Rory Bremner
I first started working with the Johns around ten years ago. Then, we had a right-wing government. Hospitals, railways and schools were in crisis. George Bush was about to attack Iraq. It seems like yesterday. It's an exciting time to be doing our first stage show together: parliament's been recalled, the conference season is under way, politics is back. Tony Benn's on tour, Heseltine's coming to the West End, Archer's doing a run at Her Majesty's. I'm sure Blair won't come to our show. He'll have received a dossier by now, detailing the material we possess: "The evidence is there. We've seen it on television. They've shown they're prepared to use this material in the past and there's every reason to suppose they'll use it against us unless we attack them first." Today the Albery Theatre, tomorrow Baghdad. We couldn't do this sort of thing in Iraq, of course. It's far too risky. The Americans could arrive at any moment.
Meanwhile, Saddam has passed his first test - agreeing to admit inspectors - only to be marked down by Bush Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
I had reservations about going on the Countryside March, not least because there must have been about 400,000 different causes marching under the same umbrella. I'm sure there were people there campaigning for the right to have their Aga serviced for free. But I do remember that when foot-and-mouth broke out, a former Labour spin-doctor told me to save my sympathy, as farming accounted for less than 1 per cent of the economy. As the disease spread, it became all too clear that that was the government's attitude, too: only when tourism started to suffer did they begin to react with any urgency. I find it very telling that it took the Prime Minister about a minute and a half to get to Kabul in the winter, whereas it took him all of six weeks to get to Carlisle in the spring.
Performing and plugging our show can cause logistical problems. To get to the theatre in Hastings for Johnny Vaughan's show meant going by taxi-bike and helicopter. We touched down 15 minutes before the show, then it was into the Blair wig, into character and on to the stage. Much like him, in fact. Later, I was heckled as IDS, but was unable to understand a word. I don't agree with David Blunkett that people should speak English in their homes, but it would help if they spoke it in the theatre.
Note: Six hours before his copy for this diary was due, John Fortune was struck down with viral gastroenteritis. It's not funny, but at least it's topical.
John Bird
What I ought to be doing is an intense reading of the newspapers to mine material for the stage show we're doing, but, in truth, I'm not the politics junkie I once was. Party politics are no longer compelling: the grim parade of self-important figures coming on the Today programme with their double-talk. "We're addressing the issues" (we can't solve the problem); "it could send the wrong signals" (we've inadvertently told the truth); "it's time to draw a line under it" (let's pretend it never happened); "we need a wide-ranging public debate" (we want to see what the Daily Mail writes).
And now the Labour Party conference is coming up: surely a must for the soi-disant satirist. Well, I don't know. In any case, I have to interrupt these musings to go round the paddock, where we keep our two llamas. It is my humble task to clear up their droppings every day, and I must say, I'd a thousand times rather do that than be a delegate to the Labour conference. Actually, it occurs to me that there is some obscure similarity between the two activities.
On the same bucolic note, I'd expected the rural area round here to be emptied of people: hadn't they gone on the Countryside demo? But that didn't seem to be the case. Perhaps Surrey doesn't count as countryside. Certainly, the hunt that lost control of its hounds, broke down our fence and burst into the garden seemed a bit short on sturdy yeomen farmers upholding ancient freedoms. The master was an accountant from Horsham. Tally-ho.
Back to the trawl for jokes. John Fortune and I find that the funniest stuff comes from unadorned facts. We got a lot of mileage, for instance, out of a straight recounting of the evolution of the Eurofighter, from its conception before the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose aircraft it was - and still is - designed to combat. The Eurofighter is still being touched up at the British Aerospace factory in Warton, Lancashire, despite being already many years behind schedule. But to cover its embarrassment, the MoD has come up with the brilliant scheme of designating a corner of the factory as an official RAF base, so it can truthfully (by its standards) say the plane is now "in service". You don't need to think of jokes when the government hands them to you on a plate. This suits our style of working, based as it is on bone idleness, but we're worried the MoD will want a cut of our writing fee.
Rory Bremner, John Bird and John Fortune are at the Albery Theatre, London, 30 September to 3 November. Box office: 020 7369 1740
