Richard Carpenter is Close to You: UK Tour Diary
[originally published in serial instalments like Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, here compiled as one chronological timeline for posterity]
SHOW 1 - London, Bloomsbury Theatre
Mkay, so this one was a real whirlwind, and frankly, I’ve still not recovered. The saga begins the night before with a 4-hr. drive home from Doncaster (of course, I’m on two overlapping tours which makes total sense.) Getting in at 2 a.m. because road closures.
I wake up bleary the next morning and drive my hire car into the centre of London, which is my least favourite thing ever besides parking. And then I have to park it. In the centre of London. I look up the nearest N.C.P. and drive to it - it no longer exists. Thanks, Euston re-generation project. I drive around Bloomsbury cursing my life, until I see an inauspicious dripping cavern with a parking sign above it. One hour’s stay is £14… I just… I… WHAT?!
Anyway, I’m late for my tech for the London première of my show that I’ve not done in 4 months and has new bits in it, so 3 hrs. goes on the credit card, as I’ve been told by the Bloomsbury staff that on-street parking becomes free outside the venue after 6, and I could go move it between tech and performance. The tech goes super smoothly (thanks Charlie and Caitlin) and I head back to retrieve the car from Hades’ mouth.
The drive back to the theatre is 4 mins. Or, at least, it would be IF THERE WERE NO SUDDEN ROAD CLOSURES AT RUSH HOUR. I find myself in actual gridlock after 20 mins. of twisting and turning, and somehow I’m twice as far away from the venue as I thought. It gets to 7:15 (the show’s at 8, by the way) and my tour booker texts to say he’s arrived and do I need help? I contemplate replying “Could you park a grey Astra somewhere in WC1 while I do this sodding show?” It’s like the end of Notting Hill but with no Alice Tinker to enliven the mood.
At 7:30, I spot a lone free space, grab it, and then run back to the venue which is almost a mile away. They hold doors for me. I do the absolute WORST make-up job I’ve ever committed to my face, and I’m already sweating profusely through the polyester shirt as I walk onstage to see a surprisingly good amount of people (thank God) so I relax, breathe, smile, and hit the first note on the piano.
Which is turned off.
I just… I mean… NO.
Anyway, it happened. No one died. I got home at midnight and ate an entire baking tray’s worth of chicken goujons, half a tub of vanilla ice cream, and four double vodka pineapples in my dressing gown watching clips of Alice Tinker.
SHOW 2 - Same venue
Totally great, thanks for asking. Practically seamless. No power cuts. No sweating. Great crowd. Easy peasy.
SHOW 3 - Harrogate Theatre
So after a few days back on my OTHER tour (#superhappystory, look it up) I’m intending to drive from Manchester over to Harrogate - a cool, totally unstressful 1 hr. of driving. Right? Oh no, because of course something had to go wrong to make more HILARIOUS stories for this diary blog. Not a word of a lie - I realise the day before the show that my costume is not in the car, or my suitcase. It must be in my closet. At home. In Buckinghamshire. 200 miles away. I just… I mean…
So I take a cool 400-mile detour to pick it up, ‘cos ain’t no Harrogatians wanna miss out on these lime-green and canary-yellow fashion atrocities. But when I arrive in Yorkshire, I must admit, it’s pretty plain sailing from there all the way into the small hours of the night. Fantastic venue, good sales, nearly full, lots of laughs, warm applause, smiling faces - no idea where they all came from but love every one of them. Well worth the drive.
SHOW 4 - Norwich Playhouse
I said yes to Norwich because it’s one of my favourite venues, even though the only date they could squeeze me in was less than 24 hrs. after I was needed for Super Happy Story in… wait for it… it’s a humdinger… just gets better… in GLASGOW. Somehow, I had thought that a close-to-7 hr. drive didn’t need to be broken up overnight, and was just planning to get up at 6 a.m., drink five coffees en route, and then tech, rehearse and perform a fantastic energetic one-man-show. I gave myself a reality check in time and hastily booked a Travelodge on the A1M, ‘cos small-scale self-funded UK-touring is hardly the height of glamour, but I’m not fussy and you get 20% off the service station Costa if you show your room key. Take that, Elizabeth Taylor.
Thus I am well-rested and even enjoy something of a lie-in. Arrive in Norwich ahead of a 5 p.m. tech (which is a super tight window when your show goes up at 8 and the tech staff have never heard of your show and you have a [spoiler alert] very important light-up prop to rig from the ceiling…) so what needs to happen is I need to find a parking space that doesn’t cost my soul, and then walk my set and props to the theatre from it. This involves two perfectly manageable back-and-forth trips. Or, at least, it would be IF THE HEAVENS DON’T DECIDE TO OPEN AND DUMP THE CONTENTS OF THOR’S BATH ON YOUR HEAD INCESSANTLY FOR THE ENTIRE AFTERNOON.
For most of this section of the day, I resemble a mud-spattered farm wench out of a Thomas Hardy, lugging my hefty keyboard across the fens. You couldn’t make it up.
Luckily, once I’m in, we just about get everything done in time, and the audience are complete sweethearts. I get more post-show social media interaction than any other place so far, someone seeks out my website specifically to send me an e-mail personally vowing to drum up a bigger audience for next time, and I sell a digital album! (mafljo.bandcamp.com since you asked.)
SHOWS 5, 6, 7 & 8 - undisclosed venues
These four shows ran the gamut - the ABSOLUTE GAMUT, I tells ya. Some soaring highs, some crashing lows… You can easily figure out which four venues I visited by just looking at the tour date list, if you wanna Nancy Drew your way to some juicy d-rama, but for reasons of elegance and tact, I’m not planning to name and shame any specific entities just to be publicly mean (although a couple of private e-mails have been sent, make no mistake!)
But this is supposed to be an honest and frank account of what’s going on, not a super-shiny only-promo everything’s-coming-up-roses whitewash to pretend that self-produced provincial touring isn’t SUCH a hard schlep at times. So I’m gonna speak my truth (with names redacted) if that’s okay with y’all?
(NB: I made the decision not to tour with my own technical operator, entirely for budget reasons. This is something I will not be doing ever again, because it can be the source of all evil in this world. But I have to own up to my part in it, because I wanted the chance to make a bit more money, so there you go, Michael Douglas - greed is not always good.)
Anyway, here’s a little smorgasbord to spice up your Monday… buckle up.
Firstly, did anyone hear about the emergency pothole repair that reduced five lanes of traffic at the Dartford Crossing to one for practically the entirety of a working day? And can anyone guess who needed to use that section of motorway to get to his show? Yeah, so I was two hours late to that one, stuck in a largely stationary phalanx of steaming cars. All I can say is, thank GOD for bluetooth and podcasts. (I caught up on ‘You Must Remember This’, ‘Las Culturistas’, ‘Joan and Jericha’ and ‘Casefile’. Highly recommend all.)
Half of the venues on this leg had seemingly no idea what my show was and what I needed, despite all the documents and e-mails sent in advance requesting confirmation that it was all good.
I just… I mean… I can’t.
I didn’t know what to do, apart from to keep blinking like a Family Guy character and then asking “But what about my documents?” - only for the techs to say one or more of the following:
“We didn’t get anything started yet because we were waiting for you.”
“I can do your lighting and sound up to a point.”
“It’s been years since I used a laptop. What do I do?”
There’s just not much you can do in these situations except make a mental note that you will burn the surrounding area to the ground when you leave, and then totally re-do/simplify your lighting and sound on the fly with about four hours before an audience comes in. (You don’t get dinner either.)
FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE: The other half of the venues were actual technical perfection, so that was great.
Okay, but ain’t this just the rub? The two difficult techs were followed by super enjoyable shows with solid-sized crowds, and the two plain-sailers were infuriatingly more sparsely attended. Theatre really does give with one hand and take with the other, huh?!
But I always try to remember that if there are more than 10 times as many people in the audience as on stage, then it’s a crowd and you should be grateful. And those of you whom I didn’t know, who came and were vocally appreciative (especially the smallest audience, you were somehow the loudest of the four, no idea how!) - I am deeply in your debt for making it more fun than it could have been expected to be, and reminding me why we suffer the schlep at all.
Next up, it’s a northern jaunt to Carlisle (8 Nov) and Manchester (9 Nov). And then a Home Counties trinity of Guildford (15 Nov), Reading (16 Nov) and Banbury (17 Nov).
Guildford and Reading are on the way to healthy, maybe even full houses, so get in quick on those if you intend! The others, there isn’t such urgency, if you get my meaning…
All tickets available at matthewfloydjones.co.uk/richard-close-to-you.
And I’ll be back with another of these in a couple of weeks, hopefully with only amazing things to report and therefore no need for anonymity.
SHOWS 9 & 10 - Carlisle & Sale
I’m on the way to Cumbria. That can mean only one thing. TEBAY NORTHBOUND! If you know what it is, you need no further explanation. If you don’t… I pity you, really. It’s the absolute best service station in all the kingdom, and I am incapable of driving up that way without stopping off to buy three farmhouse chutneys, an infused oil and some artisanal sweets. It’s a miracle I made it to the tech rehearsal, to be honest. (They have ducks!)
These two shows were bangers in their own unique ways. Carlisle wasn’t a massive seller, but those who were there were the cream of the crop. Warm laughers, social media well-wishers, new besties… Sale was bigger and brasher, and a beautiful old-style judicial courtroom venue. I felt like I could have been on trial for the manslaughter of Carpenters tunes (which indeed I probably should be.) And someone in the front row was wearing my merchandise, which made me feel like a right rockstar.
SHOW 11 - Guildford
Now here’s where it gets emotional. I grew up about half an hour east of Guildford, and did a lot of youth theatre there, so this was a sort of homecoming. I knew my parents would be there, maybe an old friend or two. But I was not expecting the gallery of familiar faces that appeared, like a beautiful kaleidoscope of my past life. I’m going to name them individually, at least all the ones I saw in the room or spoke to after…
Mum and Dad came up from Devon to join my youngest brother Ross and his wife Holly who left my tiny nephew at home to see my show (COMMITMENT.)
My very special friend Kirsty came, not only with her wife Paula, but also many members of her fantastic family (who by now also feel like my family): sister Jacqui, mum Sheila, dad Ian, and friends Jen and Eric.
So many wonderful schoolfriends: Jody, who has been a huge influence on my comedy (I still hear funny phrases she has used in the past and laugh); Helen, a burst of sunlight and Leatherhead’s most loyal resident; James, who was so brilliant in all the school plays and wears hats better than anybody; Shona, a true original who used to sit in front of me in French and keep me smiling; Lisa, one of those people everyone just loves and has the best laugh…
The lovely parents of my oldest schoolfriend, John and Pat, a few rows back, unintentionally making me so nervous that I committed some very sloppy crimes upon the piano. John was musical director and conductor of the concert band and jazz orchestra in which I played growing up - no two people know more about this stuff than they.
Legendary Angela, who directed Surrey County Youth Theatre for many years along with producer Sandie and costumier Rosemary, and taught me so many invaluable lessons about life in showbusiness.
Very unexpectedly, two ladies who probably don’t remember me as a 10-year-old street urchin in their operatic society’s production of Carmen - Selena and Tessa. I recently did a show (Miss Nightingale) in which their amazing niece played the main role, and now we’re reunited!
Apologies if I miss anyone out - it was overwhelming. I hope to see all of you again, not in a frizzy 70s wig, to thank you personally for making it such a special show.
SHOW 12 - Reading
This was the one I decided to film. Which brings its own shedload of extra stresses on top of the usual touring ones. Would the in-house tech be slick? Would the audience be suitably raucous or would we need to download a laugh track from prosoundeffects.com? Would I manage to not trip on the mic lead and pull my pants down by accident? Etc.
I am happy to report that I made the correct choice of show to film. It was probably my favourite of the whole tour, purely on the energy coming back from the auditorium. Have to shout out South Street Arts for being a totally excellent venue in all ways that matter, and more beautiful familiar faces for showing up: my gorgeous cousin who may as well be my sister, Samantha, and her friend Bryony; showbiz buddies and gemstones Megan and Ellie, my oldest schoolfriend’s sister Claire (the birthday girl) and her husband Pete; longtime supporters Simon and Caroline with their friends; and John who runs the venue but had a night off but still came along because he’s just like that.
SHOW 13 - Banbury
This was a stressful experience for various reasons that I won’t go into here (vaguebook, u ok hun, etc.), but let me just say that those beautiful wonderful people who came to this one, and stuck around afterwards to talk to me, really brightened up my day and made me feel so much better, so thank you whoever you all were.
COMING NEXT
Now I’m heading into the final stretch, with only seven shows left. This coming week, it’s Cambridge (23 Nov), Huddersfield (24 Nov) and Sheffield (25 Nov). All pretty big auditoriums, none full yet… And after that, it’s Fareham (28 Nov) and Brighton (29 Nov).
Know anyone in any of these places? Spread this about like a yellow-and-lime-green rash (that’s Richard’s colour palette): matthewfloydjones.co.uk/richard-close-to-you