THE MORNING AFTER DIGI LEVEL 2

As I've said elsewhere, the above video is very, very rough - it's just the basic camera audio, it's with a temporary background/music, and nothing has been finessed, but it'll give you a vague idea of some of what we got up to this week. 

Suffice to say, Sanja and I are knackered. I always forget how physical these shooting weeks are. Everything aches (though that might be due in part due to writhing around on the floor in a shark costume, while contestants dressed as Ecco the Dolphin took turns to beat me with tools). 

I was bemoaning not losing weight before we started filming - like I had on Series 1 - but over the past three days I've somehow lost a ton. A somewhat unconventional weight-loss method, admittedly, but it works!

The good news is, today was the first morning this week that I've not woken up feeling like I've got glass in my throat. Genuinely, throughout filming I had one of the worst sore throats I've ever had. I felt absolutely wretched. But - aching muscles aside - I feel better today than I've done all week. No, scratch that: in weeks. 

Although my eyes still haven't entirely de-puffed from the #lemoneyes debacle...! Sanja also had a pretty debilitating headache/neck inflammation thing going on the past two days too. But anyway.

I had to dig deep for energy (read: drink a lot of Coke), but - while I don't think I was on peak Biffo form throughout - there was only one segment where I thought I was irredeemably dreadful, and only a couple of hairy moments where I genuinely felt I had nothing to give. That's not bad going.

One of those energy wobbles was mid-afternoon Tuesday, and then again during the final game we filmed. Appropriately, that will be the final game of the series, so by then I just leaned into the exhaustion.

DEBRIEF

Sanja and I always have a bit of a debrief after we do these sort of things, where we go over what we felt worked and what didn't. I can tell you that every single one of the games went perfectly (in our trademark imperfect way), just how I imagined them. We got everything shot that we had scheduled. Nothing seems to be out of focus. There were no real dramas.

We even did the whole of sort of Knightmare spoof thing, which was the game I was most worried about being able to fit into the schedule. Not edited yet, but even in the room it was eerie how close it felt to the original. 

There are things we'd have liked to have gone better; some sort of shooting space halfway in size between the Series 1 studio and the one we've been in for Level 2. If only to be able to fit in guests. It was a very, very tight squeeze this week, and has given us a slight headache with the whole set visit thing (again: more news soon on that - the plan is still coming into focus).

It would be great if all us performers were able to just let it go when we felt we're not doing our best, and that being on camera didn't make us so self-conscious about how old/overweight/haggard/ill we think we've become. Cameras just magnify insecurities.

We'd love to be able to pay and feed everyone properly. I certainly wish I hadn't had my busiest work month in three whole years leading right into the filming (I even worked on my laptop one lunchtime this week, which wasn't ideal), but beggars can't be choosers...! I also wish we didn't, right now, need to unload the car, which is still full of all the props and gear.

Overall though... a really, really, brilliant, successful, week, in which a lot of people - not just us two - worked extremely hard to bring you something special. 

THE BEST THING

I know I speak for Sanja and I both when I say that the single best thing about this block was having Digi viewers there. We do love doing stuff with our YouTube chums, but - as people who are generally more comfortable behind the camera than in front - we feel more aligned with you lot, in a funny way. Especially after the last year or so. 

We've kind of been talking about it for a while, but we've both realised that we will - not straight away, but eventually - want to give more of you a chance to be in our videos. 

That's not a hollow promise. We mean it. It's 100% an intention. 

That's the thing we're looking forward to most with Digi Live; seeing so many of you, and bringing you into the Digi madness. It's why we look forward to our Biffo's Brain Zooms. We get that we're on screen in our videos, and you're not, but we don't feel that separation - so we're going to continue to find ways to eliminate it. 

Anyhow. Right. That's enough of the morning-after brain dump. Now: recovery mode. 

Paul