Eric Idle OnlineMy Life

Ferguson Tonight

By , February 26, 2012 9:58 pm

Well I must say if you wanted to impress me with the power of social media you couldn’t have done better.
The pre-sale Facebook and Twitter announcements opened the booking for What About Dick? on Tuesday morning, by Friday night we had sold over fifty per cent of the available seats! We don’t go on general sale until Tuesday the 28th  No advertising, no print, no tv, no radio, just one story in the LA Times and the rest social media. It went round the world, stories of my Dick even appearing in India. Brave new times. But then Russell Brand has 4.2 million Twitter followers, Eddie Izzard 1.5 million and Billy Connolly over 750,000.
Ok Jim Piddock has 3 and I have none but we are still very funny….
And I have to apologize to Jim Piddock that his name got left out of the LA Times Article, though they still mentioned Tracey Ullman, Sophie Winkelman, Eddie Izzard, Russell Brand, Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, and me. So I am going to mention Jim Piddock’s name at least three times in this blog, because he is very very funny despite being a Crystal Palace supporter (as so is Eddie). And he was very funny in the rather funny An Evening Without Monty Python show a couple of years ago. That’s Jim Piddock, starring as The Working Classes in What About Dick? Currently selling out fast at The Orpheum in LA in April, By which I am gob smacked and thrilled.
It promises to be quite an event at the Orpheum. Try and be there if you can, though if you can’t attend , sign up to our list on Facebook and the Website and we’ll send you a DVD or download when we’re done. I had a reading of the play last week and well these people are extraordinary…. Even my words couldn’t prevent them being funny.

Bythe way I am on Ferguson tonight Monday 27th, selling the last three tickets.    So hurry, this is your only chance to see this amazingly funny cast, and yes, as Emily Blunt said, it is comedy porn…

What About Dick? Exclusive Pre-sale Offer!

By , February 21, 2012 10:00 am

What About Dick?

By , February 20, 2012 8:16 am

Yes, it’s Dick time again.   It’s a play with songs by me and John Du Prez.

And look who I have got to play with my Dick this time……

Russell Brand, Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, Eddie Izzard, Jane Leeves, Jim Piddock, Tracey Ullman and Sophie Winkelman.

Oh, and me.

Four nights only, at the Orpheum, LA, April 26th thru 29th.
Very limited tickets.
Book now.
I’m trying to post the Priority E card….but I’m failing right now.
If I manage that you can book from tomorrow, if not from the 28th February.

For additional information or to purchase tickets, please visit: www.whataboutdick.com or http://www.ticketmaster.com/What-about-Dick-tickets/artist/1696044. Tickets will also be available by calling 800-745-3000 and at all Ticketmaster outlets.

The Busby Babes

By , February 6, 2012 8:31 am

It’s not every day you can say you remember where you were fifty four years ago, but today I can. I was on a freezing, foggy, school football pitch in Wolverhampton and I can remember the exact patch of grass, rimed with white frost, which I stared at bleakly when they told me The Busby Babes were dead. The Manchester United plane, bringing the team back from a match in Belgrade, had crashed in Munich while attempting to take off after a refueling stop, killing most of the shockingly young and astonishingly gifted squad, while leaving us a lingering hope that Duncan Edwards, the gifted gift to English football, might survive. Sadly he didn’t, and our hopes that our generation might escape death also died.
It’s odd to say of a school consisting of boys whose fathers had been killed in the war that this was our first experience of death, but this was a very personal death. Though we of course were Wolves fans, nonetheless we loved all the young Manchester stars who played for England, and the thought that one day, even for the brightest and the gifted, death could spring out of nowhere and snatch you away, was a hard lesson.
Three years later, the death of Buddy Holly, also in a plane crash, would complete the process; even our rock and roll heroes could die. True Love Ways released in the UK after his death, with its strings and mournful wailing sax, somehow seemed to be about that, and we listened with tears in our eyes.
Now, my generation are accustomed to death. We walk in its shadow. We are the bulging group on the edge of the runway, wondering who’s next. Send not to ask, it tolls for thee.
So always look on the bright side of death….
And a fond farewell to all our former heroes.