‘The Queen Sniffed Me And Called Me Whiffy At The Royal Variety Show'

This week’s columnist: Comedian Joe Pasquale

- Joe Pasquale

I’ve done five Royal Variety Performances now, and at the end of it, you always meet the Queen. But, after the 2007 show, I don’t think I left her very impressed.

That year, I had a cameo in the Blue Man Group’s performance, in which I became a human paintbrush. What that means is they painted me from head to toe in blue paint, tied me by my ankles and then threw me across the stage onto a giant canvas, on which I made a piece of art with my body.

We rehearsed it a few days before the show, so they made this paint well in advance, and we were going to use the same paint for the real performance too. The problem was, to make sure it wasn’t toxic, it was made with natural ingredients – including raw eggs – and we all know what raw eggs left out to oxidise can smell like.