I went to London yesterday evening to the recording of the ISIHAC Christmas special, Humph in Wonderland (to be broadcast on 25th December at 12.04, incidentally). It being Sunday it meant that the trains stopped earlier, so I parked at Didcot, instead of Cholsey where I usually park. So that was a bit of adventure. I cunningly parked under a light, by accident, which was handy because the rest of the car park was really dark by the time I got back. I might go there in future because it has a much nicer drive back and isn't much further away.

I got completely lost trying to find the theatre even though I had instructions. They were misleading instructions though, as they told me the busy road to my left was Shaftesbury Avenue, when actually Shaftesbury Avenue wasn't busy at all, not in comparison to Regent's Street. And there were so many roads in so many directions, that when the instructions said to cross the road it was hard to work out which one they were talking about. Although on balance I think it was them not saying which direction to go in next that didn't help.

I can't actually talk that much about the recording because you'll hear it in a month. John Naismith, the producer, did the same warm-up joke that he did at the stage show. It took two and a half hours (including the interval) to record. Part of that was due to the retakes. The setup was that the guests were sat on a row of chairs and they had to get up and go to the microphones at the front when they had lines to say. The first half went fine, but in the second there were many more pauses when they forgot it was them next.

The guests were: Humph, of course (who was introduced, again, as being 'not dead'), and the regulars Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer. Also, Jeremy Hardy, Rob Brydon, Tony Hawks, Andy Hamilton, Jack Dee and Sandi Toksvig. They were all very funny, although sometimes their ad libs were funnier than the script.

I'm looking forward to listening to it (again) and it'll be interesting to see how much they take out.

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