Mock The Week...or not

Well last night was the recording of Mock the Week that I had tickets for so a friend from work and I drove the 2hrs to London.  Being a pretty new driver I got a bit lost on the M25 and ended up missing our junction, not a big deal except by this point we were getting very pushed for time.  Somehow we found our way to the studio without too many more problems and just one 3-point turn but nonetheless our detour cost us half an hour.  Our tickets say the studio doors close at 7:10 and we finally jog up to the front of BBC centre...at 7:10.  There's about another 10-15 people standing outside the audience entrance where we're told we're too late and the studio's full.  Great.

 

Fortunately the very lovely people said they should be able to get us into another show being filmed at the same time called The Late Edition, perhaps there was hope after all.  So we go through to the foyer and hang around for 20 minutes while all the people with official tickets for the Late Edition go through to the studio leaving just us hopefuls behind.  Half the hopefuls are taken off to be seated while my friend and I are left with a group of 8 or so others guys.  The man in a suit returns and starts apologising to the group that the studios full and they can't do anything for us.  We'll have to drown our sorrows in a McFlurry.  He ushered the group of eight towards the exit before turning to us and saying "there is however room for you two."  YES!

 

Seriously surreal experience in the studio, they did a "link up" with a reporter at the Turin Winter Olympics and the screens showed him set against a very snowy backdrop - we however could see him set against a green screen off to the side of the set.  The presenter, Marcus Brigstocke, was seriously good and I don't think it was just because he had a good team of writers behind him.  In between shots he was making jokes with the audience and pretty much ensured that for the two hours we were sat in the studio I never once felt bored....given my attention span is somewhat limited that's damn impressive!

We all headed out the studio around 10PM and I began the drive home.  All was going well until the matrix boards on the M25 told us we couldn't get off at the junction we wanted...all I could do was wave to the M3 as we sailed past.  So we got off the next junction and tried to cut back across and rejoin the M3 slightly further along.  Nice plan...but I can't drive.  We got lost and didn't have the right map so were forced to put up with the very small-scale diagram in my "condensed road map of Great Britain and Ireland."  So my friend tells me to follow signs to Chobham, I followed signs to Cobham, subtly different name but still in completely the wrong direction.  I mean really, why would you have two towns pretty much next to each other with one letter difference!  What genius did that?!

Even if I had gone the right way it wouldn't have made much difference as we spent the next hour and a half touring the surrounding countryside.  I even gave up on my macho male reputation (yeah - whatever!) by going to a petrol station to ask for directions.  But even that went wrong...it was bloody closed!  Eventually we gave up and went back to the M25 to find a different route home. 

Home finally came well over 4 hours after leaving at 2:30AM.

My story is still not quite over, I'd just finished telling a friend at college of our magical mystery tour when my mobile rang.  It's Martin from SRO Audiences ringing to apologise/explain why we couldn't get in and despite bending over backwards to get us into The Late Edition they offered us priority tickets for another recording of Mock the Week.  Proper customer service.

If you're interested the episode of The Late Edition we saw goes out tonight (Thurs) on BBCFour at either 10PM or 10:30...I'm not too sure which.