ON A windy day the hangar where we film the show can get quite noisy. The metal doors clatter, bits of loose window covering flap about, a bird that’s got in makes bird noises. Normally the sound recordist isn’t bothered because all this din is drowned out by the rustling coats, shuffling feet and coughs of a 900-strong audience (I meant 500 if you’re reading this and you work for the council). Today, though, the rattles and bangs were coming through loud and clear — listen carefully and you may hear a couple in tonight’s show — because this time there was no audience at all. We were playing to a completely empty hangar.

The reason we had gathered at this televisual wake was to