It all started with a guy called Phil, who looked to me to be wearing a Spiderman Tracksuit Top. I called him on stage and found out that he was studying to be a Sports Coach. This drew a disgruntled sigh from another audience member, Tom (I think) who revealed himself to be studying Sports Science.

It seemed Tom’s main problem was that Sports Coaches study for way less time per week, but whinge about it way more. Phil felt victimised at first  but his whole stance changed when he realised that the Sports Science student would probably end up as a PE Teacher.

I tried to take photos of Phil looking victimised then cocky, but as you can see his acting skills left a little to be desired.

First, scared and worried

Then smug and cocky

Can you spot the difference?

I then asked him to pose like Spiderman

I know. Uncanny.

I called Sports Science guy to the stage and decided to pit him against Sports Coaching guy in a battle to the end. But first the three of us posed for a photo of what could have been if I had stayed as a Tennis Coach and never started doing comedy.

We started with a thumb wrestling competition, and I have to say it was an easy win for Sports Science (Tom, I think his name was Tom). Even his pose afterwards suggested he was happy with himself.

I called an interval at this point, although not before engaging in some secret celebratory card-based shenanigans that must be kept secret for a few weeks. Those of you at the gig, shhhhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone what happened please.

During the interval I asked people to send in some messages for a lady called Louise, who was at the show with her her partner Jason. You may remember them from this photo at the Swindon show:

Well, that night Jason gave me Louise’s autograph book and I said I would get as many signatures in it as I could. Sadly, I only managed one – Author and XFM DJ Danny Wallace. I offered to take the autograph book with me back to Australia and spend the next six months filling it with as many famous names as I could.

I tried to make up for it tonight though, by getting some well-wishes sent from around the world to Louise, as she had recently been in hospital. My twitter account was swamped, and included such gems as:

blautreacle

Hello to Louise from Ottawa, ON, in the northern colonies.

marrrina_

Hope everything is ok, Louise!! Lots of love from Brazil!

paulhlynch

was it a sex change and were you previously Lewis? From newcastle England

Letsgetclinical

Perth western australia. It’s 4am & im trying to not murder my husband due to his snoring!

flopsy_mrs

i hope you get well soon ! limburg, Belgium

em37x

Get well, Louise! Howdy from Austin, Texas!

fbowles

hi Louise listening to bad karaoke in Majorca… Adams show is better… I hope… Frank

and even this one from the Triple M Breakfast radio show in Melbourne

mmmhotbreakfast MMM’s Hot Breakfast

Hi Louise, we’re a breakfast radio program in Melbourne, Australia. We’re kind of a big deal – ask Adam Get well!

Thanks lads.

I also tweeted Hugh Jackman, asking for a message for Louise, but have yet to hear back

I started the second half by reading the tweets, and then resumed the Sports-Off with a drinking competition. I can tell you that Tom the PE Teacher-to-be downed his pint in ridiculously quick time, and won himself a wee bottle of whisky, courtesy of another audience member leaving me a gift.

I then wrapped up the show with a little cultural awareness involving a Finn, a German and a Russian, and I also updated everyone on my prostate awareness campaign, revolving around the slogan “No Joke, Be A Bloke, Get A Poke”. After the success of Gabby Logan last week, this week I managed to rope in my old mate Danny Wallace to pose with the Prostate Awareness symbol:

He does look quite serious about it.

And so, the final tourblog comes to an end. It has been a brief but lovely UK tour, taking in Portsmouth, London for two weeks, Nottingham, Birmingham, Brighton, Norwich, Felsted, Swindon, Colchester, Epsom and Oxford. My apologies for not making it further north, but I have to be back in Australia next week to start rehearsals for the Spicks and Specks Finale Tour.

Don’t forget the UK release of “Inflatable” on DVD is in stores Oct 31, and can be pre-ordered here:

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280%3b0%3b-1%3b-1%3b-1&sku=372357

or by going to the homepage and clicking the DVD cover.

Next week I’ll be shooting a pilot episode of a new TV show in Belfast, then it’s back to Oz for me.

I hope to be back in the UK and Ireland next year – maybe with a new show, maybe I’ll just keep doing Mess Around, cos in all honesty I have had a ball on stage just messing with people. I really did prove a point – that ordinary people are just as fascinating as any celebrity, if not moreso.

Thanks for reading these blogs, wherever you are, and I will bring you more when I have more worth reporting.

Til then keep drumming your tummy, and Go You Big Red Fire Engine!

Adam

In fact, the best way for me to remember what took place in the Epsom version of Mess Around is to look back at the photos. Let’s see….oh yes.

There are many things you shouldn’t wear if you are sitting in the front row of a comedy gig and want to avoid being a target. This is one of them:

Strangely, this man received very little attention throughout the show. Mainly because he was upstaged by the rest of the audience. Like Graham for instance, who told me he was a restaurant manager. When I asked what type of restaurant, he replied “The kind that serves scorpions and locusts”.

Apparently this restaurant is located in Warren Street in London, and is called Archipelago. Graham was a feature of this show as he 1) demonstrated the James Brown act that spawned the phrase “Go You Big Red Fire Engine” 2) told us that the trick to eating a scorpion without killing yourself is to chew lots before you swallow 3) almost managed to offend his date, a lady called Claire who Graham had been dating for three weeks.

Thankfully they survived the show.

Just before the interval I stumbled upon a dreadlocked man in the front row called Owain. I asked if he was a wizard, and he replied, “No, but I do magic”.

I asked if he could do some magic in the second half of the show. He said he didn’t have any props. I asked if anyone had a pack of cards. Remarkably, no one did. One woman said “I’ve got a white rabbit”. I suggested we might need fresh batteries for that. I’m very funny.

I then tweeted to ask if anyone could bring a pack of cards to Epsom for the second half.

The tweet read:

“Is there anyone in Epsom that can bring a pack of cards to the Epsom Playhouse ASAP? Preferably by nine pm. Thanks.”

A perfectly serviceable tweet I thought. Not according to the audience, who heckled it. Firstly with:

“You don’t need to write Epsom the second time”

then

“You can’t write as soon as possible and stipulate a time as well”

Most. Pedantic. Audience. Ever.

During the interval I received a tweet from Kirsty saying she would drop in a pack of cards, and she arrived on time as I began the second half.

Kirsty stayed for the rest of the show, but not before running out to the car to let her Dad know to come back later. She needn’t have worried, because her teacher was in the gig and offered to drive her home afterwards.

She wasn’t the only one that brought cards however, as during the break a few people had run to the local poker night and pilfered their own decks.

Owain then took to the stage and performed a trick that he admitted “I’ve never done in public before”. It worked mightily, and the audience applauded, even though I’m pretty sure they were secretly hoping for it to go horribly wrong. This is Owain, and apparently you can see more of him at www.catchthebus.co.uk

Finally we came to Vanessa, who had mentioned earlier that her friend Ashley was living in Perth. This was prompted by the fact that there was a couple in the audience from Perth. I tried to ring Ashley but her phone was disconnected, so Vanessa asked me to prank call her boyfriend Matt instead.

She told me that she and Matt had been together three weeks (high fives from Graham) and that Matt had met her father today, whose name was Graham (more high fives from Graham). So I rang Matt, and left the following message on his phone:

“Matt it’s Graham here, Vanessa’s father. I  just wanted to say it was a pleasure meeting you today. You seem like a smart young man, and good looking too. Listen, if it doesn’t work out with Vanessa, give me a call…”

The audience’s laughter kinda gave the game away at that point. This is Vanessa

And so my Epsom night came to an end; a night that included a scorpion-serving restauranteur, a magician called Owain, a prank call on an eighteen year old, five decks of cards, a white rabbit and an audience member with a target on his shirt. Not to mention the woman who yelled “Go You Big Red Fire Engine” or the Dad who had brought his sixteen year old son along.

Everyone in Epsom was lovely, including all the staff, and I look forward to my next visit.

That is all for now, I will be doing my last show of this tour in Oxford on Thursday, and will post again then.

G’night all

Adam

It’s a short and sweet one tonight, as I update you on the least posh audience I have ever played. A lovely bunch of people turned up in Colchester, and when I asked if theye were in any way posh, they were in every way adamant they were not.

A quick check of people’s names proved that fact, including Dave whose job it is to drug test horses by examining their urine. There were also a couple of young ‘uns in, as well as a couple of unlikely looking lads stashed further back in the crowd. I brought them on stage, and decided that in honour of the last time I was in Colchester (when I took a photo of a band in the front row and tweeted for a new name for them) I would try to create an Essex based Heavy Metal band from the crowd. They looked like this:

I asked for the name of the band and their first hit single. The tweets came flooding in, and included:

aliciacuddeford

I Fancy A Biscuit by The Procrastinators.

gpf1983

how about the es-sex pistols

dilly_dot

Camulodunum, “Seax, seax, seax… the number of the Beast” (The County’s coat of arms comprises three Saxon seax knives)

mdriver11 Matt Driver

Name: Shitting in Your Kitchen, Single: Don’t Let me Near that Microwave

saracurtisphoto

the only way is satan with the hit single “tramps and slags and sausage rolls”

However the crowd favourite actually came from someone in the room :

Stanway To Heaven.

There were also a couple of interesting tweets that came in during the interval, including one claiming that there was an Welsh ex-internationl cricketer in the room. I checked, and there was:

I also read out a tweet that came in before the show that said simply:

mattdcufc

Hoping adam hills gets his foot out tonight

This received quite the cheer from the crowd, so with the aid of an audience’s mobile phone that just happened to have the Stripper music on it, I performed a strip tease in which I showed off both my real, and artificial foot. And that is all I did. I did not remove it, and I did not in any way crowd surf my foot to the back of the audience.

OK I may have removed my foot. And there is a possibility that I crowd surfed it to the back of the room. And someone may have videoed it on their phone. And it may appear on Youtube. Hmmm, starting to think I should write some jokes for the next show.

Before I sign off tonight, I just wanna let you know that our prostate awareness campaign “No Joke, Be A Bloke, Get A Poke” took another step last week when I managed to convince Channel 5’s Gabby Logan to pose with me doing the “prostate check” sign.

That’s all for now, only two shows left of this tour – Epsom and Oxford. I’ll keep you updated,

Adam

It started well before the show with a number of tweets from people who were excited to have scored tickets. One person was coming from Minehead, taking a car and two trains, and another had said she was bringing cookies. It promised to be a good night.

As I took to the stage a latecomer entered the door, which was right alongside the stage. He looked suitably embarrassed so I of course started to chat to him. He said his name was Miec (pronounced Mietch). I asked his surname and he exhaled deeply, then said something that sounded like Voyvodka. It was spelt Wojewodka. Not surprisingly his parents were from Poland, although he was unable to speak much of the language.

When I asked him to say something bland in Polish, just to see if the European accent was sexy, he said the first words he could think of, which when translated from Polish were “Go f@*k a horse.” Nice.

Then about three things happened at once. I turned to a twelve year old on the other end of the row, while a man in front of me pointed at a bag that was left on stage, and a woman’s phone buzzed with a text message. I taught the young lad the meaning of the word “clitoris” then examined the bag and found it contained a present for my baby daughter and a t shirt that Jason (in the front row) had made after he appeared on stage with me in the London Mess Around last year.

He was wearing the same shirt, and this time had brought along his lovely lady Louise, who had only been on the phone last time.

I then turned to the woman who received the text, and read it. It was from the mother of her daughter’s friend, worried that her own son hadn’t brought home any words for her spelling tests. I of course replied.

A few minutes later she responded, asking what the words to be learnt were. So with the help of the audience, I compiled a list:

Heh, heh. We then had an interval, during which one of the venue staff (and they were all excellent by the way, especially Tom who made a cracking cup of tea) told me that he overheard the lady in the front row on the phone to her friend explaining that I was the one sending the texts and that if any more come in they’d be from me.

I began the second half therefore, by sending an all new list of words to her friend, once again suggested by the audience. Those of you with sensitive eyes may want to look away now, cos they got a little fruity.

I then turned my attention to our ongoing prostate awareness campaign that started last week in London with a guy called Sachin. We now have a slogan “No Joke, Be A Bloke, Get A Poke” and a poster…

…so I decided what we need now is a catchy gesture that celebs can adopt in photos. And I think you know what that gesture is.

I started with Miec,

then roped in Jason and his wife.

I now intend to rope in as many famous people as I can before the end of the tour to make the same gesture. Being that I am appearing on Soccer AM on Saturday with Blink 182, this may get interesting.

It was at this point that the phone in the front row buzzed again, and it seemed our heroine on the other end of the SMS line took up the challenge to create a sentence with the offensive list of words. It was so long, I had to photograph it in two parts.

OK, she wrote “prostrate” instead of “prostate”, but it was damn impressive.

I finished the show by taking a prostate awareness shot of the woman whose phone I had been abusing, as she abused her husband, who also assumed the pose

I also gave out a few presents of my own, including a DVD for the guy that traveled from Minehead, and another for Jason for bringing me gifts. I also promised to try to get some famous names in Louise’s autograph book before my final tour show in Oxford. The only other thing I could find to give away was a banana from the dressing room, so I signed it for Miec.

By this stage the audience were clearly getting a little carried away with themselves, as they insisted upon a photo in which I used the banana to check Miec’s prostate, while he exposed his pink underwear. I agreed, but said I wasn’t going to look happy about it.

And that brings us to the end of the evening’s events in Swindon. After the show, the venue staff delivered a tin of cookies to me backstage. Turns out the lady did indeed bring them but didn’t want to speak up during the show. They were delicious, and got me through the train ride back to London. Thank you.

I have a few days off now, although they will be filled with interviews for the UK DVD release of Inflatable. In a lovely turn of events, the Australian release has been nominated for an ARIA Award as I was writing this blog. Hurrah.

Thanks to everyone in Swindon for a top night, my next gig is in Colchester on Sunday, so I will probably update you all then.

Adam

For the past eight or so years, whenever I take a show on tour in the UK I always make a pitstop at Felsted School in Essex and do a show for the students and assorted parents. It is a wonderful initiative by their inspired and inspiring drama teacher, Chas, to bring as many shows of all types to the students, and each year he makes the trek to Edinburgh to make sure they get the best comedy in the country.

I always enjoy playing Felsted School, which is on sprawling and quite beautiful grounds in a gorgeous village. The students are always a lovely mix of down-to-earth, polite and intelligent young adults with the most polysyllabic hyphenated names I have ever come across.

I remembered this from last time, and a random check of audience members names didn’t let me down. I immediately found Grant Tyler Polkinghorn, Katyana Scarlett Rocker-Cook, and a young man called Pranjal Roy who bizarrely didn’t have a middle name. Thankfully a boy with three middle names donated one of his – Rastian – although even he was unsure of how to spell it.

I dragged my favourite six names on stage, and conducted an X Factor-esque showdown to find the best name in the room. The final six even introduced themselves on camera for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxPiJCy3LNE

In case you couldn’t hear them they were Tim James Leigh Santocruz, Hugonaut George Hilbery Chaplin, Katyana Scarlett Rocker-Cook, Grant Tyler Polkinghorn, Pranjal Rastian Roy, and Dieter Charles Frederick Gickle.

An audience-led cull narrowed the field to three and the winner was finally determined to be Pranjal Rastian Roy, who thanked his parents for giving him such a great name, as well as his middle name donor.

In amongst all this I tweeted, asking for the best names people had heard. Once again my twitter feed went wild, with such names as:

Thanks to all of you for joining in on these shows, and a huge thanks to all at Felsted who make returning to this venue so much fun. I really do admire the passion and vigour with which Chas throws himself into educating these young adults, and it shows in the calibre of students I encounter there every year.

This year Chas made a point of showing me a video that was made documenting a visit made by the Felsted Drama Society to a Women’s Correctional Centre in the States, in which they put on a production of Jospeh And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. It is amazing, and such a great example of what theatre can do for people’s souls, even those serving life terms.

The url is here, and if you have a spare ten minutes I highly recommend watching it. In a world of reality TV and wannabe popstars, this is what live performance is all about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=191GXXllB7Y

Brilliant.

I should also let you know that our audience-inspired prostate awareness campaign has stepped up a notch. Over the past few weeks we have found a slogan “No Joke, Be a Bloke, Get a Poke” and created a poster, which I challenged people to download and place in prominent places.

Well, Mandy did just that:

That is very impressive. Go on, I dare all of you to do better.

OK, that’s all for now – huge thanks to all at Felsted tonight, especially Chas and Hannah, and Tony Petrie who helped out with a bit of James Brown action at the top of the show.

Tomorrow night is Swindon, then I am appearing on BBC1 on Wednesday night on Ask Rhod Gilbert in the UK, as well as the usual dose of Spicks and Specks in Australia.

See you somewhere soon

Adam

Night Two of my Norwich Mess Around started off with the usual getting-to-know-the-audience bit, and included a lovely couple in the front row who had only been together for two weeks.

His name? Adam

Her name? Eve.

Of course.

I took a photo of their ID to prove it to you, but after chatting to them in the bar afterwards thought perhaps that wasn’t the most secure thing to post online. Instead, here is a photo of Adam and Eve with a bottle of Prosecco I bought them:

Of course, the question of the night was: Is JFC gonna show up?

JFC was the fiance of an audience member in last night’s show called Nicky. JFC of course, is a nickname and it stands for Jimmy Fat C**k. Of course.

Last night we called him up on someone’s mobile, and he was very funny over the phone. In fact he lead the audience in a phoned-in singalong of 500 Miles by The Proclaimers. I offered him the chance to bring some mates and do it live tonight, and even twitter was abuzz before the show wondering if he would show. OK, there were three tweets, but they were abuzz.

Jimmy did indeed show, and dutifully brought his mates on stage for their performance. First though, they posed for the album cover.

That’s Jimmy on the right.

After a few false starts, the lads belted out 500 Miles (with the help of a backing track created by Tristan on light and sound) and I filmed the whole thing on my phone. During the interval I uploaded it to youtube, tweeted the link, and asked my followers to leave an opinion (a la X factor), and their location.

You can see the footage here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nDwsk2inkE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The tweets came in from such locations as Kenya, Denmark, Florida, Edinburgh and Wollongong and included:

It was a day of trains today – Brighton to London to Cambridge to Norwich – and at the end of it all it was a joy to “come home” to the Norwich Playhouse.

As per usual, the show started with some chats to some lovely people, two of whom had brought along a monkey. Not just any monkey, it was the same monkey that was in the same venue the last time I was in Norwich. In fact, the monkey was wearing a little mini tour shirt with my dates on the back, along with the phrase “Poke Me Adam”.

This of course was a reference to our audience-led prostate awareness campaign, entitled “No Joke, Be A Bloke, Get A Poke.”

I duly obliged, the monkey was suitably posed (with an appropriate expression on his face) and a photo was taken:

A cackle from the end of the row grabbed my attention so I followed it to the source – a woman called Nicky who responded to my query of “Are you with anyone?” with “No… hang on, I mean yes!”

Turns out 1) she is engaged 2) to a guy called Jimmy 3) she has lost her engagement ring  4) Jimmy’s nickname is JFC  5) JFC stands for Jimmy Fat Cock (I apologise for the foul language. I was going to type Jimmy Fat C**k but we all know what it means) 6) Nicky didn’t invite Jimmy to the show.

I grabbed the phone of one of Nicky’s friends (Dan) called JFC and left a message. Within a few minutes he returned the call, and we had a right old chat. Jimmy managed to get some laughs from the crowd himself, and said he felt “like a rockstar”. This gave me an idea.

After the interval I phoned Jimmy back, placed the monkey on stage, placed the phone in the monkey’s lap, place a mic in front of the monkey, and asked Jimmy to belt out a tune. He said the only one he could remember was “500 Miles” by The Proclaimers.

So (and here’s a sentence I’ve never written before in my life) Jimmy Fat Cock lead three hundred people in a singalong of 500 Miles over a phone that was perched in the lap of a monkey. And it all looked like this:

I asked Jimmy if he’d like to come to the show tomorrow and recreate the scene in person, but Nicky protested that he was supposed to help her paint the house tomorrow. I suggested perhaps she should have thought of that when she chose not to invite him tonight. Jimmy will now be turning up tomorrow with a few mates to lead a singalong, and I will let you know what happens.

What worries me is that I had a chat with Nicky in the bar afterwards, and she told me Jimmy is a bit of a character and will be up for anything. She then said, and I quote “If you ask him to get his ballsack out, he’ll get his ballsack out”. Oh dear.

The rest of the audience consisted of an American man who had found love with a Norfolk woman:

an Australian lady who had found love with a Norfolk man:

and my old mate Adam Hill, who was celebrating his going-away do, and was responsible for bringing Nicky and her mates:

I am both looking forward to, and hesitant about, what will happen tomorrow when JFC arrives. Some audience members were toying with the idea of coming back. I will let you know how it goes.

Adam

After the ninety minute marathons of the last few nights, it was strange to come back to The Brighton Comedy Festival, where the shows are scheduled for an hour. It was even stranger to do ten minutes at the top of the opening night gala, but a real treat to be backstage with such comedy heroes as Jack Dee and Jo Brand, as well as my old mate Mark Watson.

I did my spot at 8.15 in front of three thousand people, and it warmed me up quite nicely for the two hundred and sixty odd that were waiting for me in the Pavilion Theatre. And what a lovely two hundred and sixty odd they were.

So lovely in fact that they all clapped along to my walk on music, which by the way is a song by Ray Charles called “Mess Around.” I did notice from backstage however, that they were doing something that was once described to me as “the English clap” – that is, clapping on the first and third beats, rather than the funkier second and fourth.

I asked the sound guy to replay the music and I let the audience clap along again. They naturally gravitated to the first and third, also known as “the white man’s clap”. I found the only black man in the room, whose first name was actually “Mega”, and asked him to demonstrate a black man clap. He busted out a double-time African thing, and once again the opening music was played, accompanied this time by a Nigerian clapalong. I reckon Ray Charles would have liked it.

I then scanned the front row and realised that from left to right, it looked like they had been seated in order of age. A quick check of ages revealed that I wasn’t far off. In fact, I only had to shuffle three people and the entire front row was seated from youngest to oldest. I took a series of photos to show that:

I then started up a conversation with a 61 year-old man called Peter, who was retired. When I asked what he was retired from, he said “You’ll like this.”

I said I probably would, and he told me he used to be a tax inspector. The audience were aghast. I reiterated that the theme of the show was to find something interesting in everyone, so I asked if there was anything particularly exciting about him. Both he and his wife said no.

I asked his wife if she could think of anything Peter had done that was out of the ordinary or fascinating, and she cryptically replied “There have been a few white knuckle rides”. I asked if she meant inside or outside of the bedroom, and she said “I’ll leave that up to you”

I asked (for asking is the key to these shows) if Peter was a bit of a devil in bed, and she smiled a smile that said he was. I asked when was the last time they did it – she said “This morning.” Boom.

The more I asked, the more apparent it became that Peter was a bit of a love machine, especially since retiring. Who’d have thought that a shy, retiring and retired tax inspector might be a bit of a sex symbol?

I brought Peter on stage and took a photo of him, in a pose that represented the way I saw him at the beginning of the show:

I then co-opted the ladies in the front to help me recreate the image of how I now saw Peter:

I tweeted the photo and asked for a sexy slogan for a sexy tax inspector.

The tweets are still coming in, and I’m happy to say the first was from the lovely Chris Addison with:

buchy69 “I’m looking into your loophole, and you don’t even know it”

dufussy When your figures need a good going over.

Thank you all, the tweets are still coming in as I type this.

I also explained to the audience the ongoing saga of my audience-inspired prostate awareness campaign, that includes the slogan “No Joke, Be A Bloke, Get A Poke”. Once again I promised to upload a version of that poster for tonight’s audience (and any of you reading this, wherever you are in the world) to put up in public places. Tonight’s crowd offered to place the poster in 6000 government offices, and a fish and chip shop.

Here it is by the way:

Go on, you know you want to. And once you have, please send me photos of your work.

And that is all I have for you tonight. There were other brief exchanges with Lynda (who brought me whiskey) and a couple from Lithgow NSW who were the Aussiest people ever, but with only an hour to play with I didn’t manage to find out their whole stories.

Ah well, there’s always next time.

I am off to Norwich tomorrow for two nights in a row of Messin’ Around, and I will of course update you after each one.

Night night,

Adam

It started with an interesting front row, and in particular an interesting looking man called Ben. I asked him on stage for a photo, and he asked me if he could have a hug. I said yes, and we took a photo of it:

I then took a photo of Ben, and tweeted the question, “This is Ben. What do you think he does?” (Actually I misspelt his name as Bem in the tweet, my apologies)

The answers started rolling in immediately and included:

jaybee_bug DJ for children’s rave birthday parties.

MandyBeaches Roadie.

yabbie567 very very well with the ladies !

ChrissieWild Blonde Billy Connelly look-e-likey? The 80’s era…

fiatpanda Follows your mum home and presses himself up against the window?

Rove Whatever it is, he rides a unicycle while he does it.

amy_who does he guard the pot of E at the end of the ravebow?

The audience favourite however was

maglobian Lead singer in an Amish Ska Punk band

This inspired me to send out another tweet, asking for suggestions for the name of said Amish Ska Punk Band. I’ll get to them in a minute though, because while checking tweets I noticed a few that had come in from audience members before the show.

One was from a guy whose wife was too chicken to sit in the front row. So I made her sit in the front row. Strangely, I didn’t pick on her at all for the rest of the show.

Then there was Tiffany, who had brought along a cork hat for me. She brought it to the stage, and posed for a photo with Ben

We also took a photo of Ben pretending to be a gnome, because someone in the audience thought that was what he looked like.

I then put on the hat, and busted out the “Aussie pulling a beer behind the bar” pose:

I then tried to imitate the Greg Fleet-patented Aussie possie, but the man with the camera magaged to film instead of snap, so we made an impromptu short film, which can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmrOWv7p7uk

After a short interval I kicked off the second half by reading out some of the tweets I had received during the break. There was one from the lady in the front row, thanking her partner for inadvertently getting her a better seat. There was one from Elizabeth slating our recent Ashes performance:

elizabethewens why do Australians like having a Chinese? Cos they love going out for a duck #enjoyingtheshow

and one from @howlieT saying she had redislocated her thumb applauding the show. Ben jumped on stage and we both did a magical gnome dance to make it better. Thankfully we didn’t film it. Unfortunately Ben’s girlfriend did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA4AKxcxj6E

Then it was time to read through the suggested names for Ben’s Amish Ska Punk band, and I have to say I have never received so many tweets during a gig in my life. I can’t possibly get through them all, but they included:

mturf Maize Against Machines with their hit song (We don’t want your) Combine Harvester.

Cosmik_ The Abstinence Pistols.

MandyBeaches The Mighty Mighty Butter Churners

itsmarcusryan Green Hay

zannerogers Non-Electric Light Orchestra?

benpobjie The Barn Raisers

Well done everyone, I am truly blown away by how funny people are.

Most normal people would have ended the show there, but no, I decided to keep chatting to people and found a young man sitting next to a young lady called Natalie. I asked if they were together, and they paused. Of course we all read a lot into that pause, at which point he said “I would be honoured to, but…I had my chance and blew it”

Turns out he had once tried to ask her out, but was overcome by nerves, turned into a stammering Hugh Grant wannabe and managed to utter “I like your hair, it’s very squirrelly” before she ran away.

I asked Natalie if there was a chance this could ever work, and she replied “Yes, as long as he doesn’t start by talking about a rodent”. It then transpired that there was indeed a dead fox in his house, but we pushed on regardless.

I saw what I must do. I brought him on stage and said it was time to ask Natalie out properly. I grabbed a phone from Sophie in the front row and played “Come What May” from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, while our hero took the mic and asked Natalie for a drink as “more than friends”.

She said yes, the crowd cheered, and they spent the rest of the gig holding hands and drinking pink champagne (that I rustled up from the bar)

And somehow, two hours after we started (minus twenty minutes for interval) the show came to an en, although not before a quick recap of our prostate awareness campaign.

A few weeks ago we found the slogan “No Joke, Be A Bloke, Get A Poke” in one of my shows and made a poster with a man called Sachin. Last night we updated that poster with a nurse called Laura. A few avid blog readers made their own version of the poster, including Mandy B who offered up this one:

I asked if anyone in the crowd could display one in a prominent place, and a guy called Stewie said he would hang a few in a men’s prison. Someone else suggested the students in the crowd could hang them up on campus, and just like that a movement was born.

the challenge now is to put these posters up in public places and raise prostate awareness across the world. Feel free to download the poster, print it off, and send me the photos of your results.

And that, finally, was all that happened. I’m beginning to see why we set the record. It has taken me almost as long to write the blog as it took to do the show.

More to come tomorrow from Brighton, and a huge thanks to everyone in the Glee Club Birmingham tonight.

Adam

After a couple of days off (well, filming TV spots for ESPN and Mock The Week) it was into the next night of the UK tour of Mess Around, and tonight it was the lovely Glee Club in Nottingham.

A quick scan of the front row lead me to believe a 69 year old woman called Janet was going to be the provider of comedy gold for the evening. A well-built man called Tim was my back up, and another goateed man called Adam was backup number two. I never really made it past Janet to be honest.

Janet was sitting with her son-in-law Richard, while her husband Mike was sat a few rows back, after swapping with Richard in an attempt to avoid being in the front row. Of course, I made them swap back – much to Mike’s chagrin.

I asked Mike what he did and he told us he built power stations. Awesome. I asked Janet who else had come with them, and she replied “Nick is here as well. He was my daughter’s bridesmaid.” Of course. I asked Janet where her daughter was, and she replied “She’s at home, I think”. So I phoned Sarah to check.

Sarah was indeed at home, and a quick chat established that she had drawn the short straw and was looking after their three year old daughter for the night. I bade her farewell, but almost immediately Mike received a text message on his phone. I took it, replied, and a wee while later Sarah decided to take advantage of the situation:

Cheeky. I read her offer out onstage and received no takers, so I promised to display it here on the blog. If anyone would like some wrought iron window furniture, please leave a comment after the blog, and perhaps Sarah will do a deal with you.

I should point out that this exchange took place on either side of the interval, something I have never had in a “Mess Around” show before. I tell you what – the audience don’t half become feisty after an interval.

The second half started with a guy in the front row pointing out that there seemed to be a long hair trailing from the fly of my jeans. I looked down, after asking why he was looking at the fly of my jeans, and found that there was indeed a long hair. I had absolutely no idea what to do with it, so I gave it to the guy that spotted it, saying “I’ll give you a tenner if you floss with it”

He did.

I asked him to do it again on camera, but he said he had dropped it. So he then took one of his girlfriend’s hairs and flossed with it.

Ewwwwww.

I then tried to find if anyone in the front row had a cooler job than Mike, who you may remember built Power Stations, specifically in Corby and Peterborough. The first thing I noticed was that my backup audience guy Tim had left during the interval.

Moving along I found a guy who works at “Go Ape” – a fact that impressed most people in the room – a decorator and a nurse. Shaking her hand I asked if she had checked any prostates today, and that’s when things got weird.

I asked Mike if he had had his prostate checked. Mike said no. Laura (the nurse) said she would do it. Mike gave her two thumbs up. I suggested that’s what Laura was about to give him.

I also suggested that if women were used to advertise prostate checks, more men would have them done. This lead me to reiterate the prostate awareness slogan that came out of one of last week’s London shows – No Joke, Be A Bloke, Get A Poke.

I then suggested we take a raunchy shot of Laura, and mock up a poster (much in the style of Sachin from last week). Laura said she needed a pair of gloves and a guy over her lap for the full effect. The gloves arrived courtesy of Ian the sound and lighting guy who raided the First Aid cabinet, and the guy arrived courtesy of Mike – who suggested his son-in-law Richard should be the lucky recipient.

Richard agreed, Laura pouted, and voila – a campaign is born:

Once again, the challenge is now for any budding graphic designers out there to take this photo, add the phrase “No Joke, Be A Bloke, Get A Poke”, and let’s see where how far we can take this thing by the end of the tour.

I should add that while all this was happening, the initially reluctant Mike was shouting at me to stop blocking his view so that he could take a photo himself. He did, and unbeknownst to me sent it to Sarah at home. A few minutes later he received another text, that made him laugh out loud. Please excuse the language and the blurriness.

I eventually found a guy in the front row called John, who worked as a trolley dolly on the trains. I decided that his was a worthy job, and one that needed a bit of an image change, so I called him on stage and asked him to reenact pushing a trolley along a train carriage, while Ian played “Bad To The Bone” by George Thorogood, and hit him with some strobe lighting.

And so after an hour and fifty minutes, it was time to say goodbye. I thanked all and sundry, but made special mention of the real stars of tonight’s show – Janet and Mike.

A massive shout out must also go to Richard, who in a beautifully prophetic moment, tweeted this before the show: