AIOTM 6/6 - The last one EVER.

This tremendously sad, yet gloriously tremendous evening started at The Montague Pyke, where I met up with Jack and Hitch for some pre-AIOTM grub. I had the most underwhelming fishcakes ever. When Jack and I went the bar to order them, out table was joined buy a man who seemed to enjoy swearing loudly at his friend on his phone. It got slightly worse as when he got off the phone he decided to join in our conversation. When I declared my complete lack of interest in sport, he just couldn't quite comprehend it.

Richard, Emma & Christian

Jack ran his "it occurred to me" story involving possibly seeing Paul Whitehouse and also walking past a motorcycle clothing shop. I advised against it. Did he listen to me? You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out. (Or just read further down the blog - alright - I'll save you the time. No he did not listen to me.)

Anyway, we got to the Leicester Square theatre, and I took my A14 seat for the last time. I will miss that seat. Rich came on to do his customary stand up, and the crowd were rather boisterous. There was a definite end of term feel to it, slightly spoiled by an overenthusiastic heckler that started to get a little boring. As he promised to me a couple of weeks ago, Rich did his old, truly blasphemous, "wanked off by the stigmata of Jesus" routine. He hadn't learned it, so read a lot of it fro notes, so it lacked the punch it had originally, but it seemed an appropriate set for an AIOTM crowd.

Christian

After the customary visit to Burger King in the break, I bumped into Robin, who I had met at the DVD record. He's another big fan and writes his own blog here which is always worth a read. I also met a man with the best "Attitudeless Badger" t-shirt I have ever seen. I also said a brief hello to Andrew Collins who pointed out that I had already had two mentions to his one, although I did tell him I was getting sick of it

I'm not getting sick of it. Oh yes, and Hitch and I got terribly excited when we bumped into Simon Munnery too!

AIOTM itself started, and Rich came on to the longest round of applause I've heard for a long time. It felt it was never going to end and I think the crowd were up for seeing how long they could make it go on for. We met Pippa Middleton's Disembodied Anus (PMDA) one last time before she finally passed on. It was a tragic story and some sort of metaphor. The crowd gave their stories to Richard about what has occurred to him including Jack's story about the motorcycle clothing shop (much to Richard's dismay). Andrew Collins contributed from the audience with what was possibly the longest story in AIOTM history. The audience were tricked in the moral maze, falling into Richard's trap, and Christian sang a beautiful ode to AIOTM, accompanied by Richard on the trumpet. (I got told off by a grumpy theatre lady for taking a video of the trumpeting.)

"Cumpkin In The Wind"

Dan

Pumpkins are impossible to come by this time of year but luckily a very kind man had provided Richard with a pumpkin mask which was put to good use in the grand cumpkin finale. Richard Herring with a cumpkin on his head somehow seemed a fitting end to the series, and a fitting end for AIOTM as a whole.

After the show I spent some time chatting with Jack and Hitch, as well as Robin and, my musical nemesis Mr Pineapple Band. I think we were the last two to leave the theatre (not long after Christian Reilly)

Well done Richard on a fine three series of entertainment! It may be the end of AIOTM* but not the end of podcasts. He is doing a live podcast every day at the Edinburgh Fringe. As he himself said, "have I learned nothing?"

* overheard after the show - Richard talking to his non-imaginary girlfriend "We should do another series..."