Talking about therapy is like talking about sex:  it’s vain and boastful.  Nothing wrong with that I hear you say, you live in LA, but I like paying someone to listen to me; it’s the opposite of showbiz, and it helps me understand that strange collection of people I call my self.   I am interested in the brain, how it works miracles, like reading, turning a jumble of letters into pictures, and the fact that about ninety per cent of what it is doing all the time is not even noticed by our consciousness, which is just the surface stream of our thoughts.  It also helps me connect the dots to my wiring in my upbringing.   Why am I a comedian?   Why do I still get angry at certain things?   Why do I like talking about myself for an hour?  Which are healthy thoughts and which are simply old patterns of gloom reasserting themselves.   Talk therapy is a practical guide to our selves,  since we don’t come with a manual, and we can learn to become better fathers, husbands, friends, and even comedians.  And it’s a lot more useful than Confession.

This week it suddenly became clear to me that my excitement about packing for England mirrors my own excitement felt three times a year for twelve years, packing to go home from boarding school.  Not that my home in LA is remotely like The Ophney, an ex-Orphanage in exotic Wolverhampton which I reluctantly attended from the age of seven, and British Airways ain’t exactly the Harry Potter steam train I took at the beginning and end of each interminable term,  nevertheless each year, when the jacaranda trees turn purple, I know it’s time to head East old man.

This year I’m on a short visit to London to announce that Monty Python’s Spamalot is opening again in the West End, for a limited run, to entertain the tourists during the Olympics, in an entirely new production by Christopher Luscombe which has been successfully touring the UK for two years.  I’m very excited that after only a three year absence it’s back in London, which means that this show really has legs.  I’m also looking forward to seeing a thousand boats on the Thames for the Queens jubilee, to watch a bit of England in football and cricket, and see the Brits enjoying themselves, for, as Gilbert and Sullivan put it…

.. in spite of all temptations

To belong to other nations

He remains an Englishman…

So if you are visiting London this summer to support the Polish hop skip and jump team, or visit The Synchronized Shakespeare, or simply to catch the vibe, do make a determined leap to The Harold Pinter Theatre in Panton Street, off Leicester Square, where you’ll find a very fine and funny production of Spamalot, ably led by the hilarious Marcus Brigstock.    Booking now open!

All together “And, Always look on the bright side of life…”

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