I am and not being able to understand why, no matter what setting you put your widescreen on, I am still so fat. There's a very simple answer;

It was a conspiracy by the BBC to discredit me.

They were obviously worried that I would be too attractive and play havoc with the hormones of all the stay-home mums and students watching the programme to the point that they would be unable to pay their TV licence fee because they were simply too horny, and so the BBC cleverly wrote it into my part that in practically every scene I should be either lying down or slouching on a sofa or bed thus maximising my double-chinnage.

I had some lovely texts and stuff afterwards but I think my favourite was the one I received from my temporarily-erstwhile fellow blogger Stephen Grant who sent a text that simply said: "TV adds 10 lbs".

So watching the programme today allowed me to mentally look back on my experience of actually making the episode. It was a surreal few days really. What you should know about Doctors (and 'soaps' in general by all accounts) is that they turn everything around very quick. On one of the days filming I did, if memory serves, nine scenes - which is apparently a lot by normal telly standards, you really speed through it. So you want to be at your best because there's really not much room for fucking up.

It didn't help that I had a real medical examination on set at the beginning of one of the days. I should stress I didn't ask for it, I just got it. I was doing a scene in a hospital bed and was wired up to the heart machine and the blood pressure taker thing (I don't know what it's called). Now, I've always assumed when I've watched medical drama stuff on telly that it's all just set dressing, but no, you are actually wired up to a real machine. The pulse thing going across the machine is really my real pulse in real life, ditto the heart rate and blood pressure. It was pretty off-putting (not to mention scary) to be told at 7 in the morning by the on-set medical adviser that your blood pressure is dangerously highand that you should see your real doctor asap. Two minutes later people were looking around to see where the erratic and manic bleeping noise was coming from - turned out it was my fucking heart rate on the machine going mental as I panicked about my impending stroke.

The other daunting thing about doing an episode of a show with a regular cast is you really don't know how you will be welcomed when you get there. I've heard horror stories about certain core cast members on Eastenders for example, who make "Guest" performers' lives an absolute fucking misery, being rude and curt and tutting at inexperience. Thankfully, this dreaded scenario couldn't of been further from existence at my short stint at BBC Birmingham for Doctors.

The regular cast member I spent the most time with was a young lady named Donnaleigh Bailey. She plays Michelle who is a nurse at the surgery and a more delightful, welcoming and funny individual you could not wish to meet. She is also (according to a man with a wonky eye who recognised me at a garage in St Albans at 6.30 this evening) "really tasty". DL and I had a really good laugh from the second we met on set, no airs and graces, no snobbery, just mutual piss-taking from dusk till dawn. A proper nice lass. And the thing is - she's no doubt done god-knows how many episodes since filming the one I was in, she shouldn't even remember doing it, but today we swapped texts for hours (mainly mutual back slapping and me being derisory about Birmingham - which of course as a native she rose to immediately - they're so territorial these brummies aren't they?) so the after-show care is second to none too. I think she's really cool and she made a potentially nervy experience an absolute joy to be a part of instead. AND I got to do my first screen kiss with her too. I mean, okay, some people on set insisted we called it mouth-to-mouth as my character was having a cardiac arrest at the time, but you can see the sexual tension on the screen. I was very professional though during the filming of that scene, and only ruined one take by putting my arms around her as she did the CPR.

I've really took the piss out of being in Doctors. On the back of the flyer for my fringe show we made a really big deal about it - obviously ironic - which I have continued on here with my little pretend bits about it making me famous and being my big break and all that, and of course, I've done this because it's a daytime soap watched by students (I imagine), not taken too seriously and considered by some to be a bit rubbish. This is not my opinion by the way, just deducing that from the fact that when I have told people I am in an episode they have raised their eyebrows and more-often-than-not laughed with derision.

When you meet the people that work on it though, both in front of and behind the cameras, you can't help but have a real respect for them and, by association, the programme itself. They work REALLY hard, not just a bit, this is all the time, and they genuinely care about making it good. Just little things like the attention to detail by the lighting guys for example - I mean - they go way beyond what they could merely just get away with on a daytime programme.

So for all my piss-taking and all my ironic boasting about being in it, I would like to go on the record as saying that I actually AM proud to have been associated (even for such a short time) with a production that is so cherished by its creators and contributors. I'd be on it again in a heartbeat (if they could make me look slimmer please). It was dead good laugh and I'm happy with it.

Doctors is cool...and not in an ironic way.

And now all that remains for me to tell you is the Edinburgh secret I found out, that I promised to impart to you a few days back if you recall?

Ready?

I really had no idea about what I am going to tell you now. It had bothered me for years, but I couldn't work it out. Then I found out and now I am going to tell you...

This is brilliant what I am about to tell you.

Ok...here it is:

I know how to make the 'sauce' you get in Scottish chip shops.

No fucking lie! You can't buy it in shops, and I had looked. On returning from Edinburgh in 1999 after the first Big And Daft show, where I had been literally living on chip shop food for the month, I searched the supermarkets for the elusive brown sauce. I even bought some that I thought were it but were they bollocks. It's haunted me ever since, but this year I found out how to make it and now I am going to tell you.

This may be the greatest and most revelatory post in the history of the Chortle forums.

Here's what you do:

You buy some CHEAP brown sauce. And I mean proper cheap economy stuff. If you spend more than 30p on it then you've got the wrong stuff.

Then, you buy some vinegar. Again, the cheapo stuff.

Then, you mix them together until you get the consistency that it is in the Scottish chippy.

And that's it! So so simple!

That is my gift to the people on here who are unfortunate enough to live South of the Scottish border. I hope it enriches your lives between Augusts.

No, put your purse away, I told you, it's a gift...

xx