December 7, 2006
HUMILIATING TV APPEARANCE NEWS
‘HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU’ FRIDAY 15th DECEMBER 2006, MY BUZZCOCKS HELL & RICHARD & JUDY.
That’s correct, next Friday night I’ll be appearing on the legendary topical gameshow for the first time and it’s safe to say I’m slightly crapping my pants. The last show of this kind I went on was Never Mind The Buzzcocks about 3 years ago and that was no fun at all.
On that occasion I turned up to BBC TV centre around 2pm and was shown to my dressing room, which was pretty nice. It had a bowl of fruit anyway. As soon as I had hung up my ’show shirt’ (a comfy black number that I had come to rely on to disguise my sweaty armpits for TV appearances) there was a knock on the door. It was an assistant producer (or AP!) to take to me to meet my team-mates and the writers who would supply us with jokes for the show. “Put it this way†said the AP, “If I was going on a hot date, these are the guys I’d want feeding me lines. They’re two of the funniest men in Britain so if I were you I’d write down everything they say and you shouldn’t go wrong. I’ve seen people come on the show and ignore that advice and they’ve regretted it. Here we are. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Have fun!â€
The AP shoved me into one of the hundreds of airport lounge style rooms that line the basement of TV centre and there I found the two funniest men in Britain slumped on a couch alongside my team captain, the extremely genial Phil Jupitus and Midge Ure of Ultravox and Band Aid fame. Midge Ure had clearly been fed the same hoobah about writing everything down and was already frantically scribbling on a pad as the two funniest men watched the videos we were to comment on that evening and threw out amusing quips thereon. It was like being back at school. Every time we heard a good line Midge and I would start scribbling, eyeing eachother now and then as if to say ‘I’m having that one you fucking bastard!’ After a couple of hours of joyless note taking we were released for refreshments before make-up. I decided it was time to hit the booze and had the first of several bottles of Becks to steady my increasingly jangly nerves. Bad move.
By the time we were lead into the studio to take our seats in front of the audience I was a little tooty and very nervous. Even my show shirt was having trouble concealing the rivers of perspiration winding down my arms. Mark Lamarr, who had barely said hello before we got started was scrupulously charmless from the get go and I began to wish I hadn’t agreed to come on the show. Fairly quickly my face set into a petrified gameshow rictus as the team captains and guests unleashed their semi rehearsed quips between unpleasant and occasionally funny salvos from Lamarr, who clearly regarded me with utter indifference. Once or twice I piped up with a couple of bits from my note pad and sure enough, they went down OK-ish. I tried desperately to think of a couple of my own comments but it never seemed the right moment to take the plunge. Anyway, the spectre of a withering rejoinder from Lamarr was too effective a deterrent. I have seldom felt so lonely. Occasionally I glanced over at Midge Ure. I’m pretty sure he felt the same.
An hour into the taping the four bottles of Becks I had consumed were taking their toll on my tiny bladder and I was desperate to pee. I couldn’t concentrate on what anyone was saying. I was dimly aware of Suzi Quatro, sat beside Sean Hughes, sparring lamely with Mark Lamarr and I took the opportunity of whispering to Phil Jupitus “What’s the deal if you need to pee?” “Well, we’re taping as live†he whispered back, not altogether helpfully. I didn’t know what to do. After a while the pain was becoming so unbearable I just put up my hand, hoping to turn my toilet request into kind of a public school joke, with me as the pupil and Lamarr as the frightening teacher. “Please sir” I said “I need to be excused”. Lamarr fixed me with a death glance and spat “you should have thought of that before we started then shouldn’t you?” then continued with his spiel. After a little while he turned to me and sighed, “alright then, you’d better go, but hurry up”.Everything in the studio stopped as I got up to leave. As I did so I managed to kick over a couple of the empty Becks bottles at my feet, which clattered loudly on the stone floor. The noise echoed round the now silent studio as I skulked past the audience to the exit. Once in the toilet I seriously considered just making a run for it. ‘I will never do this again’ I thought as I zipped up my flies and trudged back in to rejoin the party.
So why am I doing it again and on a show that is highly likely to be considerably more terrifying? Well partly because I’m very grateful to be asked when I haven’t been on TV very much at all in the last few years and partly because I feel as if I might not get so worked up this time, having done a few frightening live gigs in the intervening years and building my confidence in the process. Also you get paid to go on these shows and nowadays every little helps. That said, I watched the Lucy Porter on the show last week and although she was great, I could see her wearing the gameshow rictus once or twice and I got terrified all over again. Christ I’m not making a very good case for myself am I? Here’s the really stupid thing though, I’ve also agreed to go back on Never Mind The Buzzcocks in the new year, albeit at the request of lovely Simon Amstell who is now hosting brilliantly but still. Will I never learn? We’ll see. Maybe someone from the show will read this blog and they’ll replace me with someone less neurotic and more funny. Like a tramp.
The best show you can ever appear on is Richard & Judy. I went on there a couple of times to publicise various bits and pieces and each time I was treated like a genius king! You get a very nice goody bag, everybody who works on that show is 100% polite and professional and R&J themselves are so kind, friendly and straightforward that you very quickly relax and end up not only having a good time but being far more entertaining as a result. Also they lay on a really good little aftershow drinks and canapees thingy at which R&J themselves hang out winningly! That clinches the deal for me I’m afraid. If you ever get the call from Dick & Judy, go my friend, go. Still I couldn’t resist screwing about with a round of You Say We Pay in the style of my Bin Laden Tape clip from a while a go, so enjoy and I’ll get back to you after my Have I Got News For You adventure next week!