rdcj.net

September Tour 2009

London - Wednesday 3^rd September

Bristol – Friday 4^th September

Birmingham – Saturday 5^th September

Written by JEP Entertainment Ltd Director – Nathan Wilkins

Tuesday

The tour started for me and Sammy on Tuesday 1^st September.  Sammy picked up the car from the rental company a Silver Q7 7 seater the night before. I tied up a few loose ends that morning we then set out at 2pm. The plan for today was to do an interview with North London’s radio station Bang Radio and BBC 1xtra to help promote the show with Kat our host for the tour. Our two American comedians were arriving at 6am so we decided to stay the night down at a hotel next to Heathrow airport.  When were first booked the tour we hired Tony Woods and David Arnold but due to David having the success of securing a TV deal we had to find a replacement.  So I decided to contact my comedian friend from LA Tony Roberts, luckily for me he was free and wanted to come so it was a win win situation all around.

We got down to Bang Radio station just in time to do the interview but because we didn’t arrive early they asked us to give them half an hour to prepare the listening audience for us.  We were to be interviewed by two female presenters who we were told had a very popular show.  When we got into the interview it was clear why they were hilarious. We did the interview and the Kat man was in top form he had me and Sammy in stitches the whole way through. During this interview we had it confirmed to us by our PR Nzinga that the Radio 1xtra interview had been postponed until further notice.

This was a bit of a kick in the teeth for us as this was the interview we were looking forward to the most without any disrespect to Bang Radio.  Anyway after this interview me, Sammy and Kat headed off to Nando’s to eat some grub.  After we ate we drop Kat back home we then went back to the Hotel. Now boys being boys we decided that instead of getting a good night sleep we stay up until 3am drinking half a bottle of brandy between us.

(School boy error N0.1!)

Youtube Clip

Wednesday

We set our alarms for 5am, believe me getting up was painful.  At this point I was feeling very sorry for myself, why on earth had I stayed up so late and drank so much brandy.  But business was business we had to get the job done and we were determined to make sure it was done right.  We got to Heathrow within minutes, big perks of staying in a hotel around the corner.  I waited in the car while Sammy went to collect the comedians from Terminal 3.  I was relieved as always to see him finally emerge about 15 minutes later with both Tony’s. I was meeting Woodsy for the first time and Roberts was an old friend of mine so it was great to see them both.  My first impressions, of Woodsy were that he was taller than I thought he would be. It was good for me to see that they clearly knew each other and were friends already too. Sometime we get comedians over only to find out that they cannot stand each other, the tour can be really tedious when this happens, for our good fortune this was not the case.  When we got back to the hotel we ate some breakfast and had a chat over our meal.  It was good to catch up with Tony Roberts he’s such a fun guy to be around. We were all feeling tired the two Tony’s because of their flight and me and Sam through our own farceness, Lol. So I suggestion that we all depart to our rooms for some rest as we had a big show to do later in Leicester Square Sound Nightclub.

It was now about 10am and my plan was to sleep until 2pm, by which time the rest of the JEP team (Damian, Nzinga and Alton) would have arrive at the hotel, to my frustration I could not get to sleep. This serious pissed me off!  So I ended up playing some tunes on my laptop and chatting to friends on the phone. How I would regret not taking advantage of utilising any possible sleep time.  Anyway at 2pm Sammy came up to my room suggesting we go downstairs to grab some food to keep our energy levels up for the rest of the day ,this sounded like a good idea to me.  You know them moments when you think to yourself shall I go with the safe option Burger and chips or should I go with what sounds nice?  Yep your right you should always go with the safe option which is what Sammy did. I on the other hand went for the chilli Con Carni and Rice.  Now don’t get me wrong it wasn’t horrible it’s just Sammy’s food looked much nicer. Gutted!!  Lol.

While we were eating our food the rest of the team arrived. You always know when JEP are in the building, because Damian is as loud as a foghorn, Lol. Time was ticking we needed to get ready and head into the city asap to begin preparation for tonight’s show, we made arrangements to meet in the lobby for 4pm we then set about getting ourselves ready.  Everything seemed to be running really smoothly when things are like this I am always expecting something bad to happen, but so far things were going well.  We got into Leicester square with plenty of time to spare but as you can image parking around there was murder.  Me and Daimo dropped off our group by the club and then tried to find parking, believe me this was hard work. But we eventually got a spot in an NCP car park which cost us both fifty quid for the privilege, Damm!!

Anyway we headed across to the club and found that the team were in full swing and doing a really good job. They had unexpectedly managed to find some extra chairs which was a massive bonus because there lack of chairs was one of my major concerns. The management and staff of Sound were really helpful and a pleasure to work with, you might think that this should be a standard thing but believe me we have worked with some venues that seem to be working against you rather than with you. Anyway the prep work went really well, I then sent everyone out to go and grab some food so that their minds were fully on the job once work began.  Because this was a joint operation between JEP and Play Ents i.e JEP managing production and Play Ents managing promotion I thought it was best if we had a representative from both teams working on the tills, Nzinga Graham-Smith from JEP and Vanessa King from Play Ents done this job for us to a very high standard.  The camera crew arrived and I organised them into position, can’t wait to see the footage from this.

Show time

With minutes approaching show time my only two concerns were that Eddie Kadi hadn’t arrived yet and J-Knox our show DJ was also running late. Both were contactable on their phones throughout so the stress wasn’t that bad.  Play arrived before J-Knox and jumped into position to cover until his arrival he wasn’t there for too long before J-knox actually arrive.  To be honest I wasn’t that concerned that he wouldn’t arrive.  It’s strange but for some reason I just knew he would be there when he needed to be there. Now anyone who knows me personally would know that this is not my nature, when it comes to my shows I like everything to be done with plenty of time to spare.

I walked back up to the VIP area and asked Kevin J if Eddie Kadi had arrived yet, Kevin said yeah he is standing behind you, brilliant we were good to go.  I gave the thumbs up to Kat and Play we then got the ball rolling. Play or Diddy as I like to call him had pulled out the stops by arranging for some stunning models to walk out onto the stage with each comedian.  The comedians seemed to enjoy their company in the green room as well, Lol. Play also arranged for a Dance crew to perform as the opening act.  The one word I’d use to describe their performance would be awesome they were like a cross between Diversity and Flawless from Britain’s Got Talent. They had the crowd gasping with their every move.  Loved it!

Our tour host Kat was brilliant but to be honest that is what we expect from the Kat man.  I personally think that Kat is the best comedy host I have ever seen the way he engages the crowd and keeps them involved throughout the show is amazing.  One of the best things about Kat is that he doesn’t have a comedy set he just goes out there and has fun and we all have fun along the way with him.  On this particular performance he split the crowd into three sections and had them singing, amazing!

Kevin J was the first comedian to perform on the show, prior to the show I purposely set him a tight 10 minute set this was partly because I wasn’t too sure how he was going to do, but to be honest after his performance at Sound all my concern were shelved. Kevin smacked it hard. I felt I could relate in some way or form to everything he said which is my kind of comedy.  I used to always say it’s funnier when it’s true.  Eddie was second to go up, I ‘d heard so much about Eddie that I was really excited to see what Eddie was all about . I was really impressed by his performance at Sound he had the crowd completely under his spell.   His stage presence was superb and his facial expressions had me laughing throughout his set.

We had two headline comedians on the bill we decided that we were going to alternate them throughout the tour so in London Woods would headline, Bristol Roberts would headline, and Birmingham Woods would headline and finally in Manchester Roberts would headline.  Anyway today it was Tony Woods’s time to headline so Tony Roberts came out third.  Now Roberts is my favourite comedian in the world no one makes me laugh the way that Roberts makes me laugh.  Sometimes I already know the joke but the way he delivers it, still make me laugh each time. He didn’t let me down in Sound he was in top form and the crowd loved him.

Finally Woods came out and did his thing. Truth be known this was the one performance that I didn’t get to see as I was called into the office to sort some paper work.  But the feedback I got from people told me that Woodsey did really well.  So overall the first leg of the tour went really well.  The JEP squad and The Play Ent squad worked really well together, no issues at all. Play Ents were a joy to work with.

London After-party

Now I was assigned the job as designated driver.  I was cool with this as I had my business mind on in a major way.  Play Ents had organised a private after-party about 10 minute’s walk from where the show was held. I could tell that my boys were really looking forward to letting their hair down. But if I’m being completely honest I really wanted to just go to bed I was knackered.  But sometimes you have to do what you have to do so I wasn’t gonna be a party pooper. Plus it was Woodsey’s birthday so we had to set it off right in the JEP way.

We got down to the club and I immediately finalised the business with Vanessa from Play Ents.  I then decided to go and get the car from the car park and park it outside the club.  Now when I left the club everyone was chilled and sober’ish, I was gone for about 45 minutes due to getting lost about a million times arghhhh!  But when I got back into the club everyone with exception to Tony Roberts who doesn’t drink and Kat who seemed to be on a chilled one was pissed!!  Lol  It was funny though, but there was no way that I could now get on their level, so I decided to get the camcorder because this was some priceless footage.  Click HERE to visit the Wilkobaby Youtube channel for more footage.  Very funny stuff.  Anyway on with the story.

My next problem was that I was knackered and I was dying to go plus I knew we had to be up at 6am and we were outside this nightclub at 2am messing about.  Do you think I could get them to leave?  Hell No!!! All my powers of influence were gone.  As I got one person in the car and then left to get someone else that person would get out of the car, this went on until 3am.  Plus I had to drop Kat home too.  Alright let’s cut to the chase I didn’t get in until 4am.  Knackered!!!

Youtube Clip

Thursday

(The morning after the night before)

I had arranged for wake up calls for us all the day before so we were all in the same position but I managed to do my old trick of ignoring the alarm.  To my surprise Tony Roberts actually came to my room to get me up.  Fair play to him, that should really of been me getting him up.  He then left me and went to get Sammy up.  I got ready quickly and went down to reception expecting Sammy the two Tony’s and Alton to be waiting for me.  This was not the case, in fact the only person down there was Tony Roberts who seemed to of made a bench in the reception into a bed.  I got the camera rolling and started talking to Tony.  It was at this point when Sammy finally turned up, he seemed to be still half asleep and was in a foul mood, sleep deprivation I think with a touch of a hangover, to be expected really considering the night before, lol.

Anyway fair play to him he still had his eye on the ball and asked where Tony Woods was, I informed him that Tony Roberts had spoken to him and had made plans to meet him in reception, he wanted more confirmation than this and decided to go and get him.  I suggested that he should roll with the camera but he wasn’t up for that so it was at this point that we had our first disagreement of the tour.  To be honest I was surprised that we didn’t have one sooner as we normally do, lol. Alton had decided that he was going to hitch a ride in Damian’s car that was leaving at midday we got Tony Woods up and out and we then left the hotel and hit the motorway.

On the agenda today were a couple of interviews with Bristol radio stations Kiss Radio being the main one.  The journey from London to Bristol wasn’t that bad considering how tired I should have been. Everyone else in the car was knocked out while I was left to my own thoughts.  It wasn’t long before we arrived in Bristol with time to spare which was amazing.  We were all feeling rough so we went to a local coffee shop to get some caffeine and breakfast. Tony Roberts started cracking jokes and we did a couple of interviews on the camera.  The food was brought over I had scrambled egg on toast, as soon as Tony Woods saw my plate he heaved as if he was about to puke and ran out of the shop. Haha!!  I think all them drinks from last night wanted out.

We then walked across to the Kiss Radio which was literally across the road and did the interview.  Kiss kindly allowed us to use their IDSN lines (high deficient phone lines) so that we could do the interview with the other station from their studio. In my opinion the Kiss interview went really well the presenters on the show were quite funny and were up for a bit of fun the other interview wasn’t as good. I’m not too sure if it was because the humour was lost because we weren’t all in the same studio or maybe the presenter at the other station didn’t really get it. Anyway I left the station satisfied that we had done a good job and we hit the road again.

I wasn’t feeling that bad so I said to Sammy that I would drive up to Manchester and then he could take over from there. We were going up to Manchester to do our first ever television interview on a local Manchester satellite station called Channel M which had been arrange by Nzinga.  We were all looking forward to this as it was something new for us.  Only set back was that it was initially arranged for 4pm but had been now pushed back to 7pm.  Which was annoying as we knew we, would have to hang around in Manchester with nothing to do for a few hours.  We kept this from the two Tony’s as to not damage their moral as we knew they were tired.  But when we finally arrived in Manchester we let the cat out the bag.  We heard a few “What the fuck!” a few times then we just got on with it. I thought we’d get some food from Nando’s which should kill at least an hour and a half or so.

On reflection this was a good time for us as me and Sammy got to know Tony Woods and got to catch up with Tony Roberts which is always fun.  By the time we finished our food it was only 4pm so we still had three hours to kill.  It was at this point that I had the brilliant idea of sending the two Tony’s off to the movies. They were well up for this but Tony Woods didn’t want to watch anything scary, he said the last horror he watched was Terminator which cracked me up, as it’s not even a horror, lol  Anyway the only movie that would fit into our time restrictions was Final Destination 3 (in 3D).  Woodsey didn’t want to watch this as he thought it might give him nightmares.  He said after watching Terminator, Arnie was in his dreams every time he went to sleep for the following week. Roberts persuaded him that it wouldn’t be too bad, and they went and watch it.

Whilst they were in the movies ,me and Sammy waited for one of the Manchester promoters to come as he wanted to talk to us about some business, to be honest though we might as well of watched the movie because he was running late and didn’t arrive until after they boys had come out of the movies. Woodsey and Roberts came out of the cinema like two kids, Roberts was taking the piss out of Woodsey, because apparently he had the popcorn box infront of his face throughout the whole movie.  Woodsey was cracking me and Sammy up telling us how scared he was, too much joke.  By now it was time to go to Channel M.  We had planned it right because the cinema was literally across the road from the Television studio, only thing was this building was one of these high-tech glass buildings and we couldn’t find the door lol.

Nzinga met up with us at the station and I could see that she was kind of tense about the whole thing as it was a big deal; I tried to play it cool with her as I didn’t want her to get too stressed out.  When we got into the actual studio there was a policy of phones off, which I thought was a pretty standard arrangement.  But our problem was that Woodsey’s phone seemed to have a mind of its own. I swear we all had a go at turning his phone off but it kept making these noises, at which point someone from their production team came round to us and said “can we please turn off all phones!”  It was really embarrassing, in hindsight the funniest moment was when Sammy had finally had enough and walk over to Woodsey and pulled the battery out of his phone only to then be told by two different people from the station that if he didn’t turn the phone off he would have to wait outside, It was like he couldn’t be bothered to explain and just said Ok Ok!  If we were allowed to make noise I would’ve been laughing my head off.

Woodsey and Roberts were called to the couch for their interview. I was a little nervous at this point because I wasn’t too sure if they would understand our humour, but there was no need the boys had the whole studio laughing. After the interview we all went over to a bar and Me and Sammy had the meeting with the Manchester promoters. This meeting took longer than I was expecting.  We didn’t actually leave Manchester until about 10:30pm, which meant I didn’t get home until about 12:30am.  Plus I had to get a design done which had a deadline of 8am. To cut to the chase I didn’t get to sleep until about 3am. Another late night, and another early start, poor me.

Friday (Galaxy Interview/Newstyle Interview and Bristol Show)

I woke up today feeling like I’d actually had a long sleep even though I’d really only had about 4 hours. I knew that I was heading for a crash though as over the past three nights I’d literally had 8 hours sleep which is what I’d normally have in 1 night, but the way I saw it this was all part of the game, so just get on with it.

Today was another big day two interviews the first with Galaxy FM and the 2^nd with Newstyle Radio.  Both we had been doing prior to every show for donkeys years so we knew exactly what to expect.  I picked up Sammy and we headed down to pick up Woodsey and Roberts on route we did a short interview with the camera.  Both Tony’s been on point as per usual and were waiting for us in the reception of the hotel.  We went straight to Galaxy and did that interview there without any hitches.  Dan Kelly and katie were as good as ever and did a great job in helping us promote the Birmingham show.

We then jumped back into the car and headed down to Newstyle Radio. This interview was with our Birmingham and Bristol show DJ Gman.  Who I actually see as a comedian and has, held his own with any of the comedians that we have brought onto his show in the past. This was to be no different I actually left the studio and left them to it whilst I went and listened to the interview from a radio downstairs. I find that being in the same room as the interview it’s hard to tell how the interview is coming across over the airways. It sounded really good, I was pleased.

Once we finished here we made arrangements for Woodsey to have his hair cut I then went home and made plans for the show.  Sammy dropped Tony Roberts back to his hotel and Damian went to the barbers with Woodsey. We made arrangements to leave at 2pm which meant I had about two and a half hours to get ready.  This felt like 5 minutes.  Sammy and Damian arrived at my house more or less on time I could of done with them turning up late.  But Damian had forgotten to bring the DVD’s from his house so had to head back to get them.  Me and Sammy then walk out to the car only to notice that the car had a great big dent in the door right where the hinge was.  We were like what the fuck!!  If I’m honest the first thought that came into my head was ‘I’m glad I didn’t do it’ bearing in mind I actually crashed the rental we had in February!   Sammy looked puzzled like he had no idea how that had happened; I then thought that maybe it had been hit while it was parked or something? Then we got to the bottom of it.

Sammy told me that when he dropped of Tony Roberts, when Tony got out of the car, the door was caught by the wind and flew open really fast and must have been jarred by the movement.  For the rest of the tour I didn’t let Tony Roberts forget that he had bust up our car lol anyway there was not much we could do about now so we decided we would sort it after the tour was over. One real downside was that we couldn’t open the passenger door so we had to keep climbing over seats to get into the passenger seat, nightmare.

Sammy drove down to Bristol with me in the passenger seat and the two Tony’s in the back.  I don’t know how they always seem to do it but the two Tony’s both managed to get some sleep in the car again, I never managed to do that ever, even though I was feeling really tired. We stopped off at KFC and we all got some food, I didn’t eat that much which proved to be a school boy error on my behalf.  You’ll find out later. The journey down to Bristol was pretty straight forward we drove down in convoy with our car leading the way.  We were running behind schedule but our saving grace was that Gman and Nzinga had left earlier and knew what was required in regards to set up etc.  So I wasn’t too stressed as they are both very professional.

It didn’t help though that Sammy missed the turn-off which was totally out of character. He didn’t say but I reckon he was also feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. Also the traffic on our entry into Bristol was ridiculous. We arrived into Bristol in high spirits, the two Tony’s were cracking jokes Woodsey even made a remix to a house tune that Sammy was playing which Tony Roberts joined in on too. Funny, didn’t catch that on the camera though unfortunately.

We got to the hotel registered with reception and then met up with the UK comedians who had arrived earlier. Everyone was really excited about the show and was all wowed by the standard of hotel that we had booked for them. I thought this is standard boys.  We got ready quickly and headed off to the Theatre.  Now because we were running late we didn’t have time to eat properly now my suggestion was to get a load of Pizza’s in. Why o why did I suggest this?  I don’t even eat pizza as I am lactose intolerant and therefore can’t eat cheese. Anyway I would live to regret this move, school boy error number 2.  Ok, we got to the theatre and I double checked everything was running to plan, It was so, I had nothing to worry about. I meet up with the local promoter from TWE and had a quick update from him on ticket status, personal ticket sales hadn’t gone the way we had hoped, but there was still an improvement on the last show so I was pleased.

Next was getting everyone feed. I grabbed my mate Danny and his friend and we, went down to Pizza Hut and ordered about 10 large Pizza’s for everyone. I also bought a load of drinks and refreshments, and as per usual some alcoholic beverages too.  My boy Coldsteps from Play Ents our London partners arrived at this point and I brought him backstage. I wrote out the show schedule and gave a copy to Nzinga and a copy to the Theatre Manager it was now show time.

I went around and wished everyone good luck especially our dance crew Tru-Street dance who had worked there socks off for their show piece.  I then went and sat in the crowd to see the opening. The dancers done really well but the impact of their performance was lost due to the sound system not being as loud as it should’ve been. I felt really bad for them as they had work so hard for it, but to be honest the crowd still seemed to love it, we knew it could’ve been much better had the sound been better. Once they had finish I went backstage and promised the guys that I would personally make sure that the sound was much better for tomorrow’s performance in Birmingham.

Whilst I was there I saw the little kid who was star of the dance performance and give him a high five at which point he curled up his palms to me as if he wanted paying, I was like how much do you want kid?  To which he said a tenna. I thought cool; I was just about to give you twenty quid as well, lol. He deserved it though he nailed his performance, and couldn’t have been, no more than eight years old and had just performed in front of one thousand people.

Ok, this was school boy error number 3. I then went into the green room and had a couple of brandy’s. Now anyone that knows me knows that I can normally hold my drink but Oh boy! This went straight to my head and the rest of the day was a complete blur, very unprofessional and not like me at all.

Ok now this is what I can remember.  Having fun backstage, going around at the interval with Coldsteps doing interviews, being asked to go onstage for the curtain call, talking some crap onstage with Kat, embarrassing! Then being in the after-party…buying Gman a bottle of something think it might have been whisky…trying to sober up by drinking lots of coke, thinking to myself I need to get back to the hotel but wasn’t to sure how I was going to do it.  Never again!!

Youtube Clip

Saturday

(The morning after the night before and the Birmingham Show)

Sammy came and woke me up in the morning and told me that they had just got back from breakfast and that I should go and get some.  I thought yeah good idea, I had the hangover from hell and maybe a good breakfast would help me out. I went downstairs to the restaurant and sat down completely out of it. Kat then popped up and started to fill me in on last night he was laughing his head off I told him that I had lost my phone and had no money in my wallet.  He seem to find this hilarious, I thought cheers buddy.  Lol It was funny though to be honest if something happens that is quite funny if you hear Kat tell it it’ll end up being really funny,  Plus I thought if it had happened to someone else I would have been laughing so you’ve got to take it if you give it out.

I then thought we should be filming this, this is dynamite material.  So we went back-up to Sammy’s room and got the camera all the boys were in there and I got some more stick.  Good news though, Damian had found my phone in the street.  How lucky was that.  We got the camera rolling and started filming. I started feeling a little better but still felt hung over.  Me and Kat then decided to go and wake everyone else, up we filmed this too.

We meet outside the hotel for about 12 noon ready to depart for our journey to Birmingham,  everyone was in really high spirits with stories from the night before.  As a group we had definitely bonded.  We have toured many times before and it’s not always easy to bond with all the characters on the tour but this tour was different.  Every single person on the tour was really cool.  Kat and Tony Roberts were like old friends and Tony Woods was such a chilled out character that I would be surprise if I heard that anyone didn’t get on with him.  Eddie Kadi was just a fun guy, kind of like a younger cousin or something that did silly things just to make you laugh.

Kevin J was very easy going too but had a serious side we had a few a couple of deep worldly conversations. It also helped that he liked my football team Aston Villa even though his reasons for this were that they played in the same colours as his team West Ham, fair play son.

Sammy filmed us all outside the hotel, whilst out here me and Kat decided that we were going to have a push-up competition. I didn’t fancy my chances because Kat is like a compact superman.  I’ve seen this guy lift up big girls that would of put my back out! Lol Anyway we had our PUSH-OFF and he won Eddie joined in but was rubbish lol I’d have chance for revenge though the following morning.

We set off for Birmingham my hang over wasn’t getting any better, I actually felt ill as soon as we got back I wanted to go to the first chemist that we found.  We did a bit of filming on this journey and I tried to get in some sleep. When we arrived in Birmingham Sammy dropped me off first.  When I got in the first thing I did was to take the medicine that I had got from the chemist which seemed to sort out all my problems. I then set about getting things ready for later. I called Nick from technical staff at the Alexandra theatre and explained to him the problem that we had experience yesterday with the sound he assured me that this would not happen tonight and got really excited about what he had planned for the show.

I love working with Nick and his colleague Mike they have so many ideas on how they can improve the spectacle of the Real Deal Comedy Jam and we are more than happy to fund their imaginations. My next step was to ensure that there would be no repeat of last nights drunkenness so I decided to go to All Nations Caribbean food shop to fill my belly with a large meal of rice and peas and fried Hake and vegetable’s Mmmmm.  Don’t ramp with Pizer’s food.  It’s the business. While I was there I made arrangements for food to be delivered to the Theatre at 7pm, no pizza for us tonight lol, I then went home to get ready.  Me and my friend Geoff rolled down to the Theatre together, Geoff is a great guy to have around because he will help out, today was no different as he saved me time by getting all the refreshments for the production crew.

Today’s show was spot on we had a theatre that was quite full although we didn’t sell out like we normally do.  I’d put that down to the date, when we booked the tour we didn’t realise that the date we had booked was one weekend after bank holiday and the weekend after the kids had gone back to school.  Which meant that a lot of people who would of come had spent out already.  So on reflections we had done really well.  The dancers came out first a they kicked ass, they were awesome.  I loved it I must say I was so proud of them all I felt parental about them all, I was like a proud dad watching my kids perform, lol.

The technical staff had created some amazing special effects for us they had fireworks and earthquake effect and laser lighting and a mist. Me, Kat and Nick decided how he was going to make his entry. The plan was he would do a couple of flips and land put one finger up and bang!!  The priors would go off and the earthquake effect would happen.  It all went to plan and it was truly amazing.  I love it.  There are two comedians that we use that can do no wrong in Birmingham the first is Slim and the second is Kat.  These two are loved by the Real Deal Birmingham crowd.  It had been almost a year since Kat last did the show so that entrance was very fitting.  I tried to watch as much of this show as possible so I delegated a lot of the responsibilities backstage to Nzinga and we communicated via text, she did a great job and actually had two assistance with her who were equally as helpful. Well done girls.

Taking in the show I was well impressed. In the first half Kevin J and Eddie Kadi smashed it.  We had to give away a prize on behalf of one of the sponsors Deep Caribbean Experience I told Kat what we had to do and let him come up with the concept.  I trust Kat so much with this kind of thing that I didn’t even ask him what he planned to do as I knew whatever it was it was going to be special.  I was not disappointed; he got a couple from the audience and made the act out a script that he had come up with.  It was hilarious, he couldn’t of picked a better couple.  The guy was well up for it and seem to really enjoy himself.  When he started it I was actually in one of the offices sorting out some business when I heard the screams from the crowd I ran to find out what was going on and when I saw it I was laughing my head off.

We had a plan in place that because both of our American comedians were headline acts we’d alternate them headlining from show to show.  Birmingham was Woodsey’s time to headline, but to be honest with hindsight I should have made Roberts headline. Tony Roberts smashed the place open as per usual but from the feedback I received people found it hard to get on Woodsey’s level after being put on such a high from Roberts performance.  Woodsey’s wasn’t too happy with his performance either, but from what I saw I thought he actually done ok. For JEP we do have to take note of what our customers say and learn how to do better.  So all the feedback we received was really important.  Finally we ended the show as always with a curtain call this time though without being drunk, lol.

During the curtain call I asked Kat to call out Justice Williams from Trulife magazine that had recently been award with an MBE from the Queen.  She came to the front of the stall and received her congratulations on behalf of the Real Deal Comedy Jam.  She seem quite embarrassed about it all.  I remember when she came out in her dress getting a tug from behind from Eddie Kadi who wanted to know who that was.  He couldn’t even wait until after to find out, lol.

Straight after the show I ran around to the front of the theatre with Kat to do some interviews with the public.  We then set off to let our hair down at the after party.  When we got to the party it was like Michael Jackson was in the club or they were giving out free money or something.  There were loads of people crowding around the entrance.  I just wanted to get inside to chill out. I called to the club manager to fast track the production crew and we were in. I made arrangements with the club as to who my guests were and to make sure that they got in without any problems, and trusted that they would ensure this was done.

I then went to party.  Now you’ll notice that I have a lot more to say about this party then the Bristol party.  That is because I can actually remember what happened lol.  Myself, Alton and Kevin J decided that we were going to get a few bottle of brandy etc for our table.  We called over the waitress and got juiced up.  At first I thought that this might end up being a chilled out party as we were mainly just drinking and chatting in the VIP area, then god knows what happened I looked up and the party was jumping. Earlier me and Tiny from TWE were having a banter about the difference in parties between Bristol and Birmingham he seemed to think that the Bristol party was much better than the Birmingham party.  Not today mate.  This party jumped off everyone was bubbling. I was dancing with my Trulife gang for a while, but the guys have got too many moves for me, lol. I grabbed Kat and we went into the other room to check out Marc Ryders set. That room was even better everyone in there was doing the Real Deal skank, another top night. We left the club at about 3:30am and went to get some food you can’t beat kebab meat and chips after a good night out.  I was with Sammy, Alton, Kat, Eddie and Kevin.  I’ve got no idea where everyone else was but I was sure that they get back to the hotel ok.

Youtube Clip

Sunday

(The morning after the night before and the Manchester Show)

I felt like I had a good sleep and woke up in a good mood at about 10:30am. I called Sammy to confirm arrangements for today’s business. The plan was that he would pick me up for 12 and we would pick-up the Logo lens from the Theatre that I had left there the night before and then we would go and pick up the comedians from the hotel. At 12 o’clock Sammy hadn’t arrive and appeared to be running late so I decided to go to the shops to pick up some food. I decided that I would take my bags with me just in case Sammy arrived whilst I was out and could therefore pick me up on route.  But on my way to the shops I saw a bus which I knew went into town so I decided to jump on it.  Now this might sound like a mad thing to write about but I haven’t been on a bus for about 10-15 years, so this was like an adventure for me, I was phoning people letting them know where I was and what I was doing, I was shocked though at how much the bus cost, now bear this in mind the last time I caught the bust it was 33p, It’s now £1.70. Wow!!!

Anyway I got into town and collected the Logo Lens from Nick at the Theatre I then walked across to the hotel to find all the comedians in the lobby waiting for us.  Everyone was in good spirit and just like the morning before were all sharing their stories from the night before.  But this time there was no filming so you will have to take my word for it on the next events that followed.  It was time for the PUSH-OFF!!  Now Kat had beaten me the morning before but my excuse was that I was hung over. This morning I was feeling good. We headed outside and began our challenge refereed by Kevin J. I won…enough said!

Sammy arrived and we headed off to Manchester.  I decided to drive up with Damian, Nzinga and Tony Woods. Damian was bang on form on this journey I love it when he is like this, he was cracking us up all the way to Manchester, he made the journey feel so short. We had a little trouble finding the hotel but when we did we were all amazed by the quality of place that we had. It was beautiful we all had our own little apartment, not that me Sammy and Tony Woods had long to enjoy it though we more or less immediately left out to go and check up on the theatre.

On the way we collected Simeon our photographer who had travelled up on the train. Tony Roberts, Kat and Eddie went off shopping and to eat some food. When we got to the theatre we saw that they had more or less finished the majority of the job but needed direction from me as to how I wanted the stage to appear. This didn’t take too long and we headed back to the hotel. On the way back we went to Nando’s to get some food, I still had mental scares from Bristol wear I didn’t eat properly so there was no way I was going to let that happen again. We got food for Damian, Nzinga and Alton who were waiting at the hotel and headed back. Time seemed to be going so fast today, before I knew it was six o’clock, I asked Nzinga and Damian to head to the theatre ahead of us with Kat, Kevin J and Eddie, atleast if we were late the show could still start.

Sammy then came to my room stressed that his electric shaver had broken I said he could use one of my Mac3 shavers but he was worried he would get bumps, so I asked him if he had got bumps from one before he said no, I said how does he know If he had never tried it.  So he did. (Just to let you know he phoned me cussing about 3 days later saying I’d fucked up his face) lol.

Anyway on the day he was cool he had a shave and we left out with the two Tony’s to go do the show. By the time we arrived at the show the show was in full swing. I’d missed Kat’s opening and Kevin J was on the stage.  I sat at the back of the auditorium and rigged up the camera.  This was my position for the entire show.  I communicated any instructions via text through to Nzinga throughout the show and as per usual she did a really great job.

The show was really good as per usual we went with the same structure as Bristol with Kevin going first, Eddie second, Woodsey third and Roberts headliner.  For me the star performers, on this show were, Kevin J and Tony Woods. Tony Woods smashed it, Tony Roberts is always good but for Tony to impress me now he has to be brilliant because I know what he is capable of, great show all around I loved it.

I went backstage for the curtain call and walked out when Kat called us to say a few words.  This was a special one for me because we had been up in Manchester a year prior and had lost a load of money.  Our Manchester DJ Stretch had persuaded me to bring it back but this time allowing him to manage the promotional side of the show through his company Pied Piper Promotions. The promoter that we worked with, last year were still involved Ashley was actually part of Pied Piper Promotions and Marcel worked independently through Vintage Mist Promotions, but for me I had loved the way in which Stretch had handled the job everything he had said he would do he done. I therefore thought he deserved special praise for this.

Straight after the show we headed down to the after-party which had been arranged by Marcel.  This was the first time during the tour that I actually felt sad. It was because I knew that it was all over, it was the end of the tour, but we still partied hard!  Kat did his old party piece where he would get a plastic straw turning it into a ear mic and did his Usher tribute, funny, I took some stick from one of my friends about my fashion sense in particular my choice in shoes, lol. I explained to him that I was leader not a follower and that this was rich coming from a guy in Airforce One’s. It was another good night.

Monday (The Drop off)

Since the Roberts and Woodsey’s flights were at 11am and we were 3 hours away from Heathrow airport and you had to be at check-in 2 hours prior to departure.  We knew the latest we could leave would be 6am but just incase of traffic we decided to leave at 5am.  Bearing this in mind we decided not to go to sleep because an hour sleep would probably make us feel worst.  So when it was time to leave Tony Woods had what I can only describe as a panic attack and decided that we weren’t going to make it and that he and Tony Roberts should catch the train down or catch a different flight.  I was like I don’t mind what you do but you’d have to incur those costs yourself.  Tony Roberts was like fuck that I catching my flight.

we left Tony Woods and me Sammy, Kat and Tony Roberts headed down to Heathrow.  I told Sammy to get some sleep as he’d be driving back up from Heathrow to Birmingham and we set off.  To be honest it wasn’t that bad Kat and Tony Roberts were making me laugh all the way down to Heathrow and to give us something else to do Gman called us live on air to do an interview. We got down there with plenty of time to spare and dropped off Tony Roberts. I then dropped off Kat at the train station.  Parked the car woke up Sammy jump onto the backseat and went to sleep. Goodnight!! Lol

What a tour, can’t wait to do it all over again.

Nathan Wilkins