Sunday 5th August 2018

A bizarre day.

Nobody turned up to Short Plays again, I don't care - I don't like the room and it's fucking miles away.

Little Sparks was great today and a big audience, the tension has gone down a bit.

Had three in for the Joe Jackson show; a reviewer, a random bloke and my mate Frizz. Awful performance, didn't even do the bucket speech at the end.

Got to my venue for the Comedians Drumming show to see there was a church choir, in full flow, in my venue - proper gospel stuff, really going for it. We had to do the show in the garden of the venue instead, and one of the comedians couldn't make it because he woke up too late (the show is at 4.15pm) so Kate ended up being a contestant and she beat Ruth in front of a small but very, very enthusiastic audience. This is a great show, just need people to see it.

Ran to my next thing - a guest spot on a chat show. Big crowd, I had to do 10 minutes and was then interviewed. All of it was a joy; I couldn't do a thing wrong with my set as they were so friendly throughout and just up for it, and then the interview went well.

Had a drink with the host afterwards, who is a trained actress, we really clicked (creatively) and she's commissioned me to write her Edinburgh Fringe 2019 show. For actual money.

Then over to the Cambridge Comedy Collective gig, which I opened with pretty much the same 10 minutes, went well.

Ran, proper sweaty running, to the History of Pop show. Small crowd as always for Richards, but so into it - I think this is my niche. My guest singer, Eamon, who I met once when he did a show for me in Cambridge, was utterly superb and 'was' the 'choir'. The audience, all old ladies, took to his Irish charm and he pretty much saved my show.

Then back over to guest in Steve's show again. Once again only a handful of people but a joy once more to be on the bill with him, Rebecca and Winter - we all blitzed it. A top London comedy promoter was in the audience and he loved my 10 minutes and offered me a couple of well-paid headline slots.

This is working out just fine.

Our techie, JJ, arrived up from Birmingham. It feels like we're old mates because we chat so much on Facebook, but in reality we've only ever met twice - firstly when she was my tech at the Birmingham Comedy Festival a few years back, and then when she came to my show in Edinburgh last year. We grabbed a couple of late pints to catch up anyway, starting just after midnight. Ended up in a bar just near the flat, a random Australian doctor got chatting to us and kept buying us really expensive whisky, it was all a bit strange. He bought several rounds, all costing more than forty quid a time and there was only three of us. He then tried to pull JJ and we made our polite excuses and staggered out of the pub at 3am.