It’s throwback Thursday! Here’s a picture of me with Rich Hall in the year 2000, backstage at the studios of Late Night With Conan O’Brien in New York City. I forget who the lady in the middle is – as you can tell by my appearance, I was pretty out of it in those days.

Other guests on the show included William Shatner, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and (I think) Jason Statham. Well, we’ve all gone on to do pretty well for ourselves. Especially William Shatner. The Conan show was a real launchpad for us all!

It’s possible to get really nervous before gigs like this, but Rich always knew how to lighten the tone. As we were waiting to go on, Sarah Michelle Gellar was on the couch, earnestly saying to Conan: “I think it’s a bad idea to get a bunch of actors together in room to talk about themselves”, I distinctly remember Rich muttering, “You’re in a room…” at the offstage monitor.

Rich still knows how to party backstage. Last night at the Hoedown, before he went on, he threw a roll of gaffer tape from one side of the dressing room to the other, the idea being to make it sound like there was a commotion going on just before he walked out. The gaffer tape bounced, and smashed a pint glass. It was loud. I hadn’t been paying attention (I’m pretty out of it these days), so when the Soho Theatre folks came in to clear up, I told them that he must’ve lost the plot and started trashing the place. That’s what it looked like to me.

My thanks to Rich for the guest spot on his fabulous show last night and thanks to the ace band headed up by Rob Childs, for rocking, as usual. Here’s a recording of me playing with the Hoedown Band from the Edinburgh Festival.

I’ll be doing my show, Lost In Music, at the Leicester Comedy Festival on Valentine’s Day. I don’t know if William Shatner’s doing a show there this year.