The Email Has Teeth

I keep trying to make the BBC email funny. Three sentences, and somehow the third one has got its hand around my wrists. “Material you have not performed publicly before” sounds neutral until I picture standing there with nothing borrowed from a room that already laughed. Then it sounds like a dare written by someone who has never had to make a room like him.

Jules saying the panic attack set has a shape should feel like useful information. It does. It also means I can’t pretend the four seconds are just a wobble I accidentally turned into a bit. I want the set to work because it’s good, obviously. I want it to work because Helen might remember my name. I hate how quickly those two wants have become one thing.

I sent Jules a thumbs up instead of a sentence. Very brave. A tiny yellow hand doing all the emotional labour while I stare out of a bus window like a man in a serious film about affordable housing.

The new night-bus bit finally landed enough for one laugh from me. I tried not to count that as evidence. I counted it anyway. Monday at Broadcasting House keeps arriving in my head as a room full of clever people waiting for me to prove I’m not the shop-floor kid who got through the door by being funny at the right moment. I wish wanting this didn’t make me feel so easy to embarrass.