03/05/07
Deal or no deal warm-up -
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I've just about recovered from my day of warm-up on Deal or no deal on Tuesday and am ready to report back to you.
The ridiculously early rising hour took it's toll on me and the journey to Bristol definitely took another five years off my life (adding up these regular five year deductions I'm not sure how I am still alive today). For some reason I thought that leaving that early would mean I could just drive through without all those bothersome other cars on the road but that simply wasn't so. The A1 was full up already and, not to be outdone, the M25 was massively oversubscribed with users. Do normal people really get up at 6am in the morning and sit in that every day to go to work? You must be fucking mental. It took me three hours to do thirty miles and there was no way I was going to meet my call time of 9.30 at the studios.
The plan was that I was simply going to observe the warm-up for the first show, as the warm-up requirements are very specific.
I don't know how I did it, but I got there at one minute to ten, just in time for Mark Olver to hug away my frustrations at the studio door and then walk straight onto the floor to begin the warm-up. Well, I say I don't know how I did it - I do - but don't think it would be wise to incriminate myself on here by giving specific miles-per-hour...I'm going to get a hotel this evening to try to avoid a driving ban when I return tomorrow.
As I stood and watched Mark do his stuff, a lady in the crew came and said hello and asked me if I was there on work experience. I told her I was doing the warm-ups in the afternoon and then thought about it and said "so...yes...I suppose I am". That's how it felt on Tuesday - like the first day of work in a new job, with all the awkwardness of not knowing where you are meant to be or what to do when you got there. It didn't feel like that for too long though. Like in any job, your first day stands or falls in direct relation to how good your mentor is and how well they welcome you and put you at ease.
When you work in comedy, one of the first things you become aware of is the sibling rivalry between comedians. It is rare that a comic will forgo the opportunity to trip another comedian up in favour of actually helping them along the way. With this in mind, when another comedian does help another along, it becomes all the more noticeable (after the suspicion it arouses is gotten over of course).
What I am saying is, Mark Olver could not have been more helpful in teaching me the ropes of the job and, perhaps more importanly, diluting my nervousness on Tuesday. He has been doing the warm-up for Deal or no deal from the very beginning and watching him on the floor it was clear why. He is exceptionally good at it - totally integrated into the crew and adored by the contestants and audiences alike, it's little wonder they have kept hold of the lad. It became very clear to me as I watched him, that there would be no shame in simply copying exactly the template he had honed.
I know there will be other comics reading this now and thinking "It's only a TV warm-up for fuck's sake - what's all this template bollocks your banging on about?" and to those comedians I would say "Oh fuck off".
The thing with Deal or no deal is, it really isn't a regular TV warm-up because it isn't a comedy show. It's not a matter of getting the audience up for laughing, because that isn't a prerequisite of the show, it's all far more technical than that. They don't want the audience taking it lightly, they want them engrossed and tense from time to time, and despite the fact that the actual show being filmed is likely to cause that in them naturally, it is still a reasonably delicate path to tread as the studio 'warm-up'.
I can't give anything away about the specfics of the two shows I did on Tuesday afternoon because they won't be aired till September, and I can't give specifics away about the behind the scenes stuff, and nor would I want to, because the cloud of mystery that surrounds certain parts of the show (like the banker and all that) is what makes it great and me telling you about it would merely ruin it for you, so I will just tell you that the tight-nit crew were very supportive of me and made me feel really welcome and part of the team, and I did well despite a couple of little hiccups, and was pretty proud of myself in my attempt to fill Mark's shoes for the day.
Especially because, when we were waiting for the recording to begin I was eavesdropping the contestants bemoaning the fact that Mark wasn't going to be there and saying how much they loved him. Before I went on for the first one, the director played Mark's radio Bristol show over the speakers and Mark spoke directly to the studio which gave me a brilliant 'way-in' to go for the sympathy vote. I told the audience how much the contestants and crew all loved Mark, and how much I needed the audience on my side, and they went for it. The audience looked after me as much as I looked after them, and I might try the same trick tomorrow when I do it all again.
Also - most impressively - not one swear left my lips. Which is more than can be said of Edmonds who managed to ruin all my SwapShop memories by saying 'bollocks', 'shit' and 'bloody'.
But I never told you that.
One of the things that happened that I will tell you about however was a mobile phone incident. Obviously part of the requirement of a TV audience is that they all have their mobile phones turned off. I'd ordered this at the beginning, made them check and double check that they were off, and the filming had gotten underway. Thirty seconds in and the sound of a ring tone filled the studio and everything ground to a halt. So here's a tip, when you switch off your phones in these situations, make sure you don't have an alarm set on it because that will still ring. All the crew were cross with the lady in question, but I really felt for her because that exact same thing happened to me one year in Edinburgh when I was watching the Durham Revue. The embarrasment factor of it feels really unfair too, because you're trying to do the right thing by switching your phone off entirely and then it makes you look a fool, or worse just plain rude. A lesser warm-up person would have gone back on and made a big deal out of it, but she had nothing but my sincerest sympathy.
Even if she had just cost Endemol twenty grand or something.
And that's about that for now, no other news I don't think. After my Deal or no deal stinti tomorrow I'm off to Cardiff on Saturday as Saints (hooray) are playing Wigan (booo) at the Millenium stadium in a special one-off rugby league fixture (all the Super League teams are playing a game each over the weekend - but I'm just going to the three games on Saturday) so that will be nice I think, I'm a big fan of the Millenium Stadium - I had one of the best days of my life there in 2004 when me and a much lesser St Helens celebrity than myself gatecrashed the players party after we won the Challenge Cup, and I'm looking forward to visiting it again.
Rubbing shoulders with Noel Edmonds (literally - exactly the same height me and Edmonds), and going to watch Saints at the best major stadium in the UK - how exciting is this week shaping up to be? You are right to envy me...
Speak when I get back x
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