I think I'm on the One Show this week with a little film I made about our house in Anfield.

Blog 72a

Hello Jane Ball.  I am reluctant to explain what the show is about since I always think if you can explain it in just words then why do a show at all?   But the bit you refer to is towards the end when I say I sometimes feel that we/I should give up the struggle which is true but then the last part of the show takes, I think, another direction and ends with a totally different conclusion.

 Yah! Away with you False Alexei!  There can be but one!

 And finally I think we all need to spend a little more time thinking about the 'Wright Way' then I will give my considered response.

Oh and I got it wrong about the One Show film, they don't have a transmission date for it yet.

Here's the links for booking tickets for my upcoming shows

Edinburgh

SouthBank

Blog 72b

 Sorry I forgot to say my little film (and me) was on the One Show last night (The 15th).  You can watch it on i-player, it was a really nice little film.

 My friend Nigel Planer was telling me that a while ago the man pretending to be him was having an argument with the man pretending to be Ricky Gervaise.

I would completely agree with G about The Shadowline.  Though it was relatively engaging in the early parts in the end it amounted to nothing because the story was not convincingly resolved.  Its not just the BBC who do this though, C4s Utopia suffered from the same problem, the end made no sense whatsoever which really makes all the time you've invested in it a waste.  Basically C4 and Kudos Productions owe me six hours, so I'd like Elizabeth Murdoch to come round and paint my stairs. 

However re my BA 13 OON piece in the Telegraph there was a good car smash up in Utopia, I think it was a silver MK 2 Mondeo but they shot it from the side from which angle it looked like a brand new car that they were destroying.  So well done Kudos car smash up department,  boos to everyone else apart from the actors who did their best.  Incidentally Stephen Rea was in both Shadowline and Utopia-maybe he's the problem.

Mr Heath, since nobody else bothered I'd recommend, Barcelona Plates, Mister Roberts and Stalin Ate My Homework.

Also I don't know if I've said but I'm doing 10 extra dates at Soho from the 2nd of April and I'm playing two nights at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on July 4th and 5th though I'm insisting they re-name the venue Hugo Chavez Hall or Nohm Chomsky Hall for the duration of my residency.

WHAT Is Christoph Waltz Doing In This British Sketch Show?

By Fraser McAlpine | Posted on Friday, January 25th, 2013

Showbusiness is a strange place to try and make your home. One day you’re Hamlet, the next a talking pork chop, and there’s no sense in trying to work out how an actor jumps from one place to another; bizarre juxtaposition is an occupational hazard.

That said, it’s always a joy to discover than a current hot talent has some unusual anomalies deep in the hidden recesses of their resume. In that spirit, here’s an unexpected delight that came up this morning, from the twitter feed of the comedy writer Graham Linehan.

It seems that, in the mid ’90s, he and his then partner Arthur Mathews, had written a sketch show for the comedian Alexei Sayle, with the refreshing title The All New Alexei Sayle Show. It would take a while to fully explain who Alexei Sayle is if you don’t know, but to give context to the cultural impact of the show itself, The All New Alexei Sayle Show, while not unpopular, is largely unremembered even on the British side of that big sea thing between here and there.( Bit harsh)

So, it came as much of a shock to Graham as anyone else, to discover that one of the actors in his sketch The League of Hirsute Gentlemen is actually Christoph Waltz: movie star, Golden Globe winner (for his part in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained), and current Oscar nominee.

By way of context, here’s an extract from Christoph’s IMDB profile immediately before and after this appearance, to show you the sort of thing he was involved with at the time. If anything, it makes the appearance of an Austrian actor, clearly used to playing Germans or Russians, in this very British comedy skit, all the more baffling:

• 1994 Jacob (TV movie) - Morash

• 1995 Ein Anfang von etwas - Herbert

• 1995 Die Staatsanwältin (TV series) - Andreas Döpke

• 1995 Prinz zu entsorgen (TV movie) - Roman

• 1995 Man(n) sucht Frau (TV movie) - Christoph

• 1995 The All New Alexei Sayle Show (TV series) - Weak Moustache

• 1996 Rex: A Cop’s Best Friend (TV series) – Der Puppenmörder (1996) – Martin Wolf

• 1996 Rosa Roth (TV series) – Nirgendwohin (1996) – Wietze

• 1996 Du bist nicht allein – Die Roy Black Story (TV movie) – Roy Black

• 1996 Der Tourist (TV movie) – Stephan Görner

Well I can reveal how this came about.   If the guy had gone further back in Christoph’s film history he’d have seen a channel 4 series called “The Gravy Train” which starred Christoph as a German EU Bureaucrat and me as a sinister businessman.  We became very good friends, he lived London and at the time had three small kids.  We spent a lot of time with them and they came to stay with us in the country.  But despite the Gravy Train Christoph couldn’t get more work in English though he could do as much German speaking film and TV as he wanted.  When I was making “The All New...” I asked Christoph if he wanted to take part because I also knew, although he rarely got the chance that he was very good at comedy. 

Its been a delight to see Christoph’s recent career triumphs.  When he was living in Britain I think he was always frustrated because he was not more successful but in this case he was right to feel so.  He is extraordinarily intelligent and talented and deserves everything he has recently achieved.  (Maybe now the BBC will release The All New...now it’s got a possibly double Oscar winner in it.

Since obviously my sense of self is intimately connected with how many comments I get that was a difficult time for the whole family.  Then there was just the one snarkey comment and there was a certain arid beauty about that.  Afterwards like some wounded stragglers from a war a few more comments limped painfully in but like survivors of a war many of them were bitter and unpleasant, lashing out in their anger, rage and  hatred.

As the year died so did blog 68, unmourned and unloved.

Now its onwards to blog 70.  What a cracker that's going to be, I personally can't wait.

p.s.  Book your tickets for Soho they're going quick.

And it is still a learning experience. cat you mention the Nelson Mandela bit and presumably other stuff about my activism.  It is not my intention for that to come across as bragging, indeed part of the joke is that all the benefits I do are generally for causes that are either lost or are doing badly thanks to my help but I think perhaps it might be a good idea if I highlighted that a bit more, so I’ll do that in January.  See I can take criticism.

As it is I found myself performing in what looked like a pizza oven in Camberley last night but nevertheless it is all going unnervingly well. I find that the energy when I'm on stage is exactly the same as twenty years ago but what is much harder is the travelling, I find myself fantasising about getting some sort of camper van, perhaps done out as a replica of my bedroom, so that I can sleep while I am transported home. Then it could park outside my house and I could stagger across the pavement in my pyjamas and climb into my real bed.

I haven't listened to my comedy controller yet but I had fun doing it.

Blog 67a

Dear SM, I am sorry you didn't enjoy the show in Edinburgh but you have completely misunderstood what I am about.  It is nothing to do with working for the Telegraph but being of the left myself I have always felt greater hatred for those who betray the left such as New Labour than for the right.  If you look at my old material you will see exactly the same thing.

I also did a film for the One Show last week.  Its 50 years since the Ford Cortina was launched and a number of Cortinas were driving from Dagenham to Cortina in Italy to celebrate and we went along to film their departure and to talk about the car.  One disconcerting thing several people asked me was if it was true that the Cortina was named after the Cortina Snack bar in High Holborn.  This is actually a lie that I made up for the 1982 Arena Documentary I took part in about the car.  Its is one of several that I have made up concerning cars over the years that seem to have become accepted fact.  Another is about the Mitsubishi Pajero which I once wrote means wanker in Spanish, this is also untrue but I have seen it repeated several times in print.   

Blog 66a.

Hi Jay.  Its funny but a lot of those who post on the Telegraph are full of vitriol because I’m polluting their paper with my left-wingedness.  I’ve never much seen the point in trying to be pure about who you write for, all newspapers are compromised in one way or another so why fret about it.

Which is not say I’m not bourgeois or a hypocrite or whatever it is they accuse me of being but it’s not because I write a motoring column for the Telegraph.

Blog 66b

Hi Richard.  Sorry I'm not coming near Bournemouth but this is just a tour we put together fairly quickly, so I can see whether I can do a longer show and it meant we had to take what venues were available.  If that works well then there'll be ten nights at the Soho Theatre in Jan 2013 and also I'll then do a more planned national tour next year (though it will still be small venues) which I'm sure will come to your area.

Blog 66c

Don't worry Worried Geoff on Blog 65 I am coming to Colchester Arts on the 21st of Oct. it just got left off the schedule for some reason.

At the moment if you go to the Telegraph website there's a very funny video of me being terrified in a Ferrari 458 at the festival of speed the weekend before last and I think there's a video of me driving a Aerial Atom as well, though I haven't looked at that yet. 

I must say after a few months I really like writing for the Telegraph and they seem to like having me writing for them since they always put me on the cover of the motoring supplement.  I particularly like the photo of me this Saturday with the Atom looking heroic.  Plus I clearly drive a section of their readers absolutely bats with hatred judging by some of the things they post, which is also good.

Blog 65a

Hi everybody here's the tour dates

DATE City/Venue Box Office Website

OCTOBER 

Thur 4 Oxford, Glee Club 0871 4720400 glee.co.uk

Fri 5 Edmonton, Millfield Theatre 020 8807 6680 millfieldartscentre.co.uk

Tue 9 Newcastle, The Stand 0844 693 3336 thestand.co.uk

Sat 13 Swansea, Grand Theatre Studio    01792 475715 swanseagrand.co.uk

Wed 17 West Bromwich, The Public 0121 533 7161 thepublic.com

Fri 19 Brighton, The Old Market 01273 201801 theoldmarket.com

Sat 20 Camberley Theatre Studio 01276 707600 camberleytheatre.biz

Wed 24 Wolverhampton, Wulfren Hall 01902 552122 wolvescivic.co.uk

Thur 25 Kendal, Brewery Arts Centre 01539 725133 breweryarts.co.uk

Mon 29 Glasgow, The Stand 0844 335 8879 thestand.co.uk

Tue 30 Edinburg, The Stand 0131 558 7272 thestand.co.uk

NOVEMBER

Wed 7 Reading, South Street Arts 0118 960 6060 readingarts.com

Sat 10 Hovingham, The Shed 01653 600048 theshed.co.uk

Sun 11 Birmingham, Glee Club 0871 4720400 glee.co.uk

Mon 12 Epsom, Playhouse Studio 01372 742555 epsomplayhouse.co.uk

Tue 13 Cheltenham, Town Hall Pillar Room 0844 576 2210 cheltenhamtownhall.org.uk

Sat 17 Tunbridge Wells, Trinity Theatre 01892 678 678 trinitytheatre.net

Wed 21 Nottingham, Glee Club 0871 4720400 glee.co.uk

Thur 22 Cardiff, Glee Club 0871 4720400 glee.co.uk

Booking fees may apply

Blog 65b.

Hello Dawn glad you enjoyed the book reading and its interesting to hear that you would have liked to hear more of the actual reading.  Sometimes I find it hard to judge if an audience is enraptured by my words or just bored so I sometimes bail out of the reading portion a bit too soon but I'll bear your words in mind next time I feel like doing that.  Still tickets for Windsor this Saturday.

Yes hopefully there will be dates in London next year, probably ten days in late Jan at the Soho Theatre.  The point of this little tour is partly just to do it but also to try and see whether I can put together a 50+ minute show for that venue.

Also I guess I've been quite busy working.  I'm really enjoying being back on a paper writing for The Saturday Telegraph and they seem like a really nice bunch.  I was also up in Manchester working on an interesting film for a charity called Dying Matters all about how terminally ill people can use humour and laughter as a way of coping with their conditions.   I think it will be on their website from the 14th of May.

This Tuesday at 4.30 on Radio 4 they are broadcasting an Edition of Great Lives that I recorded recently, my choice was the Palestinian Intellectual Edward Said, it will be fascinating to find out how that is received.

Now Jay about a Young Ones re-union, I don't think there's any plans at the moment as far as I can remember.  Actually now I think about it there may be somebody who's trying to put together an edition of the Radio 4 programme "The Re-union" which would be about the Young Ones.   Though sometimes because I was sort of on the edge of the group I don't always get included. However because having been the biggest pain in the arse at the time I am now very sentimental about the early days I'd definitely be happy to do it.

The wedding of the first of the children of our gang to get married is happening in June so I imagine everybody will be there and I'll ask around then and if I've been left out I'll sulk and ruin the bride and groom's special day.

Blog 64a.

Well the response to the couple of things I've done over the last few weeks was interesting.  The R4 Edward Said piece got some nice previews though I didn't see any reviews.  I realise afterwards that I was half hoping to have the website bombarded with Zionist nutters, that's how hungry for attention you get when you start this blogging lark.

The Dying Matters film illustrated another point, there was a piece on Monday BBC Breakfast which I didn't see and I did an interview down the line with R5 but there was a lot less interest than I expected.  In fact there were a couple of other press and TV things that were pulled and I think given that the film was about how uncomfortable people in the modern world are with the whole idea of death this relative lack of interest sort of illustrated that.

Also on another topic does anybody know what your chart position on Amazonactually means?  Like if your book goes from number 65,397 to number 11,642 does that mean you've sold one book or what?  The only two sites I check regularly are this one and Amazon to see how "Stalin..." is doing so I'd like to know.

Blog 63a

I'm glad everybody liked Question Time.  As late as Monday I wasn't going to do it but then I thought I might as well give it a try.  It's actually quite a challenge because you want to be funny but you don't want to be flippant about what are sometimes serious issues.  I think in terms of panel members it was an easy ride, I wonder what it would be like if the other non politician was one of those right wing nutcases like Melanie Philips or David Starkey.  If I do it again maybe we'll find out.