Patience, My Tinsel Angel.

Although Friday night's gig at Covent Garden Comedy Club was great, I'm still a bit sensitive from doing so badly in Sheffield. The last thing I needed this weekend was unneccessary noise from drunk, thoughtless dicks in the audience. There was a bit of shrieking from a Hen Party on Friday night and I turned on them viciously to shut them up. Me putting them down so horribly made the audience feel awkward and go quiet but my point was made: If anyone is fucking this gig up, it's me.

That moment on Friday was fleeting and the rest of the show was excellent but last night at the same venue I felt the rage boiling up inside me again. There I was in the middle of a routine about the hilarious differences between men and women (a lot of it is biological and also men like box sets) when I heard someone's phone go off. Why the fuck does this still happen? Why do arseholes not just switch their phones off? You're in a comedy club: SWITCH YOUR PHONE OFF. Fuck's sake, even if you're out for the night in a pub, SWITCH YOUR PHONE OFF. Why not actually relax? Switch your phone off, if anyone wants to contact you then you can check your messages when you get home. Why did we decide to make the mobile phone such an important part of our lives? It's supposed to be there in case of emergency but NO. We just can't cope, think or exist without our fucking mobile phones. On a train, anyone reading a book? NO. They're screaming down their phone or deafening us with their terrible taste in music or they're playing Angry Birds. YOU ARE IN YOUR FUCKING 30's (at least), WHY ARE YOU PLAYING ANGRY FUCKING BIRDS? Just switch your phone off sometimes. You know, try life instead for a while. You might like it. You probably won't, of course, but at least you can say you tried. Or you can text that you tried. But give it a go. Switch your phone off.

Of course when this dick's phone went off during my routine it wasn't a subtle, reserved ring-ring. Oh, no. It was a big old rock song. Some fucking rock song that this thoughtless cunt just couldn't wait to share with us all. All I could think of was, if I break out of this routine now to deal with this then I can't go back to it. This bit will be fucked. Luckily, it was quiet enough that seemingly only me and the front row could hear it so that meant if I did stop the routine to have a go at this moron almost everyone in the room would be thinking "What mobile phone? What's he talking about? What was that he said about box sets?" But on it went, this fucking mobile phone ringing with its big, stupid rock ringtone. Whoever owned the phone obviously couldn't find it to switch it off and that only made me angrier. What a fucking idiot. Oh and look! The whole of the front row are now visibly agitated by the noise. Great! I can't concentrate on what I'm saying, the front row are drifting off and some prick is out there somewhere struggling in his gym-bag to find his cocking mobile phone. AND WHY IS IT STILL RINGING? Surely, it should have gone to voicemail by now? And why, oh, why did this person choose as his ringtone a song like Chelsea Monday by Marillion?

That's when I realised it wasn't a mobile phone. It was an iPod. My iPod. The one that I put in the front pocket of my jeans.

For the next 5 minutes I kept giggling on stage. There's nothing like performing a gig when the front row is squinting at you and thinking "Why is a searing guitar solo coming out of his crotch?"

Here's news. I've done a sit-com. Oh, yeah. I'm totally an actor now. Mr Blue Sky by Andrew Collins starts tomorrow on Radio 4 and I play the title role of Sean, a 25 year old piano playing genius. You can see why they asked me. It stars Mark Benton and Rebecca Front and we recorded it one week a couple of months ago. It was pretty much the nicest week I've had working on anything. What a lot of fun. It's a nice, gentle comedy about a man who gets shot in the head. You can hear it on the radio at 11.30 am, the much-coveted "ironing" slot, or you can listen later on iPlayer. Here's some information: http://bbc.in/jxhBUi

Plus, I highly recommend that you buy the brilliant theme tune to Mr Blue Sky by Jim Bob. It's utterly fantastic and it's available on iTunes here: http://bit.ly/lDFqfs

www.michaellegge.info

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