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..."

AIOTM 5/6

Sanderson Jones

Sanderson Jones has an interesting project. Yes I know you clicked here to find out about Pippa Middleton's disembodied anus, but you'll have to hear about ComedySale first. Sanderson has booked a gig at the Union Chapel in Islington on the 14th October - 500 seats - and you cannot buy tickets on the day, on the door, at the box office, on the Internet... in fact the only way to get a ticket is to meet with him personally and buy a ticket there and then. I bought my ticket today. Now, I must try and make sure I can get that day off work!

I had met at The Toucan with a chap from Twitter. After seeing Sanderson, we moved on to De Hems, The Admiral Duncan, Molly Moggs, then The Porcupine. After that I was slightly pissed and the chap was rather hammered. He had been out many hours more than me !

Dan Tetsell

We got to the venue and I met Rob Sedgebeer (as usual). I took my seat and found the lady beside me embroidering. I thought that was kind of cute. I have had a number of replies after putting the picture online (with permission of course). Now the chap who I had been out with before had a great story to tell Richard at AIOTM but along the way, as I returned from a strategic early toilet visit, Rich spoke to me and I mentioned that I had been led astray. My new friend, unwisely, mentioned that he was responsible, and Rich pointed out that he was a lot worse for wear than I was... He warned him off telling him the story in the main podcast!

Sanderson Jones

The podcast contained what you might expect: A video of Herring bathing in flour and water apologising to Diana Dors for counterfeiting his semen, Emma Kennedy playing a prepubescent Herring, we had the return of Attitudeless Badger, and a truly terrifying punishment for the final AIOTM of the series (perhaps ever!). I don't want to give too much away, but it involves cumpkins, and Richard's head.

After the gig we met up again with the 14-17 year old boy from last week who had indeed taken the magazine. Richard and the team did try to sign it to the best of their abilities but it was still wet from last week.

Hopefully by next week it will be dry. Also I hope all the male members of the audience (at a guess I would say 300 people) will be able to fill that cumpkin, and I will not be led astray again!

AIOTM 4/6

Last week, the result of The Moral Maze made Richard to a terrible thing this week. He had promised to wank over ever page of a porn made and give it to a 14-17 year old boy (that could prove their age).

Anyway, I started the evening off by meeting up with Michael Legge and his friend Dotes in a little pub off Oxford Street. Dotes is a childhood friend of Michael's, who I have been chatting to on Twitter quite a bit. Michael and Dotes regaled me with stories of drinking pints of vomit, defecation, bloody semen, and other such lovely things. Luckily Neal, Tara Flynn and her gorgeous hubby Carl arrived to provide a bit of class to the conversation.

I headed off to visit AIOTM to find what was in store. Rich started the show as usual with a 40 minute chat to the audience and a routine that was one of the first stand up sets he had written. He asked myself and Rob Sedgebeer if he had done a particular routine at AIOTM before and Rob told him he had. We have been promised the routine of fucking Jesus in the stigmata before the end of the series, which will be something to look forward to. Rich finished this part by trying some psychic readings on the audience. I think he's been reading the amazing Paranormaility book by Richard Wiseman!

AIOTM itself began, beginning with Richard brandishing a rather imposing bin with its contents hidden. However this was worrying. We all knew what was in there. Pippa Middleton's Disembodied Anus made a welcome reappearance, and for the AIOTM nerds, a brief appearance by Tiny Andrew Collins. Could he be testing the waters to see if he can make a full come back? For the full show you'd better just listen to it, but as Rich himself says, its better to listen to a few earlier ones so you have some sort of idea what's going on.

A slight balls up by Emma Kennedy was remedied by an emergency "Turn Back Time" segment, which is one way of getting out of editing!

And the result of this week's Moral Maze. Well, it's a good one. And when Richard says he will do something, you know he will !

Great night as ever. Only 2 more shows left (possibly ever!) so get your tickets booked now.

AIOTM 3/6

So Richard Herring's AIOTM enters its third week. It was quite a dreary day, but still decided to walk into town. I'm getting quite used to it now and the health benefits must offset the AIOTM cider that I get through. A few days ago Richard was trying to work out how many rows there would be in a pyramid of 4,000,000 Ferrero Rochers (for his new show). After some hard maths, I decided to cheat and ran an Excel spreadsheet which I emailed to Rich. Unfortunately he couldn't open it, so I printed it out to bring with me tonight. It's fun being a voluntary comedy researcher!

Dan Tetsell

Anyway, after a brief drink at The Admiral Duncan (God, it's gone downhill since I worked there, and it wasn't exactly top of the range when I was there) I met Paul and Simon at the venue.

Rich came on and did some more new stuff for his new show. This time about a visit to the dry cleaners and the "We {heart} our customers" messages left on the cellophane over his suit, and questioning the nature of this, so called, love. He then went on to do his "Give me head till I'm dead" routine that he resurrected last week at The New Red Lion. He mentioned that I had seen it already and I made a lame joke about "Well, I'll go to the toilet then". It was funny inside my brain.

The show itself was quite something else. References to "minted cumpkins", Pippa Middleton's disembodied anus being eaten on "I'm A Celeb" complete with some unusual Geordie accents from Dan Tetsell playing both Ant and Dec, and talking of unusual accents, the Canadian ones that Emma and Dan chose for the story about the child (it's a boy) being raised by its (his) parents without telling anyone what its (his) sex was were fantastic (if indecipherable).

Richard Herring ( and Christian Reilly)

Emma had told a story about her visit to East Kilbride which I had seen on Twitter last week, and my only thought was that I had lived there. That was that. Today she revealed that she had visited 24 Inch Keith, and the double entendre was hard to miss. How had I also lived in Inch Keith for so long in my early teens without realising that it was fucking hilarious!? So, when Rich asked the ausdience what had occurred to them that week I couldn't resist telling Emma about this rather odd (and sexy) coincidence.

The moral maze tonight featured bin porn, but this time I really had to go to the toilet ! Christian's song this week was very self-reverential with the hook line "He just wants to be on the telly" and talking about the many issues that have been raised in AIOTM before about Rich's life.

After the show I gave Rich my fabulous spreadsheet, and it seems he is as in love with numbers and tables as much as I am. I don't know how much a voluntary comedy researcher gets paid, but hopefully I'll get the going rate.

AIOTM 2/6

Richard Herring has thrown caution to the wind. Like last week, he wrote tonight's show on the Monday. Even this was too early, as the Ryan Giggs "scandal" became public between the writing and the performance. As he told us, next week he may have to start writing it at 5pm.

I got into Soho fairly early and went for a drink at The Admiral Duncan. I met up with Simon, Paul, and someone I had sold my 2 AIOTM series 1 scripts to for a £10 donation to SCOPE. So big up to Alan Hines. We took out seats for the first half where Richard mainly improvises and chats to the crowd.

"Are you in showbusiness?" said TV's Emma Kennedy to a rather sweet looking girl n the front row. "No? Well get your fucking drinks off the stage", followed by Herring somehow calling her a prostitute. I didn't quite follow the logic, but it wasn't quite as brutal as it sounded! Meg and her boyfriend (Beardo) arrived a little late and sat in the front row. Rich obviously talked to them and seemed amazed that a 23 year old could grow such a manly beard. He had a grade 2 and Rich asked me what length my newly shorn hair was. I didn't use any guard on mine. That's how manly I am. Rich tried to warn people off me. "Watch out girls", before correcting himself: "Boys.. look out". I was glad this correction had been made! He talked about the DVD record last week where I had been given a CD of the Warwick show where he had been heckled by a crazy Christian dude. I was going to give him this later but decided to pass him it there and then.

Rich gave us what little he had written for What Is Love Anyway which looks (even at this early stage) to be quite a different show to the last few.

Anyway, after the now traditional visit to the Burger King toilets, (no matter how many times Rich tells people about this little secret, it still is the best place to visit) the show began. Dan Tetsell was back, and although Ben Moor filled his shoes amply last week, it's nice to have the "proper" team in place. No poo stories from Ms Kennedy unfortunately, but to make up for it, Pippa Middleton's disembodied anus made a return appearance, as well as a guest appearance by Ryan Giggs, and a rather questionable Michael J Fox joke! Hey - there was even a call back to the Motorcycle clothing shop sketch, AND a rather dubious (possibly racist?) Barack Obama impression.

The moral maze was back, featuring Richard's borrowed cagoule. I would vote immoral to any of these, simply based on Richard's question. To ask the question implies that he has some doubts, and as people's morals come from within, then to me, this implies improper behaviour, otherwise the question would not be asked.

After the show I lost Alan. Turns out he had had a long day and had to go home. I spend some time chatting with the marvellous Rob Sedgebeer, Simon and Paul before flitting off and discussing Kindles, Twitter trolls, and the new show with Richard. Talking of the new show, I shall be at The New Red Lion theatre in Angel tomorrow night to see Richard, Catie Wilkins and Lou Sanders tomorrow night. Make sure you come down if you can.

AIOTM 1/6

So, here we are again. After my poor attendance at the last series of AIOTM, my rota for the next 6 weeks means that I can attend all the shows. The idea behind this is that Richard Herring writes the show on the Sunday, performs it to a paying audience on the Monday and releases it unedited for free on the internet on the Tuesday. I explain a little more about it in this blog here.

Ben Moor & Richard Herring

Tonight, Dan Tetsell couldn't make it as he has "real" work to do, so for one night only, Richard was joined by Ben Moor as well as the other 2 regulars, Emma Kennedy and Christian Reilly.

Around 2pm it was reported that the police had received a coded IRA bomb threat. We knew that one day we would have to sacrifice ourselves for AIOTM , and it looked like that day had finally come..

Rich does a mainly improvised stand up set before the main show and asks the usual question of what people do for a living. Michael was sitting front centre and told him he did woodwork and metal work which was unusual for a geeky Herring crowd. But when he told us he had made a model of Terry Pratchett's Discworld we all breathed a sigh of relief and realised he was one of us. (I have never read Discworld or any other Terry Pratchett books). I particularly enjoyed a lady to my left bellowing "HIGH BACKED ARMCHAIR", scaring Rich after a few other requests for catchphrases from a very enthusiastic man in the crowd.


After the break, AIOTM <aiotm> started and I won't give away too much (and to be honest, by the time this blog goes up, you can download the full show.) But let's just say Rich tells us who the actor is who loves dildos up his arse but has taken out a superinjunction, and as well as that, the star of the show, and hopefully for many others to come, was Pippa Middleton's disembodied anus. Another mention has to go to the Lembit Opik / Lady Gaga inspired song "Wonky Face". (See Lee Isserow's video at the end of this blog which he managed to create in under a week!)


Great to have a (hopefully) new running gag. No Tiny Andrew Collings, no cumpkins, no Tam Dalyell.. tonight seemed like a fresh start, and all the better for it. Though I would love Tiny AC to return. But he won't.


Due to the guest appearance by Ben Moor they recreated the 23 year old sketch that Ceith Allen had famously interrupted at the Oxford Revue by taking away Ben's crash mats as he had to jump to his death, before walking out and punching the manager. It was nice to be part of history, but to be honest, some things are better in the imagination!


One show down, 5 to go!


By the way, thanks to Alex for the picture! By the way. We weren't blown up. Not even close. So Real IRA, or whoever you are.. (Stewart Lee for all I know) - you didn't win. If you really want to publicise your case (and coincedentally AIOTM) bring it on next week.. if you dare!

Oooh - here is the Discworld model ! It's much better than I expected.













Christian Reilly - Wonky Face from Doctor Captain Lee Isserow on Vimeo.

As It Occurs To Me

Those of you who know me will already know that I'm a big fan of comedian Richard Herring, best known for "Fist Of Fun" and "This Morning With Richard, Not Judy" - his 90s series with Stewart Lee. I listen to all his podcasts (Collins & Herring, Collings & Herrin, and of course, As It Occurs to Me, or AIOTM (pronounced A-Eye-Aw-Tim-Uh) and I guess I could be described as a bit of a fanboy.

As It Occurs To Me is a stand up and sketch show which Herring writes on the Sunday, performs on the Monday and releases for free on the Tuesday. It's a brave venture, and one that originally looked destined to fall on its arse, but every week without fail some pretty amazing comedy is produced. The USP of this show is that Herring does not edit anything out, and the whole thing, no matter how successful or otherwise is released. As Richard explained in one of the previous shows "I don't want to patronise our listeners. is 'patronise' the right word? No, I don't want to 'respect' our listeners." (paraphrasing).

The idea came to Richard during the aftermath of the Ross/Brand incident. The BBC had to be extra careful with what could be allowed on the radio, and bypassing the broadcasters seemed like the best way to get the comedy out there.

The cast comprises of Herring, Dan Tetsell, Emma Kennedy and Christian Reilly, all of whom have worked together before. The show starts with Herring doing around half an hour of stand up, which along with a few tried and tested routines, mainly consists of riffing with the audience. He can be quite rude to the people he picks to chat to, but it is always done with a cheeky grin, and I think all of the audience secretly want to be called a "fucking idiot" by Herring!

I started my evening with a visit to The Stockpot on Old Compton Street. This is a great little restaurant whose menu (or prices) don't seem to have changed much since the 1970s. Its a good place to eat alone, but a dreadful place to take a date, unless you're planning to break up with them anyway.

I'm going to detour briefly here. I used to be the assistant manager of The Admiral Duncan in Soho, and every day without fail I would see Smurf. Smurf was one of the many homeless guys that would base himself in Soho. He clearly had a number of other problems as well as the obvious, but Smurf was a really nice guy. My boss and I knew quite a lot of the regular homeless people in Soho and we all had a good relationship with them. We would both give a small amount of money each day to the first of the regulars we saw and it was inevitably Smurf. In return he and the other regulars would let us know about any dodgy people that were coming into the bar, like an advanced warning system. It was very much a mutually beneficial arrangement. After a year or so, Smurf wasn't around any more and I had heard that he was either in prison, hospital, or dead.

However it was great to bump into Smurf this evening and chat with him. His mum had just died and she had left him her house in Ireland which he has put on the market. He has moved in with his dad in Kent after not speaking to him in 29 years and things were finally starting to look up for him.

Anyway, off to the theatre and took my seat. Herring did a good half hour of material, including a short preview of his upcoming "Christ On A Bike" show. he does need to work on relearning the genealogy of Jesus though...

During the break I met The_Phosphene who I had been chatting to on Twitter & we arranged to meet after the show. I'm not going to review the whole show as you can easily download it here or from iTunes (as you can for the next 4 Tuesdays - or even better, go along to the gig!), but needless to say, Tiny Andrew Collings (absolutely NOTHING to do with Andrew Collins, Richard's podcast partner and respected broadcaster and writer) was the star of the show with Herring trying to apologise and backpedal for going too far in last weeks show. It did look like the apology was going well, but in the end I think it made things much, much worse.

It was a shame I couldn't get my hand high enough to catch his attention during the part where Richard asks the audience what has occurred to them that week. I was going to apologise for not being able to attend last week's show due to seeing Michael Legge and Andrew Collins instead, but was confused at seeing Andrew Collins chatting with Tiny Andrew Collings. This had blown my mind. But I soon found out that it wasn't Dan Tetsell, but his doppelganger Danny Wallace (who was an extremely nice chap.)

After the show finished I chatted at the bar to The_Phosphene (aka Jack) as well as the ever-lovely Rob Sedgebeer. I have met Herring on quite a number of occasions, and only recently have I stopped being a bit of an over-talkative drunken dick while chatting to him. Richard is a very affable guy in real life and always has time for a chat. Although one Irish guy did tell Richard that if he didn't play in Ireland more he would punch him in the face. He said it with a smile so I can only assume he was joking but that in itself seemed to make it more threatening to my ears! Though things cheered up as Jack regaled Richard with his 3some story, which I found very touching <aside - I didn't..>

Highlight of my evening was getting to finally touch an actual pinpod*. Emma Kennedy had hers with her and I simply had to ask her to let me hold it and prod it. I'm not sure if I'll get a pinpod* yet, but if I had a few hundred quid I wouldn't miss then I definitely would. It's a lovely thing.

Jack and I headed toThe Porcupine by Leicester Square and swapped comedy memories, eventually chatting with a young lad at the bar and trying to explain AIOTM to him. This is actually quite tricky after a few beers and trying to explain the in-jokes, but if he turns up next week, then I think Richard will owe me at least £5. Which will probably through some unusual logic result in Andrew Collins owing him twice as much.

* no explanation will be posted here in tribute to Andrew's confusion at the lack of an asterisk explanation on a bottle of Plax, but all is revealed on the podcast!