Tina Wiseman

Although it pains me to say it, I think Richard has already put this across in a more eloquent way than I will on his blog … Tina Wiseman, a friendly, enthusiastic, funny, positive, energetic but above all sensible fan of ours has suddenly died, aged 37. We met her on a number of occasions, as she was an avid comedy gig-goer and podcast-listener, as well as a regular contributor to Richard’s Guestbook and my blog comments section, and sender of photographs. Richard knows better than me that comedy fans can cross the line, either by email, or in person, in a possibly subsconsciously passive-aggressive way. I’ve had to learn to deal with this this since hitching my ride to Richard’s comedy talent two years ago. It comes with the territory.

But Tina was different. We have found out more about her since the terrible and unexpected news of her death yesterday, just after we had recorded Podcast 73, but we did know that she was a skydiver and that she knew a lot about recording and acoustics (she was an acoustician, actually). We met her at one of Richard’s Headmaster’s Son gigs at the Leicester Square Theatre in March, which is where the above photo was taken. We will dedicate next Thursday’s podcast, No.74, to Tina, and use this picture.

We joked that Tina was a stalker because we knew she wasn’t. Richard even mentioned her onstage in the Brighton podcast, where, reliably, she was in the audience. What makes the news of her death even worse for us is that she went to see Richard on Monday night, wearing a Virgilio Anderson t-shirt, and he published a photograph of her after the gig on his blog. (She died the next morning, it seems, or overnight – the details are sketchy.) And the last Tweet she posted on Twitter was to me. As TinaHighflier, she wrote, in reference to a comment I had made about my pencil being stolen at the British Library in King’s Cross: @CollingsA You should’a bin over the road at @Herring1967 brill show instead of looking for your pencil. However, at least you found it 🙂

Whether we deserved her loyalty and admiration or not, we appreciated it. And it seems all wrong and depressing that she won’t hear Podcast 73, or any thereafter. So raise a glass to Tina, even if you didn’t know her. People shouldn’t die at 37, especially not ones who enjoy laughing so much, and defy death by jumping out of planes. God bless.

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