Brilliant seats to see Russell Howard’s Good News last night from TVrecordings.com – tickets really go to the fastest responders to the newsletter as far as I can tell. Update 2013: I’ve not had as many e-mails from them recently, you may have to follow them on Twitter now.

I thought I’d write up the format of the show a little bit in case anyone ever searches for it and wants advice on when to arrive and stuff – because I’ve previously tried to get there and I was turned away.

The doors say 6, but we weren’t sat in the studio until gone 7 – there was a lot of outside waiting. There are nearby shops – people had MacDonald’s, Subways, Costa Coffee stuff.

The seats we got were in no way linked to when we arrived – we were two-thirds of the way back in the queue but were seated in the second row – although quite a bit off to the right so  I suppose there were bits of the show we didn’t really get to see.

There is an audience reaction camera which is on the right hand side of the audience as you look at the stage (i.e. where I was). The boom camera (jig?) is also on this side, so it doesn’t really get any shots of you (you’re beneath it).

Outside of half term, I arrived at 4:45 and I reckon they were turning people away at 5pm. The previous time I went it was half term and it looked like you had to arrive really early to get in.

The sticker person was there by that point and not particularly happy that people had popped off to the shops so best wait until you’ve got your stickers.

They prefer you to print your tickets out but it is possible to show them on your phone if you let them know you’re going to do that in advance.

Toilets impossible during the show but they are available while you’re queueing – go to the front of the queue and follow the road to studios.

If you have travelled a long way and you didn’t get in, you might ask them for priority tickets as it sounded like some of those holding priority had done that.

Running order: Run through of the show. Mystery guest. Mystery guest callbacks. Stand up. Callbacks. Trails.

Russell Howard is a very funny man and it’s really nice to see a performer interacting with audience when possible – his talents as a compere work really well for this show and it was good to hear him make NSF-TV jokes up and share them with the audience. Then back up and record one that can be broadcasted. I suppose you get that sense from the odd “this won’t be on telly” comment on the TV shows but there’s quite a bit more of that than is shown.