Here’s what I learned about laughter on my 56-date post-lockdown tour

If I take this show out again, I might do some Sunday afternoon matinees, especially in winter so that everyone can get home in time for supper and ‘Pottery Throwdown’, writes Jenny Eclair

A backstage loo is obviously essential (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

I’ve been on tour since 2 September 2021. I finished at the weekend, with 56 dates under my belt and this is what I’ve learned.

Post-lockdown, people are desperate to come out and laugh, but they don’t want to be ripped off. My tickets cost £20 and the theatre that put the highest mark up on this price (with some tickets at £28) sold the worst on the tour. Personally, I’d rather not play venues that do this – I find it embarrassing.

Shows that start at 7.30pm are best. My audience likes to be home around 10, so an 8pm start is pushing it. In fact, if I take this show out again, I might do some Sunday afternoon matinees, especially in winter so that everyone can get home in time for supper and Pottery Throwdown.

All theatres need to inspect their irons and ironing boards right now. These have been the bane of my touring life for the past five and a half months. Boards need to have decent, clean covers – and no, a tea towel is not a suitable alternative, although, if that’s what I’m going to get, please may I have some gaffer tape too so I can strap it in place?

As for the iron, I wear a white shirt in the first half. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been ironing that shirt and the iron has dribbled copious amounts of water, drenching the shirt and thereby soaking up big brown burn marks from the damn ironing board cover, thus staining my blouse. This has made me cry three times.

Dressing rooms should ideally have either a sofa or a comfy chair, or failing this, a carpet to curl up and kip on will do. Quite often, a performer will have been chucked out of their hotel at midday and will be forced to spend hours in said dressing room before the show, especially if the weather is bad and there isn’t a garden centre with a nice café and gift shop en route.  Dressing rooms should also be warm, preferably with the correct wifi code pinned somewhere visible.

A backstage loo is obviously essential. Fortunately, there was only one gig on this tour when I had to use a sink, a feat of gymnastics which took me right back to the early days of performing and made me feel young again – still got it.

The novelty of eating hotel breakfasts wears off around week three. Unless you are staying somewhere smart (rare), those big troughs of bacon, beans and fried eggs very quickly lose their appeal. That said, I still get excited by the hotel chains that offer cheese and salami, so that I can pretend I’m abroad.

Since Covid, I’ve found that most budget hotels don’t offer a spare blanket in the room. It’s a duvet only, and they tend to be thin. These days, I ask for an extra duvet as soon as I book in. They don’t like it, but they always give in when I tell them I have a circulation problem, which I don’t, it just guarantees that I get my duvet.

It’s best to always have a swimming costume with you, just in case, as sometimes the most unlikely hotels will have a really nice pool. Sadly, I have managed to forget my swimming costume ever since I embarked on this tour and I haven’t managed to visit a single fitness centre either.

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All performers embark on their tours with the intention of keeping themselves fit and healthy. Most of us end up, post-gig, sitting in the passenger seat, drinking wine out of a plastic cup, eating potato-based snacks and boring the tour manager senseless with a blow-by-blow account of why that bit of material in act two didn’t land quite as well as it usually does. Warning, comics are quite tedious and self-obsessed.

We are also easily bored and need a toy in the car to keep us occupied. I have almost finished a woollen tapestry kit of a large parrot, which will eventually be turned into a cushion by the prison charity Fine Cell Work. I find needlework stops me from getting hysterical in appalling traffic (incidentally back to pre-pandemic madness) and consequently I have quite a collection of tour cushions in my house.

Cancelling gigs is the performer’s biggest fear and this fear has been ramped up with Covid, which I have weirdly managed not to contract. That said, I did miss four gigs due to a cartwheel-related injury back in December that necessitated surgery. Fortunately, this was just before Christmas when I was on a six-week hiatus while the pantos took over the theatres, and the gigs have now been rescheduled to the end of March.

But for now, I’m not gigging and while I’m grateful for the break, dealing with being back in the real world is something that takes a bit of getting used to. Let’s face it, after months of showing off, being a “normal functioning adult’’ again is quite hard work – which reminds me, I need to buy dishwasher salt.