I went to the show in Sydney here earlier this evening. Fantastic show...worked out better for me than probably anyone else.
For one thing, it was Pat Roach's 37th birthday and Lahey led everyone in a round of Happy Birthday.
For the most part they stayed in character, though immediately before and after the intermission they mostly talked about the show and what everyone was up to. Like how Cory Bowles is a voice-over actor on Poko (or something like that) and how Bubbles got engaged at Christmas time. Pat talked about his personal life. Talked about how he was walking down Downtown Sydney earlier today and someone asked him why is he wearing a shirt and he replied "Duh, cause it's fucking cold outside!"
Twice during the show, they held contests. The first involved stomach sizes. Whoever had the smallest waist won a prize (predicatably it was a very petite young woman) and whoever had the largest waistline (predictably won by some old fat guy) and whoever had the biggest percentage of expansion when they sucked their gut in and then let it hang out (predicatably won by another fat guy).
At the end of the intermission, as Randy took the stage, I went to the bar at the back of the hall and I ran into Lahey himself wearing a Santa hat and Value Village bag beard. I gave him a cheers. Nice moment.
A few minutes later they had another contest. They asked trivia questions about episodes and then people in the audience raise their hands and they pick one of the hands and if they give the right answer, they get to go on stage. The last question they asked was "Who said the line "Say it Jim, Say it!" Everyone yelled out "Barb", so I raised my hand and said George Green. I walked up on stage and promptly Randy shakes my hand and says great job and writes my name down. So me and five other guys are standing on stage and they're about to quiz just the six of us on TPB episodes. First of the six to shout out the answers gets the point. Whoever has the most points wins. Questions I managed to answer included "What did Bubbles say he owns one third of?" After about two seconds of dead silence, I say "Lucy's boobs." Another one was "What did Bubbles once get stuck to his bird?" The other give blurted out "Leeches" and got the point, then Lahey asks "What other think did he get stuck to his bird, and I said "Airplane wing." Another was "Who was Julian's surrogate grandmother?"..."Mrs. Peterson." At the end of it, I won.
My prize? A TPB The Big Dirty hat. The only one. I feel blessed. I am so wearing it to opening night of the movie. While giving me the hat, I was wearing a Super Bowl XL Champions Steelers hat, which Lahey took off my head and said "Let's get you out of this Breakfast of Champions hat, which is covered in semen stains."
After the show, I got it autographed. On the bill it says:
Never Cry Shitwolf
Jim Lahey
and
Liam,
Frig off!!
Randy
A friend of mine suggested that I ask Randy if I can autograph his gut. I probably would have if not for all the people getting their pictures taken with them (mostly giving the finger) and most of them purposefully having the gut in the shot. That friend got an autographed photo they were selling. On it is says Neal, a man's gotta eat. Randy and Beware the whistling winds of shit. Jim Lahey. My other friend didn't have anything to autograph, so he just shook their hands. He said he would raise a toast to Lahey, but had no drink to do it with, so Lahey gave him his beer and he took a drink of it. Not very often you get to share a cup of beer with Jim Lahey.
'Twas a great night. DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW!!!!
