Warm Up Men Scare the Shit Out of Me
Sunday, 29. November 2009, 16:34:22
Last week on a bit of a whim we went online and decided to go see All Star Mr & Mrs for free at the ITV studios in London on Saturday 28th (forgetting it was my Dads birthday but he forgave us.) Got our e-ticket - sorted....
We decided to make a day of it and I would go to the comic shop I like ("Gosh!") and go to a free museum (Natural History.) However midnight .....
Blah! Blah! Blah! That's as far as I got when I wrote about this on Sunday I was going to tell you all about the day what with it's email tickets failure and car breaking down shennanigans but instead (on account of sheer bloody minded laziness and also that I need to write a CV and am prevaricating or rather more accurately using avoidance techniques) I shall fast forward to the main event (also eliminating chat of getting there too early, getting priority seats, going to comic shop but not museum owing to email problems mentioned in brief earlier, although I may mention hanging around at the Christmas Fayre that happened to be happening on the South Bank where we had seafood paella and something called Ger Gray (potatoes, onion and bacon) at a stall which were yummy and we felt all Christmassy. (I was hoping for tartiflette which I haven't had since our Christmas honeymoon at Eurodisney two years ago (it's our 2 year anniversary today by the way - yay us!) but it was not to be))
Anyway, as I said I'm not talking about any of that stuff right now (the car (touch wood) should be finally fixed now, by the way, in case you were wondering - oh, the email works as well now, just in case that was preying on your mind. Just in case you were wondering about the comic shop that was Gosh! and I went there to look at the Complete Peanuts and Popeye books along with anything else coooool they might have. They put quite a mark up on the American books I've discovered so I'm going to stick with Amazon. Anyway - that's BOOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNGHHHGGGHHHGGHH!!! I'm glad I made the correct decision not to talk about it.)
Mr & Mrs!!!!!!!! Now those who remembered my far too detailed write up of the exciting GOLDENBALLLS!!!!!!!! recording we went to see may remember that I gave away the ending - I won't be doing that this time as there is an outside chance that somebody might actually watch the programme we saw. Coincidentally, our Goldenballs finally turned up on the telly last week on Wednesday. It were shit!
But at least the evil warm up man wasn't on there.
Warm up Men are a strange breed and seem to be the last vestige left of end-of-pier my mother in law type entertainers. I understand their role - they've got to get the audience geed up and excitable and the Mr & Mrs guy was obviously a lot more "professional" than the Goldenballs guy, and also funnier in an unreconstructed way but still...f*** me! They're scary fuckers! (Okay censor one f*** but not the other - what's that about???)
Saturdays warm up man comes out to the strain of "Johnny Be Goode" and starts singing and getting everyone to sing and clap along. The priority seats at the Mr & Mrs show (which we got as we ridiculously early, did I mention that, oh yes, I did) are facing the stage, whereas the plebs who come later (Arf! Look at me and my air of superiority!) actually get to be on telly as they are behind the stage.
Anyway, out comes "Johnny Be Goode" and you instantly think "Oh fuck! I'd better look like I'm having the best time of my life ever, otherwise I'm going to get picked on." Sure enough, with some conspirational banter about the miserable fuckers in the "cheap" (although just as free as ours!) seats, he tells one "miserable fucker" (I'm not sure if he swore actually - fucker seems too harsh, maybe bastard, possibly bugger - it is Saturday night entertainment after all - my memory seems to say "fucker" even though I think my memory is playing tricks with me - I'll stick with f***er - I'll censor it again though, i've sworn far too much!) to (are you keeping up! ignore the brackets, they ruin the flow rather of this entertaining diatbre) leave, nicks his suit and this poor bloke stands on the sidelines throughout.
He also uses the opportunity to have a close dance with a young female. Aye! Aye! And then engages in more banter before Phil & Fearne come on. By then I know I'm safe - he has chosen his victims for the evening. He did however on more than one occassion conspirationally chat (put hand over microphone) to us in the expensive (but still free!) seats about some overweight bloke in the cheap (but free!) seats above us of the "gawd! look at the state of him!" manner. This offends me as although the guy was bigger than me, it makes me wonder whether I could have been the victim of his witty banter had I have been in the cheap (you know they're free by now don't you) seats. As I've said obviously the ramifications are less serious but sizeism has become the new socially acceptable ism for unreconstructed chaps to use in their banter.
When Phil & Fearne come on, they are a lot more friendly and involved with the audience than Jasper Carrot was. Phil instantly coming out and asking if anyone had mints. Realised afterwards that Phil asked for them on his twitter feed, isn't twitter fab. I don't follow the silver fox though on account that he's not a comedian, a glamorous pop star or a faded reality participant. There's always a slight adjustment when you see people "off the telly" as you have to work out how they walk and talk in 3D. This adjustment only takes about ten seconds but I always have to do it and Phil approaching us demanding mints meant I had to make the adjustment quickly. Woody, obviously being less star struck than me, merely thought it was nice and friendly, and it was a very good way of breaking down that wall of celebrity quickly. They know their stuff these two!
Anyway, as I said earlier, I won't give away spoilers this time (Besides anyone taking pictures of the set had their camera confiscated and they were told to delete the picture. I can exclusively reveal though the set is exactly the same as all previous years - come and get me! ITV Security!!! I'm not scared of you!!!! Actually I am - a bit! Hence the no spoilers decision
) but the guests were Robert Webb and his Mrs (you're intelligent people here aren't you - I don't need to explain who he is like I did on facebook do I? Here's a clue I follow him on twitter, so he's either a comedian, a glamorous pop star or a down-on-his-luck reality star) Andrew Sachs (no clues!) and Anthea Turner!
Anthea Turner turns out to be fairly mental if entertaining, Robert Webb seemed nervous but was still amusing in his tenseness (wonder if the warm up man for their sketch show comes out singing "Johnny Be Goode?") and Andrew Sachs was very laid back and laconic. And one of them wins!
Phew! I'm glad I made this report nice, brief and succinct without any diversions. I'm getting good at this blog posting malarkey now.
We decided to make a day of it and I would go to the comic shop I like ("Gosh!") and go to a free museum (Natural History.) However midnight .....
Blah! Blah! Blah! That's as far as I got when I wrote about this on Sunday I was going to tell you all about the day what with it's email tickets failure and car breaking down shennanigans but instead (on account of sheer bloody minded laziness and also that I need to write a CV and am prevaricating or rather more accurately using avoidance techniques) I shall fast forward to the main event (also eliminating chat of getting there too early, getting priority seats, going to comic shop but not museum owing to email problems mentioned in brief earlier, although I may mention hanging around at the Christmas Fayre that happened to be happening on the South Bank where we had seafood paella and something called Ger Gray (potatoes, onion and bacon) at a stall which were yummy and we felt all Christmassy. (I was hoping for tartiflette which I haven't had since our Christmas honeymoon at Eurodisney two years ago (it's our 2 year anniversary today by the way - yay us!) but it was not to be))
Anyway, as I said I'm not talking about any of that stuff right now (the car (touch wood) should be finally fixed now, by the way, in case you were wondering - oh, the email works as well now, just in case that was preying on your mind. Just in case you were wondering about the comic shop that was Gosh! and I went there to look at the Complete Peanuts and Popeye books along with anything else coooool they might have. They put quite a mark up on the American books I've discovered so I'm going to stick with Amazon. Anyway - that's BOOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNGHHHGGGHHHGGHH!!! I'm glad I made the correct decision not to talk about it.)
Mr & Mrs!!!!!!!! Now those who remembered my far too detailed write up of the exciting GOLDENBALLLS!!!!!!!! recording we went to see may remember that I gave away the ending - I won't be doing that this time as there is an outside chance that somebody might actually watch the programme we saw. Coincidentally, our Goldenballs finally turned up on the telly last week on Wednesday. It were shit!
But at least the evil warm up man wasn't on there.Warm up Men are a strange breed and seem to be the last vestige left of end-of-pier my mother in law type entertainers. I understand their role - they've got to get the audience geed up and excitable and the Mr & Mrs guy was obviously a lot more "professional" than the Goldenballs guy, and also funnier in an unreconstructed way but still...f*** me! They're scary fuckers! (Okay censor one f*** but not the other - what's that about???)
Saturdays warm up man comes out to the strain of "Johnny Be Goode" and starts singing and getting everyone to sing and clap along. The priority seats at the Mr & Mrs show (which we got as we ridiculously early, did I mention that, oh yes, I did) are facing the stage, whereas the plebs who come later (Arf! Look at me and my air of superiority!) actually get to be on telly as they are behind the stage.
Anyway, out comes "Johnny Be Goode" and you instantly think "Oh fuck! I'd better look like I'm having the best time of my life ever, otherwise I'm going to get picked on." Sure enough, with some conspirational banter about the miserable fuckers in the "cheap" (although just as free as ours!) seats, he tells one "miserable fucker" (I'm not sure if he swore actually - fucker seems too harsh, maybe bastard, possibly bugger - it is Saturday night entertainment after all - my memory seems to say "fucker" even though I think my memory is playing tricks with me - I'll stick with f***er - I'll censor it again though, i've sworn far too much!) to (are you keeping up! ignore the brackets, they ruin the flow rather of this entertaining diatbre) leave, nicks his suit and this poor bloke stands on the sidelines throughout.
He also uses the opportunity to have a close dance with a young female. Aye! Aye! And then engages in more banter before Phil & Fearne come on. By then I know I'm safe - he has chosen his victims for the evening. He did however on more than one occassion conspirationally chat (put hand over microphone) to us in the expensive (but still free!) seats about some overweight bloke in the cheap (but free!) seats above us of the "gawd! look at the state of him!" manner. This offends me as although the guy was bigger than me, it makes me wonder whether I could have been the victim of his witty banter had I have been in the cheap (you know they're free by now don't you) seats. As I've said obviously the ramifications are less serious but sizeism has become the new socially acceptable ism for unreconstructed chaps to use in their banter.
When Phil & Fearne come on, they are a lot more friendly and involved with the audience than Jasper Carrot was. Phil instantly coming out and asking if anyone had mints. Realised afterwards that Phil asked for them on his twitter feed, isn't twitter fab. I don't follow the silver fox though on account that he's not a comedian, a glamorous pop star or a faded reality participant. There's always a slight adjustment when you see people "off the telly" as you have to work out how they walk and talk in 3D. This adjustment only takes about ten seconds but I always have to do it and Phil approaching us demanding mints meant I had to make the adjustment quickly. Woody, obviously being less star struck than me, merely thought it was nice and friendly, and it was a very good way of breaking down that wall of celebrity quickly. They know their stuff these two!
Anyway, as I said earlier, I won't give away spoilers this time (Besides anyone taking pictures of the set had their camera confiscated and they were told to delete the picture. I can exclusively reveal though the set is exactly the same as all previous years - come and get me! ITV Security!!! I'm not scared of you!!!! Actually I am - a bit! Hence the no spoilers decision
) but the guests were Robert Webb and his Mrs (you're intelligent people here aren't you - I don't need to explain who he is like I did on facebook do I? Here's a clue I follow him on twitter, so he's either a comedian, a glamorous pop star or a down-on-his-luck reality star) Andrew Sachs (no clues!) and Anthea Turner!Anthea Turner turns out to be fairly mental if entertaining, Robert Webb seemed nervous but was still amusing in his tenseness (wonder if the warm up man for their sketch show comes out singing "Johnny Be Goode?") and Andrew Sachs was very laid back and laconic. And one of them wins!
Phew! I'm glad I made this report nice, brief and succinct without any diversions. I'm getting good at this blog posting malarkey now.
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