Hell is other people

Yesterday my agent, Bernie Shimshelwitz, sent me on a doomed mission to audition for a low brow theatre tour of The Usual Sexpests. Typically they’d already cast Adam Woodyatt in the part I was up for before I got there so I found myself at a loose end in East Anglia. Stuck for something to do I decided to go and watch Drag Me To Norwich in Hell, or should that be…
The film is top notch and nothing pleases me more than old ladies vomiting on nubile blondes so I was enjoying myself immensely right up until the last two minutes of the film when a mobile phone rang directly behind me. A little annoying, but nothing when compared to the fact that, not only did the Arthur Mullard looky-likey answer it, but then he proceeded to engage in a full volume, one-way conversation about haemorrhoids and cinema seats. By the time he got to the all too familiar line of “Until you’ve had them, you don’t know what it’s like” I’d had all I could bear. “Excuse me” I projected for the whole auditorium to hear, “but if you don’t cease that hideous conversation immediately I’ll shove that Blackberry so far up past your dangleberries you’ll be dialling your sister-stroke-wife every time you apply your Preparation-H”. The ovation I got from the cinema audience took me back to my closing soliloquy in ‘Kiddie Fiddler On The Roof’, Maidstone, 1985. Now, if anyone knows what happens at the end of the film I’m all ears. I need to know before the sure-to-be-released Drag Me To Hell Too.

Lost in Translation

I had this Sanskrit tattoo done when I was in Goa a few years back filming a Crimewatch special. The tattoo artist assured me that it translates as ‘Grant me the serenity to accept the thing I cannot change.' But the waiter at my local Indian restaurant told me last night that it actually says: ‘Milk, milk, lemonade, round the corner chocolate’s made.’ Gutted.

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A bit of fun at the cashpoint

Have a look at this sketch penned by a couple of young friends of mine, and leave your lovely comments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/extra/video/p00314g7

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Whoops!

My 7 years of bad luck continue to rumble on without mercy. Honestly, ever since I broke that glitterball at Susi Quatro’s house in 2003 I’ve had nothing but misfortune. Last week was no different. I was due to play the part of a referee in a new BBC thing (turned out quite well without me. See here.) but put my back out playing twister with my barista, Dan Tang. Dan confessed that he’d never seen anyone stitched up so badly by a ‘right hand, blue, left foot blue, right foot blue, left hand red combo as I was that day but still insisted on his trademark victory dance as I writhed in agony on the floor. A visit to Doctor Hugh confirmed the worse. Not only did I have a “spasy back.” The muscle trauma was so hideous I was at high risk of shitting my pants at any given moment. Doctor Hugh sent me limping home with a prescription for 1 neckbrace and 24 rolls of Andrex. That night I got a call from my agent Bernie Shimshelwitz, to be honest I thought it was a prank at first as I could hardly make out what he was saying. Turns out Bernie had cracked a tooth on Mrs S’s Flambe duck and was suffering terrible speech restrictions due to a quick fix oversized temporary crown. After a while I became accustomed to his cluttered speech pattern and accepted his invitation to accompany him to the funeral of his old friend Ray Sparks. Ray was one of the old school entertainers and came up through the ranks with Tarbuck’s mob. Sparks was a controversial character and once famously called Prince Charles a F*cknut at the Royal Variety performance line up. His death had come as a shock to the entertainment world and even though the coroner reached a verdict of ‘death by mis-adventure’ the industrial lube, ‘specialist mags’ and Henry the hoover found with and in Sparks’ body told a more detailed story. I knew when Shimshelwitz picked me up the next morning that it was going to be a difficult day. Firstly, I was hoping that lying on my back across the back seat of Bernie’s Volvo would calm my twitchy back down but as he had arrived in a pimped up Cinquecento I knew this wasn’t a goer. Apparently the Volvo was ‘doomed’ after Mrs S had bottomed out on a hump back bridge the day before trying to outrun the paparazzi who had apparently mistaken her for Gary Glitter. The Cinquecento belonged to one of Bernie’s ‘associates’ in the adult entertainment industry. The image of a half naked glamour model on the bonnet suggested that the car was part of his marketing machine as did the words ‘Are you horny?’ running down either side. The car was not ‘funeral friendly’. The extent of Bernie’s dental shocker was immediately evident as the mis-matched crown made it impossible for him to close his mouth giving him the appearance of an extra fro The Hills have Eyes. He was clearly dosed up to the eyeballs, counteracting his allergy to the painkillers he was necking with antihistamine tablets and Pernod. I had no choice but to let him take the wheel as the neckbrace I was wearing afforded limited driving vision. It took me a good 10 minutes to painfully lower myself into the passenger bucket seat after which it was plain to see that Bernie was in no mood for hanging around. He was giving the “porno pocket rocket” a proper ragging and by the time we reached the motorway the revs were off the dial. It was only when I suggested that he change gear that it became apparent that Shimshelwitz had no idea that the car was a manual drive. We had to stop at a florists on the way to pick up two floral tributes Bernie had ordered, one saying ‘RAY’ and the other ‘MISSED’ but when we arrived it was obvious that Bernie’s enforced speech issues had conspired to stitch him up. The florist, who had attempted to interpret Bernie’s instructions to the best of her ability, presented him with a single arrangement that read ‘RAPIST’. My agent looked at me with the expression of a man that expected nothing less and I returned the gesture. 4 minutes later we were back in the sexed up motor heading towards the church with the word RAPIST written in flowers on the parcel shelf. Defying all rational possibility things then took a turn for the worse when Doctor Hugh’s prophecy regarding my bowels came to pass. I felt a twinge in my back followed by an immediate desperation to find a lav. Bernie had no choice but to drop me off right outside the church and left me to find a loo whilst he reversed parked behind the hearse. I minced inside and frantically scanned the packed church for signs of a bog. Taking pity on my plight the vicar directed me to his private chamber at the back of the church where the age old conflict between good and evil reared its head as I evacuated my guts. When I emerged, it was clear that the stink bomb I’d just dropped had taken its toll on my fellow mourners. I could tell from Ray’s widow’s reaction that this was not the sort of turn out she was expecting. I sheepishly joined Bernie and his RAPIST at the end of a pew and as my agent gargled with the Pernod from his hip flask I quietly cursed Susi Quatro’s glitterball. Roll on 2010.

Help! The aged!

This is Beryl and Ted who I had the misfortune of sitting by on my recent coach trip to Bridgport (for a failed audition for Dai Another Day). At first I welcomed their attention on what was scheduled to be a very long journey, charming and friendly and on their way to visit their grandson Peter Andre (not the Peter Andre, but apparently the boy’s mum insists on both his Christian names being used). It was during this getting to know you stage that I took this snap. I should’ve guessed they weren’t your average couple when Ted refused to look directly at the camera in case the old Indian belief was true and his soul would be stolen. Just outside Milton Keynes I began to wish I’d stuck to my Harold Robbins. It turns out Beryl and Ted were the original swingers and Beryl holds the South Kent record for the most ping pong balls in one…er…afternoon, ahem. She began flirting outrageously with me and showing me her impression of a dead heat in a zeppelin race, much to the disapproval of the Notting Hill Crown Green Ladies Euro Tour who were trying to get a game of reg plate bingo going. I managed to get the subject off sex by bamboozling Beryl with talk of Twitter, Facebook and all things up-to-the-minute. She was dead keen and wanted me to get her a profile up and running. I nonchalantly suggested I’d sort her out when I got back to London, but a hitherto silent Ted misinterpreted this and when Beryl popped off to “lay a cable” in the onboard loo, he leaned over to me and said, with an assurance that suggested this wasn’t the first time he’d said it, “You’ll need a plank tied to your arse son, she’s a fanny like a wizard’s sleeve that one” This left me speechless largely due to the fact that I had been sick in my mouth.