25/04/07
London Yesterday -
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I don't really know why yesterday felt so rubbish. It should have been good.
I had to go and do some ADR on Doctor Who in the early afternoon.
There are several different ideas as to what ADR actually stands for, and nobody seems to know - not even the people who are in charge of it. The top two suggestions are Automated Dialogue Replacement and Additional Dialogue Recording. The constant is Dialogue - and I suppose that is the most relevant. I had to go into a recording studio and speak an additional line four times. Yes, you heard it right - an additional line...taking my line count in Doctor Who up to four (or it might be five), which would surely warrant an action figure or trading card of me? If you need an image to set the scene, it was like that bit at the beginning of Mrs Doubtfire where Robin Williams is doing the voices for the cartoon with a big screen in front of him - just imagine me instead of Robin Williams and an episode of Doctor Who instead of the cartoon. I recorded the lines and then I was released back into the wild.
The bit of the episode that I saw only showed my back, but let me tell you, I did some fucking brilliant back acting in that bit. My manager assures me I have the best back in showbusiness, and thinking about it, people always seem much happier when seeing the back of me.
As the whole ADR process was over and done with in about twenty minutes, I had the rest of the afternoon to kill in London and what better way to spend it than telephoning little Raji James who used to be on Eastenders but ruined it and getting him to come and entertain me?
I wanted to go into Soho and get ripped off at a sex show. I thought it would have been good to pose as touristy people and get charged three hundred quid for a glass of Coke, and then get into bother for not paying and that, but Raji steadfastly refused to play. My logic was that they wouldn't kill us, but Raji countered that they would do "everything but...". I thought Soho was the sort of place where it was acceptable to do "everything but...", Raji however, would not be swayed, so we ended up in a restaraunt on Tottenham Court Road, moaning about our careers and drinking coffee like adults.
At the moment Raji is being in charge of producing my podcast. I would do it myself but I am not very good at computers, and wouldn't know where to start. Raji sent me over some information about it today but, to be honest, there were too many words in it that I simply didn't understand and I stopped reading after about a paragraph, so I have rather cleverly put it all down to him to sort out. I may even let him just do the podcast himself under my name. I'm only mentioning the podcast as I figure that if I say publicly that it is imminent, then I will have to do it. Plus, as I have told you that Raji is reluctantly in charge of it, if it doesn't happen people will assume it is his fault. I can be devilishly manipulative sometimes me...
So, onto the Fopp gig.
It just didn't work for me last night, there were some rather awkward internal politics going on which I attempted to stay out of, and the lights were fucked as usual, and in all I really didn't enjoy it last night. It probably showed. Also, as a note to myself, I have really got to stop taking my shirt off onstage, and perhaps more importantly, I have really got to stop physically fighting members of the audience. As if having my bare chested body flattening him into the ground wasn't enough, the lad on stage last night ended up with broken glasses too. I would like to go on the record here to say that he threw the first punch, so it was all technically me defending myself and so cannot be held accountable for the accident in any way.
I think one of the other problems last night was the fact that a lot of the audience were there because they had got wind of the fact that Stephen Merchant was on, and I certainly felt from the beginning like they didn't want to have their time wasted by the fat lad with no top on, they just wanted the bloke off the telly. I have long since abandoned any attempt to do material whilst compering that gig as I am the resident compere there, and whilst this is usually fine, last night I got the distinct impression that the majority of the audience were staring at me and thinking "What ARE you doing? You're just fucking about! Put the bloke off Extras on!".
This throws up problems for everybody, not least of all Stephen himself, because he was only down at the gig to do a low-key try-out show, and having a room full of expectant people doesn't really lend itself to that. He had a great gig though, although he didn't seem to think so, and it was really cool to see him doing stand up again after a five or so year absence. I have no idea what he has been up to in his sabbattical. He told me he'd had his kitchen done, but that shouldn't have taken that long surely?
So after the first interval, there was a distinct feeling in the room that the show was missing the celebrity factor, but cometh the hour cometh the man and little Raji James etc stepped up to the plate and performed his legendary impression (still available on YouTube). I don't care that everybody else (including Raji) is bored shitless of this impression, until the day I am (which simply won't happen) I shall continue to make him do it to uncomfortable silence in front of paying audiences. It will never...ever...not be funny to me.
Rob Deering headlined the show in all his brilliance, and even humoured my request that he do his impression of the baddie bloke from Men In Black (I like making people do obscure impressions) - which truly needs to be seen to be believed, and everybody went home happy I think. Well, except for me, but I will take one for the team from time to time.
And that was that. The Fopp show changes it's format now, as we are having Edinburgh Previews on there for the next few, and I'll probably try harder at the next one.
And before I forget - some of you may recall from this blog when I was up at the fringe in August in my lost previous life, that I became obsessed with an audience member at the Free Beer Show called Lawrence Diamond. It's back in the August entries, I would link to it but really can't be arsed to scroll back, but if you can be then it is there somewhere. I was mainly enamoured with his name as any right thinking person would be, and made him a Tshirt at one of the final Free Beer Shows. Last night he showed up at Fopp wearing the Tshirt - there it was in big black letters for all to see.
"I'm Lawrence Diamond and I love Ray Peacock".
So no matter how much the audience disliked me last night, I could kid myself that I had at least one fan there.
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