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I don't know if tonight's RHLSTPs will be the last ones we do at the Leicester Square Theatre - it's probably more likely than not that I will return- but have to say that tonight's shows were an excellent advert for carrying on as we are. Timkey was in astoundingly good form and it was terrific to chat with Chloe Radcliffe, whose work I've been enjoying online for a good while and who was very funny too.
As we know Timkey is an enigma trapped in a riddle - it's hard to put your finger on why he is funny, but he is consistently funny and I cried laughing a couple of times tonight. He was on to talk about his new film and book and much as it pains me to admit it (especially to his face) they are both absolutely excellent. I watched The Ballad of Wallis Island a couple of weeks ago and it's funny and moving and Timkey is terrific in it - plus they somehow got Carey Mulligan to be in it, which would be enough to recommend the film if it was shit. Sadly it isn't shit. It's very good.
I read Timkey's new book of poetry, LA Baby, yesterday and today and again I found the hairy idiot to be funny and moving. It's the story of his trip to Hollywood to be in an unnamed project and as well as being silly and full of made up rubbish, there's a truth at its core about loneliness and home-sickness and the weirdness of being catapulted into the madness of the US entertainment industry. Even though I've not had this exact experience the disconnect and imposter syndrome and fears about getting his performance right resonated to my gut. It reminded me of one of my favourite books, Hollywood by Charles Bukowski (even though it's a very different story) and Timkey acknowledged tonight that that had been a minor influence.
Somehow his mostly light-hearted poems and supposed chats with Emily Juniper his designer really capture all the emotions of the experience, but almost without addressing them. Reading stuff like this and recent Book Club books by Keiran Goddard and Anthony Shapland make me acknowledge the limitations of my own writing. Or at least how much more work I have to put into it if I want it to be any good. I am fine at this, as you know or you wouldn't have read this far, but RHLSTP consistently forces me to face up to how many talented people there are out there and how many of them surpass me in skill. I don't mind. I am surprisingly adequate and have done very well, all things considered.
Maybe something has happened inside of me that makes it easier to move me. Has the Tin Man found a heart? I am enjoying being a consumer and I think ultimately it's inspiring, rather than off-putting. Part of the success of the podcast is that (unusually for a comedian) I am a fan of other people's work, even if I occasionally play up my jealousy of other's success. Perhaps being an excellent fan of stuff is as good as being an adequate producer of stuff.
It's definitely a lot less effort.
Retro RHLSTP with the wondrous Deborah Meaden went up today.
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Me next to a normal sized man
As a man of only 5 foot 7...if you're rounding up... from just under 5 foot 6, I have had to cope with the prejudices and difficulties of being a short man. Too tall to be able to call it a disability, but short enough to be rejected by 95% of women on a dating app.
I come from a long line of short, stocky Irishmen and think my ancestors might have been small enough to have been responsible for the myth of the leprechaun. I have a feeling in my bones that my forebears lived in a bog, rejected by their compatriots for their freakish broadness and shortness. My grandad Hannan was even shorter than me, though I do owe him my fine head of hair. He was like a Middlesbrough Don King adding a valuable three inches to his length in hair alone.
Thankfully I have married a tall woman and her genes are strong and I don't think I have passed on my cursed stature to my kids, who seem to be skewing long and thin rather than stocky and short.
I always felt I had the body of a taller man and that it was just my tiny legs that left me struggling to see over hedges. And that has been proven very effectively by the recent revelation that my daughter, who is still several inches shorter than me (as you'd expect given that she is 10), already has legs that are the same length as mine. I am not exaggerating for comedy effect. Put our legs next to each other and they are a match, but my torso is way bigger than hers (in every direction). If only my legs had grown properly, not only would I be able to buy jeans off the peg, but I would be the height of a normal man. Maybe even a tall man. They should be at least 6 inches longer and I should be 6 feet tall. And think how different my life would have been then. I certainly wouldn't have had to be a fucking comedian. I could have been a gigolo.
Six inches on your height or six inches on your cock - which would you choose (whether you have a cock or not)? I'd definitely go for the legs. No one needs an eighteen inch cock.
I am sure BMI doesn't take into account this disparity. 6 extra inches of leg wouldn't weigh much and so I am being judged against people with torsos the same size as mine, but legs that are much longer.
Damn my leprechaun legs.
As I fell asleep I wondered if science will ever be able to fix my problem. If they can make mice with mammoth DNA then surely they can edit whatever bit of my DNA determined my leg length and give me a bit more so I get to live the life of a taller man.
And then I thought that out of all the vice versa films they've done, there's never been one where a tall man and a short man swap bodies and get to see each other's perspective. And the reason they've never done it is because being tall is clearly better and the short man in the tall man's body would do everything he could to never go back. We short guys have to work on our personalities in a way that tall men don't have to bother with because women want them regardless. Imagine the personality of a short man in the body of a tall man. He'd be the greatest man who ever lived.
I don't actually mind being short. I just really, really, really, really wish I was tall. That's all.
RHLSTP is returning to Sheffield on 5th July as part of the Crossed Wires Podcast festival. Book tickets here.
Greg Davies is much taller than I am (barely five feet tall). I hope everything is going well.
I really hope you do continue the RHLSTPs. I was just starting to think of a trip down to London (for the first time in 5yrs)to see my sister. She asked when I was thinking of and I said, depends on the timings/line up of the next RHLSTPs! I’ve been gutted at the ones I’ve been missing, so don’t let me down by stopping now! Incidentally, when did you start them? I lived in London 2007-11; wondering if I unwittingly missed out then (I did see you at the Headmaster’s Son Fringe gig of 2008).