PFC on Tour 14: All's Fareham in Love and Tour

Occasionally you play a venue that really makes you feel like your part of the bigger picture of touring comedy. Last night’s gig at the Ashcroft Theatre in Fareham really felt like that. At least the dressing room did. The walls, like the dressing room of many of these regional touring theatres, were papered with posters from shows gone by. Some were huge stars doing pre-fame tours or small warm up shows. Others were lesser-known names familiar to us (a gorgeous photocopied A4 of a young Mervyn Stutter, billing him as the star of a Radio 4 show called ‘Love 40, New Balls Please’ or Ivor Dembina sporting a gorgeous full head of hair). Most were shows we’ve never heard of from people we would probably never hear of again (outside of the walls of other Art Centres). It’s hard not to wonder what futuristic sketch teams of the future in their silver suits will make of our fading posters on the walls the Art Centres of tomorrow. The Ashcroft was remarkable in that they had covered not only every inch of walls but the ceilings also. Here’s Matthew and Ben relaxing in front of an hour and a half’s worth of props.Mighty Boosh, Dave Gorman, Ben Moor, Rob Newman. Some incredible comedy has graced the venue that we very nearly half-filled the front row of. Luckily, they had cordoned off a few rows to fool the audience so no one really noticed the slightly lacklustre sales. See?

The audience was our most eclectic to date (with the possible exception of Cork) with young and old coming together to stare confusedly at our comedy. Actually they were very sweet and lovely with one woman, Jill, and her husband being particularly vocal throughout. At one stage her husband, in place of a laugh, merely stated in a loud, posh voice that felt like it was a message from another time, “Very good!”
During Brendy and Ben’s fake-improvised song, when they asked Jill for a household object, she proffered, “Chamber pot?” As Tom later remarked, that gives you a good indication of the average age of our audience. One guy was knitting in the front row.

But, as with all of the shows so far, we ended up having a really good time. Tom used his time onstage as the Blue Whale to complain about his impending baldness and his failed attempts to give up bread as part of a new diet. Funnily enough (or perhaps not, given the audience,) this was the part of the show that went better than any other.A night off tonight and a show in Basingstoke tomorrow. Let’s see what they have in store for us. For those of you not old enough to know what a Chamber pot is, here is Tom (as Jim of Zak and Jim for Skins) interviewing N Dubz. Peace out!