Getting Out Of It

I've been quite the busy bee, making up for all that time lost to the sofa and the Slanket while I wasn't well. It's a huge relief to have some energy again and I'm trying to make the most of it without cleaning myself out financially in the process.

So a pair of free tickets from the BBC, for a recording of Henning Wehn's new comedy show,were very welcome. He's been around the circuit for a few years now, and is doing increasing amounts of TV and radio, but for anyone who hasn't come across the German Comedy Ambassador before he's a force worth checking out. A sly outsider's take on the idiosyncrasies of British life, and a man not afraid to issue deadpan reminders of where we as a nation continue to get it wrong, delivered in an extraordinary accent that's a kind of Bremen/Balham hybrid. He's a clever chap who doesn't shy away from much - there's certainly no coyness on his part about 'the war' - and   manages to do it without simply pandering to the average liberal metropolitan comedy audience. As he is keen to remind us, when he still lived in Germany he was a member of the Christian Democrats, which makes him a Merkel Man, and not a cuddly Green. Anyway, the show starts on Radio 2 next month, and if he's playing near you, give him a go. Last time we saw him down here, I took along a friend who'd never heard of him, and he laughed so much he had an asthma attack. Could there be higher praise for a comedian?

There was no danger of mirth-induced asthma, sadly, at Rich Fulcher's London show on Friday night. I used to love Rich Fulcher's madcap abandon, which to me hinted at a streak of genuine angry derangement, and I'd been loosely following his comedy career for many years, since he first turned up as a bulging-eyed Scientologist on a long-forgotten late night show called Comedy Nation in the mid-90s. I was thrilled for him when he landed Bob Fossil in the Mighty Boosh (he was particularly good in the radio version), and I had high hopes of his new solo show, based on '100 ways to stick it to the man'. On the night though, it was a massive disappointment; a show that just didn't get going. His 'ways to stick it' proved sadly unimaginative - getting the audience to write a joint letter to Richard Branson just gave the drunks an excuse to shout 'willies', inviting moans about bosses fell largely flat, and the supposed 'climax' of sending a pissed-up girl from the front row across the road to a Chinese herbalist, and filming her while she asked the polite and baffled man behind the counter if he had 'anything for huge fannies' just seemed puerile and a tad racist. This was dull, lazy stuff that didn't reflect his talent at all. Give it a wide berth unless you're really easily amused. Most of the audience weren't.

But, win some lose some. Saturday night picked up the average in spades, with Henry Rollins' spoken word gig at the lovely De La Warr Pavilion in unlovely Bexhill. While I never had much time for the boneheaded antics of Black Flag, and back in the day found the young Henry a bit ludicrous with his exploding pecs and chiselled head, he's now the age he was always really meant to be. Far more impressive as an angry fifty-year old than an angry twenty-five year old, and with far more to say that's actually interesting. And he's grown nicely into that body.

I don't know many performers who can march onto a stage (I don't think he 'strolls' anywhere), pick up a mic, and talk non-stop without notes or - get this - a single sip of water for two and a half hours, without losing pace or interest. Henry's way is that he spends one year 'inhaling' - travelling the world, usually to places that his government wish he wouldn't, like Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan - and the following year 'exhaling' - travelling the world to tell people what it was like. It's left  him a strange and fascinating blend of the deeply humane and the permanently furious. Fortunately he's also funny and articulate enough to fire the whole lot into your face without leaving you feeling like you've just been cornered by a nutter at a party. Though what it would be like to be in a relationship with Henry doesn't really bear thinking about. His favourite observation seems to be '...and that was intense', though I get the impression that he lives his whole life at such a pitch of intensity that for most of us, his average day would prove an ordeal of such emotional and physical laceration that we'd be bleeding from our eyes by bedtime. Henry does it, so we don't have to. And unfortunately, Bexhill was his last night in the UK, so unless you can catch him in one of the other fun places he's propelling himself through this year (if you can, you should)  you'll have to make do with YouTube, or his writing.

I came away feeling like I wanted to give him a cuddle. But as I didn't get to, I'm going to find a six foot steel girder and cuddle that instead, just to see what it feels like.