tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83167428968164636932024-02-20T07:32:15.659-08:00Stephen CarlinAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.comBlogger107125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-58908368895773010742019-03-23T10:36:00.000-07:002019-03-23T10:36:58.415-07:00STREATHAM 15TH MARCH 2019
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Sometimes I really hate the Scots. There is a Scotsman and he is really drunk plus and/or possibly on coke. He has stopped using consonants and his heckles consists of merely vowels. Nobody can tell what he is on about. I could probably decode his noises if I wanted to, for I too am a Scottish. It is not really words just ambient Scottish sound. It is as though he occasionally wakes from his slumbers and chucks in something else before going back to sleep.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">He is not really a major problem. More like a grumbling appendix. He rumbles away during the other acts but I am aware he could become a flash point.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">When I take to the stage he very quickly pipes up when he finds that I am Scottish. I immediately tell him I wish to distance myself from him. That I want nothing to do with him. We have nothing in common. That we have no affinity whatsoever despite being born on the same piece of rock. I do it with wit and charm so it is a good icebreaker. I wish I can remember how I did it because it was really good. Funny but also setting out the ground rules, ingratiating myself with the rest of the audience, isolating the trouble maker and done with a light touch. I wish I could recreate that on stage again and also in real life where I could go about telling people who needed to be told to fuck off but in a charming fashion. Like a master politician or a socialite or something.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway however I fluked it the audience are on my side. So I already have more leeway. Then I do the gay town routine and the whole gig is flowing. it is in the ideal spot where they trust you and the audience are so elastic you can stretch them all over the place and you can get the next laugh with such economy of delivery, just little nudges and you don’t really need to over sell or push the delivery. It is probably as good as it gets for this size of crowd. It is also unfortunately as good as it gets.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">But I take a wrong decision about material. I do a routine about coming down from Scotland to London and having a chip of my shoulder. And although the routine is about me and I am the joke in it all, the Scotsman gets riled up by it and starts causing problems. He thinks its about him. And it really IS about him. He thinks I am having a go at him. And I really AM having a go at him. Why choose that routine? My subconscious has decided to take him to task<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that is why. Fair play to my subconscious and fair play to him - the headcase -<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>amidst all the alcohol and cocaine and regret and hatred in his addled mind<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>-<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>he is the only one in the room, including me, that has cut through the sub text and can see that I really am saying<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>‘Fuck You’ to him. His over sensitivity to social slights are working perfectly.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">So anyway he reacts to it and not in a good way. He thinks some gauntlet has been thrown down. And it has by the way. He starts becoming a problem. I find myself later thinking I shouldn’t have chosen that routine. But armed with fore knowledge would I really have acted any differently? I doubt it. I would probably have delighted in ramming the whole thing down his throat anyway. Who knows? He may have exploded on something else? Maybe nothing is ever my fault? That is also a possibility.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">There<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>are more exchanges with him. I always get the better of him. That is not a boast by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the way. It is my job and also he is really out of it and I am not. I should be getting the better of him. But every interruption damages the rhythm and exposes the artificiality of material. He is too far gone to know that I have beaten him anyway so he will always be back for more. Like the time the Zulus beat the British in some battle even although the Zulus didn’t have guns and The British did have guns and all because the Zulus were on hallucigenics and that stopped them from stopping when they got shot. Like that.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">There are other miscalculations. For example I am looking at the wrong person. I think the heckler is somebody else and I am directing my barb comments at the wrong person entirely. That in itself becomes “a bit”. By “a bit” I mean an improvised comedy routine around an occurrence during that gig. A happening or an event if you will. In the parlance “a bit” is a good funny bit.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway it is not the gig I would have envisaged but it is all cooking anyway. But suddenly he stands up and this changes the whole dynamic. And it is quite a small audience so the tension at potential conflict is always going to be quite large. I am sure he wants the toilet and not to hit me in the face but he looks so dazed. He is not sure where the toilet is or where backwards or forwards is. He rocks back and forth on his heel trying to focus, a thousand yard stare. I think the audience think his is limbering up for a right hook. But they don’t understand Scottish psycho body language. He is merely marshalling his resources for a toilet visit. All this is largely post gig conjecture of course. At the time I don’t really know what is going on. At the time I don’t initially realise he is standing at all. All I know is that the heckle put downs are no longer working and that they are no longer laughing at me and there is tension in the air. I think it is my fault. Have I gone too aggressive? Has my tone changed? I try to correct my tone but to no avail. And it could have been my fault maybe it wasn’t because he stood up. Who knows?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway he goes to the toilet and the tension abates and I do the rest of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the gig and it is good but it is bad because it could have been so much better judged by the start of the gig standards. They were in that elastic state where I could have taken them anywhere and know they will only go some places. So the end is good but it is not good.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-76211134483022494952019-03-19T07:39:00.000-07:002019-03-19T07:39:24.358-07:00NUNEATON - 21ST FEBRUARY 2019
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Don’t fall out with the audience before the show even starts: if you want my advice, thanks for asking. Over the years I have worked really hard on not judging audiences in advance.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I just try to think of them as a huge sea of neutrality. Not that it is always easy. It can be very difficult to withhold judgement from a group of people you have never met. Sometimes I have witnessed an audience being malicious to a previous act. Other times I recognise a familiar pattern of behaviour and, like a benign god or parent, I know where their behaviour is headed before they do. Sometimes my “gut instinct” tells me in advance that there is something up with them - this is the same gut instinct that led police to beating confessions out of innocent suspects in the 1970s. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But whatever the reason, no good can come of falling out with the audience in advance.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Tonight I am in a small village outside Nuneaton. It has one shop and I wish to buy some food from it for my pre show diner. The shop keeper refuses my transaction because I haven’t reached the £5<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>minimum for a card transaction. I explain the law has changed and that there is now no legal minimum so he can damn well serve me. He refuses. I quote the law back to him. I don’t know much about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the law but I do know that legally speaking I am as entitled as anyone to bandy it about. I don’t know for sure that the law has changed but the general consensus among people who I know in London is that it has. And also places in London would frankly let you debit card 2 pence and not even blink. So he better get with the project.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The stand off continues. One great advantage of doing stand up comedy is that you loose any sense of embarrassment whatsoever. You are prepared to push things to the absolute brink of social awkwardness and still not care.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Another customer enters the shop - of course he gets involved because this isn’t London and people don’t mind their own business. This local, of course, backs up the shop keeper, Insisting the law hasn’t changed. But who would know better? Me a man who lives in London where laws are actually made and has occasionally lunched in the Houses of Parliament or a man in a shop?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This customer assures me that he knows what he is talking about because, and I quote “I am a business man”. This argument has been obviously designed to massively get my goat. Trust me I am a shark, let me look after your swimming pool.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">He then makes a good point that the shopkeeper isn’t obliged to serve me and can decline my business. This is an excellent point and I don’t have a counter argument to it. And so I am forced to borrow cash off a fellow comedian to complete the transaction. I am not happy about this and everyone knows it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Later on at the gig the customer in the shop “the business man” is seated in the front row of the audience. Small world. Well it is when you live in a small world.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">He is surprised to see me.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Half an hour ago I was just a man in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>shop arguing about his inalienable rights and now I am a comedian. It is not often that audiences get to witness the off stage me ratcheting up tension in an everyday situation with a shop keeper. So I think this guy feels privileged to have seen the on and off stage Stephen Carlin.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So there is now a little conspiracy between the two of us because we both know but I never ever mention it. Perhaps I should do? There is a lot of comedy potential to this situation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But I decide to keep it secret because there is something very satisfying about this conspiracy of silence going on with one guy in the front row. It gives the whole performance an edge and he enjoys it all the more. If only I could just recreate that little individual conspiracy with each audience member individually it would really heighten the whole thing. Perhaps I need to have runs in with all of the audience individually prior to any show but this would be very time consuming.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Anyway I think the upshot of today is that there were no negative consequences to my actions and therefore I have not learned anything. I have neither evolved as an artist nor as a human being. In the future I have resolved to have more run ins with my shopkeepers or carry cash on me at all times. It is importantly to harness everything you have towards your stage act.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-12781075124468884512018-11-13T16:54:00.000-08:002018-11-13T16:54:29.468-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 23
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">SHOW 23 -25TH AUGUST 2018</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">If my show is an aeroplane and I am the pilot then I can still fly the damn thing but I must admit not necessarily as smoothly as a week ago. I may spill your drinks and give you a rough landing, we may have to turn on the seatbelt sign, but as long as the weather is fair then I will get you there in one piece. I say as long as the weather is fair, and if the weather is stormy then… who knows? Fortunately today the weather is fair so we will never know what would happen if it was stormy, perhaps it would bring out the best in me?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">But the amount of errors that are staring to creep in are building up at an alarming rate and that is only the ones I am aware of, God know what I am now failing to notice. There are moments today that I make mistakes that would be unacceptable in general conversation let alone a performance. Saying words<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in sentences the wrong way around rendering them technically bull shit. There is no smoothness at all, and at this stage of exhaustion I wonder of it is even something to strive for. Whether I should forget about that level of technical elan and stick to the basics. The audience are certainly up for it but the whole show shudders all over the place, at points getting big laughs when I accidentally do it right, slamming on the brakes when I screw something up, timing and performance I suspect now a shadow of their former self. It has a very jerky quality but I certainly act as if I know what I am doing. Perhaps I am finally entering my fat Elvis stage? Memory muscle kicking in but now essentially bereft of grace and skill, waiting to die on a bathroom floor. I wonder how far I could push it, how much I could run myself into the ground if I did this for another month? What would he show be like?</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">What do people notice anyway? Do they notice any of this? I have met me before so I know what I am capable of doing but what about other people? If they haven’t seen me before they may be unwittingly impressed, if they have never actually seen stand up they will probably think I am doing a good job, but as for people who have seen me what are they thinking? It is possible that I have been reduced to a Stephen Carlin tribute act now doing a homage to the Stephen Carlin of a week ago. “You should have seen him back in the day kid, about six days ago to be precise, he could choke on a raisin and still deliver a show.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I cannot be annoyed with myself I did my best, it is just that for the Stephen Carlin of last week his best would have been a lot better. I think the Stephen Carlin of a week ago could have made that the best show of the run.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">So as I stand at the back and say good bye to all my audience like demented cabin crew at the end of a flight. “Goodbye, goodbye, thanks for coming. Goodbye, thank you…” I hope they didn’t notice the bumpy landing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-67355750136812195152018-11-13T16:53:00.001-08:002018-11-13T16:53:03.275-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 20
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">SHOW 20 - 22ND AUGUST 2018</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I don’t know if I trust my body<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to do what I want it to do anymore. My mouth, my face, my legs. And I don’t know if I trust my sense organs, hearing, sight, to a lesser extent smell, to report accurate findings. So I am just doing the most excellent performance I can do in my head now -a genuinely barnstormer of a show, full of excellent rhythm, voice variations and command of the room - and praying it comes out like that in reality. But I am absolutely sane at this stage. That is the important thing. Last night I watched Tom Stade - an absolute masterclass in working a room. I do wonder if I should import some of these techniques especially when it is a small and reticent crowd. It is a small crowd for the third day in a row. They fill up from the back. There are not exactly full of beans. I choose to perform it as though they were really into it. The performance has a polished quality to it but I do wonder if I should bring in various characters from the audience? Set the groundwork for Millennials right at the end? Start playing them off against each other, making them protagonists in the narrative. Part of me thinks this is cheating. In some ways why give a small crowd a different show? They should get the same. “Hey guys this is an arena in my head. Imagine if this were full and also massive as fuck with loads of seats. Imagine that then ten people.” So that is one approach. The one I opt for. You are essentially getting the Stephen Carlin arena treatment there. Close up and not personal. Then there is what I could do but I don’t do. The “let’s admit this is small. And I’ll bespoke the fuck out of this.” To pander or not to pander? that is the question. I find it difficult to pick out individual members of the audience visually or even see if seats are full. The stage lighting has been adjusted and now blinds me. The only row I can see is the back row - so beware back row shrinking violets. And who asked for the lighting to be adjusted in the first place day two of fringe? That’s correct yours sincerely Stephen J Carlin. The point is, unless I actually step off the stage, I<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>will never actually be able to actually identify the individuals actually. So there is my excuse. I get into some dispute with an audience member about what constitutes Millennials, Generation Y, Generation Y plus, Generation Z. I think getting embroiled in an argument with a person in a small audience is the opposite of working a room. Anti-working a room. De building rapport. Anyway after the show he will approach me and confess he was wrong and I was right. He will also show me the internet evidence on his phone to prove I was right. See he has genuine Stephen Carlin crowd written all over him. A heckler who withdraws his heckle post show and provides footnotes to his own stupidity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">So the point is I don’t work the room and I don’t know if that is the right decision. I just don’t know that it is the wrong one either. I can tell nothing from today.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">In other news I bought a stupid regimental army hat today. You have to keep mixing it up and surprise yourself. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-30826626563451669572018-11-13T16:51:00.002-08:002018-11-13T16:51:20.618-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 22
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">SHOW 22 -24TH AUGUST 2018</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I once witnessed an ambulance lying on its side after a traffic accident crash. It had landed on the pavement amidst a load of signs and lampposts and phoneboxes but had miraculously manage to avoid hitting any of them. It looked an impossible feat. I kept replaying the crash in my head but I could never make the ambulance NOT hit the various paraphernalia on the way in. Its position seemed to defy the laws of physics. How the hell had it crashed like that and not smashed everything up?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It was a minor miracle you may say. Today I achieve a similar minor miracle in my show. I managed to crash a whole routine entirely in the midst of a great show. And how I do it, I don’t quite know. The audience are on board from the start. They are supportive, I am getting rolling laughs, everything is landing, I am relaxed, I am really milking the funny bits, I start finding better ways to perform the routines, I am using my face more, I am in the zone, I have found my rhythm, I am getting rounds of applause from bits that never get rounds of applause, basically I am having the gig of the run. Even earlier in the gig, when the audience stare in silence as I reference the film Momento with Guy Pearce and it is clear that none of them have heard of it, even then I make it into something. A sort of defiance against the odds of how-will-I-land-this-routine-when-nobody-gets-the-reference-but-I-try-through-sheer-arraogance-anyway and I do land it. Even the blemishes become something and add to the show and I have that secondary brain back today, the one that is strategising and working ahead and re-ordering and cutting and adding and laying the ground work for the future routines, that guy is back. It is is true that the ground work for Millennials isn’t actually going that well, the identifying different generations early on and threading them through the narrative, that isn’t going that well. I don’t mean it is going badly, it just isn’t going well in the sense of building anything. But honestly I am on such a high from the current routine going well, I don’t really notice any future problems. I don’t even have that good gig anxiety. The one where the gig is going so well from the start that you feel you can only screw it up from here on in and you spend the rest of the next hour tiptoeing across a highly polished floor carrying a priceless vase dreading the moment you will drop it. It is not one of those priceless vase gigs. There is still a certain messiness to the performance today and a certain tussle with the audience that gives it enough leeway. A certain robustness I would say that will never sink it. So I do not worry. I never worry in this whole gig. Then at around 45 minutes they just stop laughing and it is stark. It is at the start of “Beautiful Girl” and even the bits that get laughs in bad gigs don’t get laughs. It is the single worse reception of that routine in the run. And I don’t know what I do wrong. Maybe I mumbled a key part of the set up, perhaps I get the tone wrong, maybe I screw up the transition from the previous routine, possibly my energy is flagging? So I start running through my checklist and make sure articulation is OK, pace is good, voice is varied, nothing works. Whatever it was I was doing that was working before I am not doing it now. It is though somebody has suddenly flicked a switch and I am talking a foreign language. So that whole routine doesn’t land and that is about four minutes and I kind of guess that is it now for the gig. Because that is the second last routine. What has gone wrong? I honestly don’t know. But I get them back with the last routine “Millennials” I get them back, I have to work for it and build it up but I get them back. So the end is fine but it would have ended better without the cataclysm at “Beautiful Girl” inevitably some of the momentum goes out the gig and suddenly I look mortal. I don’t know how I managed to bomb one routine so utterly in the midst of a good gig, but I did. And it lay wrecked amongst the rest of the show which was largely un-effected.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">that rely on…</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">don’t have that for some reason…</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Through a perfect gig carrying a pristine vase across a highly polished floor. I am across of sectors today or as across them as you can be at this stage in the run…<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-61485934651935763312018-11-13T16:47:00.003-08:002018-11-13T16:47:56.417-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 19
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">SHOW 19 - 21ST AUGUST 2018</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Mmm. Not my favourite show today in fact my least favourite. Not the worst show but my least favourite - I use different measurements. I am feeling genuinely tired for the first time today. I have not slept well. I try to perk myself up with Starbucks coffee but I have a genuine weariness. The audience is small, they sit in all the extremities of the room. They have no energy. They sit at the back. They bring nothing. They have no chat. I can do without this shit at this stage in proceedings. I take my time to get to the microphone but they continue to applaud all the way to mic. The applause is sustained while lacking enthusiasm. Yesterday was like this but yesterday I had something, yesterday felt different. I can build nothing with this lot. I cannot corral them into anything. I cannot make them an audience. There is no momentum. They reset every time. So even when they like something the energy doesn’t carry. My set is just a load of bits “and here is a bit, and here is another bit and why don’t you try this bit on for size?” and why not just take them as bits instead of stringing them together in your head and fashioning a narrative. Where I can build a relationship and you can trust me to stretch it and go further. Let’s not do that. Where I can build tension and release it when you thought it was going one way and it resolves another way and that release gives laughter. Let’s not do any of that. Why don’t you pore over every clause like a lawyer. Break ever clause down piece by piece and examine it for acceptability. Let’s not suspend disbelief while we’re at it.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I am possibly too aggressive today with my audience directed comments for such a small crowd. There is one guy who walks out. He is tall and sinewy and bald like the head waiter in my local Indian restaurant in London. I resolve to never eat there again. Three young people arrive exactly as he leaves about 25 mins into the show. They bring a fresh energy and for about another 15 minutes it seems like we have a quorum, that it has reached tipping point and it will be OK. Then I loose them around ‘Gaytown’ I think they think I’m some reactionary. To be honest I find it difficult to land this, the most practiced of all the routines in the show, today. This is perhaps an indication that all is not well. I know how to do Millennials now to make it sound like an end but there is insufficient build to warrant an end. The tone is all wrong for millennials despite them being all millennials in the audience. They think I’m having a go at them. I AM having a go at them but not in the way they think.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Interesting listening to the tape it is not difficult to see why it didn’t build to anything. Delivery rushed and flat and lacking rhythm. But I could not hear this at the time. And this is exhaustion creeping in. I genuinely felt like I was performing it well and with energy. Not so. Yesterday I watched Daniel Simonsen. It was a masterclass in audience control. I applied none of it today. Will I never learn? My gig was one of those gigs that make you question your own existence. Afterwards I go to a Turkish barbers. A man shaves my face with an open razor. I think of the scene in Mississippi Burning. He is Gene Hackman and I am southern racist. Perhaps I die here.</span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-61285114689096174422018-11-13T16:46:00.001-08:002018-11-13T16:46:20.213-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 18
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
li.li1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
span.s2 {font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000}
span.Apple-tab-span {white-space:pre}
ol.ol1 {list-style-type: decimal}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">SHOW 18 - 20<span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>TH AUGUST</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I have no objective truth to report today. Unfortunately I did not record this show for posterity and I am therefore forced to rely on my memory.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If I have learned one thing from this fringe it is that I am not a reliable witness to my own shows. The comparison between the recording of a gig and how it went in my head is quite startling. I am capable of inventing laughter that never occurred, eradicating that which did, imagining good delivery, faking antagonism, contriving energy and fabricating tiredness. Never call me as a witness in court.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">So first of all the facts</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">The Facts</span></b></span></div>
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1">It is the smallest crowd I have had.</span></span></li>
<li class="li1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1">They sit in the audience in four distinct camps.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></li>
<li class="li1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1">I end on ‘Millennials’</span></span></li>
<li class="li1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1">I finish five minutes early.</span></span></li>
<li class="li1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1">I get more in my bucket per capita than any other day of the run.</span></span></li>
<li class="li1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1">I swear too much today</span></span></li>
</ol>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">As I See It</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The audience are small and have spread themselves out to dilute any possible atmosphere. I can see that I have my work cut out. This is going to be one of those days where I will have to bring everything to the table, supply all the energy. I haven’t had one like this, this year and I have to dig into my memory banks (which are of course inaccurate). At the back of my mind, I doubt this is possible to sustain an hour. But the small crowd takes the pressure off in a way and also put it back on in a different kind of way.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The central hub of the audience includes two men (a father and son as I will find out later) the elder of whom (the father) has a weird laugh which sounds like a sigh. I assume during the gig that he doesn’t like the show and that he will inevitably leave at some point. He never leaves. Afterwards he<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>talks animatedly about how much he enjoyed the show and how I am a “true professional unlike John Cleese” - NB John Cleese has earned way more than me.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I possibly don’t let it breath and push it a bit. I also try to hook everybody in. Some of the bankers don’t land. ‘Life is a waste’, the Monarchy bit of ‘Attenborough’ and bits of ‘Gay town’. I move Animals up front today and I can’t say it benefits it. The BBC stuff gets more agreement than laughter. I am constantly aware of trying to bring the audience in and meld them into a single unit.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I am also planting seeds early on for ‘Millennials’<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>dividing up the audience into suitable demographics, imposing ages on people to suit the material, apparently playing different bits of material for different members of an audience. Claiming certain people in the audience agree with what I am saying, imposing disagreement on others. I really am playing hard and fast with the reality of situation to make them what I need them to be. I am more in charge of them today. Because I feel I have to be.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">It is not really until ‘Better than you’ (today the penultimate routine) that I can feel the audience come together and starting to tip in my favour. Then I do the best ‘Millennials’ yet. I really get emotionally involved in routine, at times pleading with them, berating them, praising them. I really direct it at individual members of the audience and I feel like a rabble rouser at a union meeting at the docks. The show really crescendos at the end and is the best end to this show that I have performed this run.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Speculation</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I rushed it? Probably as I finished early. Shortest show yet. I had an attitude today that there was no pressure but I would need to work hard. I should perhaps role out that attitude to all my gigs.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-64701124666224646822018-11-13T16:44:00.004-08:002018-11-13T16:44:55.744-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 17<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
li.li1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
span.s2 {font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000}
ol.ol1 {list-style-type: decimal}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">SHOW 17: 19TH AUGUST</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The couple in the front row look at me like they want me to die in a ditch. He is slightly more benevolent looking. He looks like he only wants me to die of natural causes in a ditch, whereas she looks like she wants me to be actively murdered in a ditch. I realise I have to get him on side first. I mis-identify a laugh in the third row as the laugh of a friend of mine. No such friend at the gig exists. Somebody has stolen her laugh. I perhaps play to that friend of mine too much trying to build the laughs from her. Accidentally cultivating a genuine member of the audience by mistake. It is all a bit hit and miss in the early stages of the show. I get the, loose them, get the, back. Empathy doesn’t build. I think my timings is all over the place. ‘Life is a waste’ is a particular slog. I think I will permanently loose them at ‘Where is Hitler’. It is ridiculous. Who doesn’t like Hitler anecdotes?</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">At around the 10 minute mark I am sweating profusely. The room is full and perhaps particularly humid but the sweat is lashing off my forehead. Perhaps I am working too hard but sweating is not a good look. At around 15 minutes I accidentally inhale a seed. I should explain I ate a <i>Pret a Manger</i> muesli thing before the show. It contained seeds. One was lodged in a molar without my knowledge. I take a large intake of breath and the seed flies into my throat and sticks there. I think it is a pumpkin seed but it maybe a sunflower one. For the next 10 minutes it wreaks havoc with my timing. I have this niggling tickle and it presents itself at the wrong moment when I am saying key words. I drink loads of water at this point to try and shift the seed. It does shift the seed but into a worse position in my throat. Now I have developed a cough that presents itself at inopportune moments. Occasionally I will attempt a strategic cough between jokes to try to cough on my terms and leave an interruption free minute ahead for routines.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This doesn’t really work. The cough keeps breaking for cover.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I drink more water. It still doesn’t shift it. The good news is that the sweating situation has stabilised. I have quaffed so much water that it has cooled me down. By ‘Gaytown’ lines are being sabotaged to the cough. It has now become a hacking cough. Actuality during ‘Hitler left wing/right wing’ the cough almost makes me pace it better but by the end of it my voice is starting to go. I stop and tell them what has happened. It helps break the ice. It turns out the woman in the second row is a doctor, I miss diagnose her for a man, more hilarity. The interaction builds goodwill and lets me reset a bit. I genuinely go blank at this moment for the first time this run. I keep wanting to go into ‘millennials’ but I know this isn’t the right bit, so I keep stalling, blaming the cough to buy me more thinking time. This also builds jeopardy. By now the cough has genuinely gone. Now that it’s become a feature. I now have to fake the cough until I remember that is ‘Better than you’ I can now play the German doctor in the routine off against the real doctor in the audience.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I worked on the end of Animals prior to the show and it is now really going in a direction I want. I end on it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">My favourite show of the run, not the best, but more of an event than any previous one. More of a sense of bespoke show for them (the audience) and starting to make the end into something. The second best bucket collection of the fringe. And also several walks outs but also walk ins so I am really starting to filter these fuckers (my audience).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The die in a ditch couple still look at me like they want me to die in a ditch. They put in £1.50 in between them. They still want me to die in a ditch.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I think I might fake a medical emergency in the future to help build rapport.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Lessons:</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1">I need to play with this show more. So when I get traction on a section just keep pushing it to see how far I can go.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></li>
<li class="li1"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1">Pretend the audience are your friend even when they aren’t.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></li>
</ol>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-65268758313251037792018-11-13T16:43:00.001-08:002018-11-13T16:43:14.620-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 16
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">SHOW 16: 18TH AUGUST</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Before Show</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The sheer incompetence of Edinburgh baristas continues to impress me. Last week I was served by a man who admitted that he had little-to-no training, apologised in advance saying that the coffee would “probably be shit” and deliberately undercharged me by way of prior in-built compensation. He now stands as a beacon to the halcyon days of customer service. We will never see his like again. By week three the quality of service has now gone off a cliff edge. The woman serving me today is so slow it has become performance art. I hang about, kind of intrigued to see if she will ever actually serve me. There is something hypnotic in her slowness. My potential coffee recedes further off into the distance. She is confused by how much change I am owed (25 pence) and how this will be composed (one twenty pence piece and one five pence piece). She hands over the coffee but looks traumatised. I finally get a coffee 20 minutes before the show but as I have to set up the room I don’t have much time to imbibe any coffee until about five minutes to go.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">When I open the house there is an audience stampede like the opening of the January sales. The rush physically forces me back into the room. I would like to think that this signifies a craze to get hold of genuine Stephen Carlin at discounted prices but I suspected the Saturday madness has led to a breakdown in queue discipline. A couple bring in a toddler in a pushchair. I explain it is probably not suitable for their kid. They insist on staying even as I tell them I am worried I will bend their child’s mind. They look worried but stay out of defiance.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">During Show</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">A double edged sword of a gig. A very full room but necessarily the ideal audience. The room is fuller than it ever has been. People are standing. It no doubt exceeds fire regulations. There is little natural energy in the room. The audience look normal enough but they don’t feel normal. They are not particularly responsive off the top. It is hot. They may be boozed up. They may not be comedy regulars. It may be me. I perhaps should have done crowd work at the start. But this would be against my self imposed rule and I refrain from doing so. I hope they will pick as I go on but they feel sluggish today.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I start sweating at around ten minute mark, I think it is the heat and not pressure.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I really feel the caffeine kick in at about the 15 minutes mark. I suddenly feel sharper, more focused, taller, more purposeful, the delivery sounds sharper but perhaps the caffeine has done something to my ears?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I chop and change orders today to try to get momentum going but it doesn’t make much difference.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">There are moments when I pull the delivery back and it gets a little traction but I am also worried that taking it down too much will cause it to dwindle. There are times when I wait for them and they come but by God they are so slow, they are like the girl serving me coffee, I could wait all day for them. What is the answer?</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I can’t really pick it up today. They are with me to the end, except the people who walk out at the back and then start chatting in the adjoining room.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I should have ended on Animals today. I do a truncated form of Vegetarians after it but why I do this we do not know.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: small;">After Show</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I am control today but don’t enjoy it much. I think I lean in too much today, go after them too much, over perform, try to inject too much energy. I should have sat back more, took longer, lowered my energy, let them come to me. It may not have worked but at least I could have experimented on them. From now on I think I am going to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>use difficult audiences for guinea pigs. If they are not going to enjoy it I may as well get useful data out of them that I can use on better future audiences.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-21468869859296910912018-11-13T16:41:00.001-08:002018-11-13T16:41:07.244-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 15
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">SHOW 15: 17TH AUGUST</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Before Show.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I must be due a bad one. Surely the odds are on it happening. The sheer stupidity of the whole enterprise - trying to keep a room full of strangers entertained for an hour with nothing but words and faces - comes home to me now. Perhaps it will just go badly tonight? And I feel very relaxed before the show too with this thought. There is no steeling myself or trying to get myself in the zone or psyching myself up. Just pure unadulterated fatalism. I assume that either it will or will not flow when the time comes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I have decided to stick to the revised running order from last night. As I feel it deserves<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">During Show</span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The room is full save for three seats at the front. The empty seats are off to one side.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The <i>fengshui</i> is so bad. It is just so awful it really bugs me. There is an older couple, next to the gap, who seem like seasoned theatre types. There is a grand austerity about them, a distilled judgementalness. The stage light catches their faces and they look like studio portraits, peering up in black and white and staring all still at me like they want a part in King Lear. I walk on very natural and less performed than usual. The reception is warm but low energy at this stage. I usually put the mic stand to my left, I cannot tonight for some reason. There is some blockage near the stage, some person, or piece of furniture, or some thing in the way, I cannot remember. I have to stick the mic stand to my right and I am not really thinking about what I am going to say too much but will run into my opening gambit and see what happens.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I just think slow at this stage. I think slow and don’t rush it and I often do rush it when I listen back to the tape. And my concentration is not great at the start, I am not remembering it easily and just saying the wrong things at times. I actually mess up a punchline during ‘More Friendly Than I Look’ to say the opposite of what I mean substituting “more” for “less” thus actually making literally no sense and still landing the punchline. The opening minutes are clunky but landing the punchlines. After about 5-7 minutes a young couple come in who fill up the empty chairs and this allows me to chat to them a bit and just break the ice that bit more and they are up for it and fun. I feel really relaxed in the space but also not relaxed, also like a tiger stuck in a small zoo. Stage too small.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">First round of applause at ‘Life is a Waste’ get some bits of this in the wrong order but actually this doesn’t matter. ‘Sex Education’ comes too early before ‘Where is Hitler’ but maybe that is a better order. I think by now I know this is going to be the best gig of the run, this will only be a gig I can throw away from here. I really enjoy ‘Better than you’ tonight. I just seem to hit the tone of it right off the top and I am constantly thinking what am I trying to say to the audience? The show sometimes takes a hit here because if the tone is wrong they think I am a prick. But I am realising how much this material relies on getting the tone right.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From here on in I am plagued by the notion that I am ahead of where I should be and have missed a section. But this is just a trick of the mind brought on by endless changing of order.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I enjoy “Millennials’ most of all and really playing off the audience today. Making it about them and they take it. It is only here that my performance is correct, smooth and controlled and natural but now I worry that I am only doing this correct because my energy levels are about to plummeting through the floor.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The energy starts to drop through “Animals’ and I am not quite landing the punchline. But I get a round of applause at the very end!! I could have ended here. But I go into ‘Gay Town’ and I worry that it doesn’t quite build as it does if places at earlier point. It goes well and ends strong but I wonder if it would do so well on a tougher day and whether I should end on this.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">After Show.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Some great individual moments of playful silliness tonight. Felt like when you are in a club and they are into it and you can play about with a well honed bit of material. Felt like that at times and that feeling surprised me because I am discovering the material that I have written and finding out what I actually think about it and I am often surprised by what my routines are actually about. They are not<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The warmest reception I have had from the audience. The highest bucket of the run. Everyone insists on shaking my hand. A fringe anorak insists on telling me how many shows he has seen during this fringe and how relatively good my show is to the mean average.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-75964379925462565992018-11-13T16:39:00.002-08:002018-11-13T16:39:36.541-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 14<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 14: 16TH AUGUST</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">“A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Winston Churchill once famously said of this Edinburgh show. The more familiar I get with this show, the more it gets away from me. The more I work out what it is about the more I don’t know. Time seems to have a mind of its own too. It doesn’t matter what cuts or alterations I affect the show always comes in at the same time. So having cut out ‘Vegetarian’ since yesterday, the show is now exactly the same length as it was before. Perhaps I could cut out all the routines and it would still be an hour long?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It seems to ebb and flow to its own rhythm.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I am noticing that I have a greater ability to get momentum going this year but not necessarily to maintain that momentum for the entirety of the show. I can also adjust delivery earlier on and correct mistakes although later on this would seem to evade me. This gets annoying<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>at around the 45 minutes mark. It is a cliche that the audience dips at this time but that is probably bollocks as far as I am concerned. It is more likely that the comedian dips at this point. So perhaps it is pointless to play around with<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the structure and instead focus on the performance. Having jostled round the order as per yesterdays blog the show had the same shape and energy. This is galling because today I ended on what I regarded as the strongest routine “Gaytown’ but to muted response. I don’t know why this is? It is either the energy of performance is dropping or they are getting confused with the narrative of material or I am alienating them at some point. Possibly ‘Millennials’ which went well and was particularly appreciated by millennials but I certain routines changed the dynamic. Actually ‘Better than you’ maybe the crux of the issue? It changes my relationship vis-a-vis the audience in some way. There is a glorious conceited arrogance to it that naturally I am in favour of but perhaps there is not enough of a nod to humility in it? The whole show seems to be more “emotionally dependent” this year in terms of landing the routines. Of getting into them with the right emotion, of pitching it to that particular audience and of building it to a crescendo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">To be fair some of the transitions were botched as I was doing them for the first time ever today and this perhaps hit the energy too.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Still enjoying this show and it certainly hasn’t got stuck in a rut. Everyday there feels like some else to fight for. I met somebody who told me I was the “freshest faced comedian “ he had met at the fringe today. How many faces has he seen? I do have a certain buoyancy and love of this show coupled with a ongoing frustration with it. It has a certain irascible quality. I think back to the original order tomorrow then.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-90212472960721377212018-11-13T16:38:00.002-08:002018-11-13T16:38:20.153-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 13
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 13: 15TH AUGUST<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Before Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Edinburgh Fringe Part 2: What a difference one day off makes. In the comedy boot camp that is the Edinburgh Fringe, one day off feels like a fortnight off in the real world. I am already hazy about what my show is, vague about what I am supposed to say. I do not overly worry myself with this for I realise it is a trick of the mind. I focus on facial and vocal exercises before the show. I do stupid voices, I try to maintain my silly, I experiment with different accents during the sound check. I plan to introduce myself in a silly voice from the off stage mic. I veto this idea because about one in ten times I accidentally lapse into a Chinese accent and that would be to give a false impression of the show.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>During Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The first half of the show largely goes well, not without it blemishes but overall, it has a momentum up to ‘Life is a Waste’. Strangely ‘Gay Town’ does not land as well today and this has been the show banker really. It works but it is a struggle to keep them on board. I am on uneven ground throughout. It keeps me in the moment, with me constantly trying to feel it out, but I would prefer if they just excepted it was good - it would do wonders for my stress levels.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Quite a young crowd today though so they may not be as sure where I am going with it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">‘Hitler Left wing Right Wing’ goes well, the cleanest version of it so far in terms of clarity. Millennials goes well - especially with the millennials in the audience strangely enough. And this is the problem with this generation. Even when you are lambasting them, they are so self-aware and well-adjusted that they agree with your criticism in an open-minded fashion. It is enough to make you sick. Strangely it is the older lot, the Baby Boomers, who largely emerge scot free from this broadside - other than me occasionally wishing they were all dead - who get offended! I can’t even insult people when I wish to and still insult people when I don’t want to!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">‘Better than You’ is the start of the decline and the early promises of the gig never quite recovers from it. ‘Animals’ has its moments but the energy has largely gone: either in me or the audience. ‘Vegetarians’ is a anticlimax at the end.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I feel I have left the audience more confused today than ever before- an achievement of sorts. They feel that the ending was not an ending. They are coming up to me after the show to offer me explanations. Blaming the heat of the room, blaming the time of day “It would be better if people were drunk”. They clearly know something wasn’t right but strangely aren’t blaming me. Is this progress? Did I look so utterly in command today that anything going awry couldn’t have possibly been my fault? Why has it taken me so long to develop this skill? And how can I use this ability in other areas of my life? Questions, questions.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>After Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">At last. I now know how to do this show. I have been doing it in the wrong order all along! If you have already seen this show come back and see it again. I have fixed it in my head now. It should be LIFE IS A WASTE, BETTER THAN YOU, BEAUTIFUL GIRL, MILLENNIALS, HAVING A HARD TIME, ANIMALS and finish on GAY TOWN. Cut VEGETARIAN altogether. This doesn’t really fit in with the show and with if left in the whole show takes up the full hour and gives me no time to play. I want to play with it more specifically at UFOs, ANIMALS HAVING A HARD TIME, ANTHROPOMORPHISING.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I now see a lot of possibilities for this show heading into the second half of the run. Excited. Looking forward to doing it tomorrow. Will update further then. Over and out.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-80983124311561835062018-11-13T06:08:00.001-08:002018-11-13T06:08:22.338-08:00THE OPINIONATER: DAY OFF
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>DAY OFF 14TH AUGUST</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">No show today. I am exactly half way through the run. Twelve shows done, twelve shows to go. I am very happy with the progress of the show in the first half of the run. The material is largely the same as the first show. Some routines have been dropped, some have been inserted, some have been invented, some have been truncated, some have been lengthened, punchlines have been added, punchlines have been cut. What has changed most is my knowledge of the show, not just knowing the words, but knowing what the routines are actually about and how I can pitch the performance for maximum effect. The last week has largely been about melding it into a “show” rather than a series of routines. Getting the right emotion going into each routine has been important. That I seriously thought about quitting after show number 5 now seems far away and highly ridiculous but it was heartfelt at the time.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So I am very excited about the potential of the show in the next 12 days, where I can take it next, how I can develop it and how I can push myself. This is balanced against the knowledge of finite energy. My concentration was already starting to fray in yesterdays show, so I hope after today’s break I can be back on top of my game. But ultimately as the fringe heads into the last week, energy levels will start to suffer and it will be difficult to stay on top of every facet of performance.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The best routines are ‘Gay town’ and ‘Life is a Waste’ and if I could get everything up to that level that would make it quite a show.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It may seem obvious but I constantly have to remind myself that every show is a different audience. The audience doesn’t have knowledge of the previous shows. The walls of the room don’t have any memory either<b>.</b> Every night I start again from scratch with a different bunch of people and every night I build something new. Every night I am dealt a different hand. Some audiences just have more potential than others, some have lower energy, are less elastic in terms of trust and some are just less into what I do than others. The fact that I perform in the same physical space for a month creates the illusion of linearity but there is no linearity between the shows other than my gaining in experience every night. So I have to do the best with the unique circumstances of every single night. I don’t think I <i>really</i> understood that before.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That has also taken pressure off me. I used to think of it more in terms of sitting an examine every day and if you passed it your reward was to come back and sit a different exam paper the next day and so on for a month. I think my new way of looking at it is better. I also believe I am more mentally unstable at this fringe than in previous fringes (since 2007) and this may/may not be adding to the performance. In my defence I think everyone is going crazy this year. Today in west Edinburgh I got into a George Costanza type stand-off when I refused to move my car to let a woman reverse her car. My car was parked properly and she had adequate room to get out so I didn’t feel obliged to move. Her husband didn’t see it that way. Needless to say the whole thing escalated. I would usually have been on stage at the time. Just saying.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-77803898552905326522018-11-13T06:06:00.001-08:002018-11-13T06:06:36.327-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 12
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">SHOW 12: 13TH AUGUST<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Before Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have a small spot by the edge of my nostril. It is imperceptible to audiences. There is nothing I can do about it. It is just there. I can feel it’s presence all the time. I have lost my rail travel card I attempt to get a replacement at the train station. It takes over thirty minutes of looking up computers and filling in forms by the ticket office bod. God I love a bit of bureaucracy. It is like communist Russia.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I arrive at the venue while the previous show is still on. A father and son are so keen to come to see me that they try and enter while the previous show is still running.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It does look like it will be a small audience today. Only four people in the front row (including the father and son). Then a group of four come and occupy the very back row. They are so back row they are almost out of the room. It is a stupid choice of seat given the space available. I envisage playing to an audience with only a back and front row and nothing in between. There is something comical about that prospect. I ask them to move forward they decline. They are idiots.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">With five minutes to go the audience fills up. My dream/dread of a front row/back row scenario is avoided.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>During Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It is evident from early on that (a) the audience are onside (b) it will all be OK (c) that I am a bit all over the place. I have passed a certain level of tiredness akin to drink or drug intoxication. My day off is tomorrow and perhaps I am slacking off as I approach half time. I feel intoxicated on stage. Perhaps this is how Doug Stanhope feels all the time? Maybe I should try actually being drunk on stage? Trouble is I actually am sober so I just notice all the blemishes. Diction is bad today. Articulation is not clear. Volume control is either dead loud or quiet. Not landing the end of routines. There are a few individual moments where I deliver certain individual bits better than I have done before. This invariably happens when I am able to inject the appropriate emotion. Can’t think what they were off hand but I remember thinking at bits “Oh that was good. Remember what that bit was and how you done it” - I can’t.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Animals - I am not happy with this routine in general and specifically not today. Bad, bad bad!!! I really feel I was testing their patience at this juncture.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Feel I am forcing it a bit today. I should have sit back more. Actually when I ease off the gas it builds the energy. This happens at Vegetarians right at the end. I pace it right and the energy builds effortlessly which is better than me knocking my pan in for less.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>After Show</b>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Another very enjoyable show today but a less perfect performance than yesterday. Mid-Edinburgh tiredness was starting to creep in. I think the audience were willing me to be better than I was. I have a day off tomorrow. I could do with it. I couldn’t quite gauge myself today and as a result the performance was erratic. Constantly overshooting or undershooting where I wanted to be. I couldn’t make myself do what I wanted to do. A spirited performance and one hopefully tailored to this audience, to be admired more for its <i>joie de vivre</i> than its technical brilliance. I enjoyed it though. It felt like I was wrestling with a beast. The show had a life of its own. I couldn’t tame it. I like that. I don’t think it is meant to be that way though.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-23286120790702798762018-11-13T06:04:00.001-08:002018-11-13T06:04:46.779-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 11
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 11: 12TH AUGUST</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Before Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I nailed it today so nobody will want to read this. For those who enjoy a train wreck look away now.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am genuinely looking forward to the show beforehand and I am very much calm. A wet rainy day in Edinburgh. The audience file in subdued and not talking much. I do not expected a high energy crowd. A drunken man is standing at the bar waiting to be served. I tell him I will wait until<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>he is seated before starting. He takes too long to get served. I renege on my promise. I start without him despite the fact that he seems utterly incapable of entering an audience without causing a disruption. He will disrupt on my terms rather than be late on his. Something like that?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>During Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Despite feeling tired and lacklustre prior to the show the energy is flowing as soon as I take to the stage. Everything seems to click. The rhythm comes natural, all the lines fall at my feet, I land everything, I know how to play the room, it feels easy and so familiar, like I have been doing this set for a 100 years. It is fun, I have hit it off with the audience. The momentum seems inevitable. The only glitch comes around Rebound - The Heating section. It doesn’t work and ruptures the energy. I will cut it tomorrow. It is easy to get the energy back but why have a blip in the first place? Even at this early stage I can sense potential storm clouds on the horizon. The drunken man from the bar has made it into the room without causing a disturbance but he doesn’t intend to sit without causing a disturbance. He is just so excited to be here. His enthusiasm bubbles over and he cannot keep his mouth shut. He has been rumbling away since the early minutes of the gig but now his distant storm clouds are heading in my direction.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There are occasional outbreaks of heckles.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I try putting him down quickly and keep going, I am anxious not to interrupt the rhythm, not to give him space too expand, anxious not to give him the oxygen of publicity. But he remains unresolved and I am starting to glance the ghost of comedy gig future. I can see a good gig being wrecked by a persistent irritant. At around 15 minutes in I realise I will have to grasp the nettle. I think it is around ‘Better Than You’ I have to slam him fairly hard to try and put him to bed. It is overly harsh, and I take a hit in the short term as the audience draws back, but I also know that it has to be done. He walks out briefly, comes in at a different section,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>shouting his head off that he “likes me” but the aggression is building. I am telling him he can leave. It is a very typical sort of Scottish argument. Two people who essentially are agreeing but end up at drunken logger heads. “we were best mates and now we are nearly fighting and I don’t know what has happened” This has happened to me a million times in Scotland and not usually during comedy gigs. but calling out the situation on the nose seems to lance the boil and he is good as gold after that. With hindsight this is such a miniature storm in a very small cup of tea that it is almost barely worth mentioning it now. But I can only say that it seemed significant at the time because I also know it could have gone very differently. It could have become a thing. The rest of the gig is a dream. I don’t think I will have a better one in the run. I am so in the zone that I instinctively know how to play it. This increases the laughter which buys me more thinking time. I have the luxury of selecting which way I want to delivery the next line. It is a lot of fun. Everything is gelling. I forget ‘Hitler Left/Right wing’ totally but I hardly have time for it anyway. I pitch the tone of Millennials well but I am genuinely feeling out as I go and I have built enough of a bond with the audience to play with them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I check my watch after Beautiful Girl and it is 3.55pm. I should have ended it there - the show. But I try and cram Animals into the remaining time. This is perhaps the only real disappointment of the show. I am aware of the limited time and I think I rush it. I run through it, I do not savour each section. I cut Vegetarian completely, I don’t even do it and I still over run by 5 minutes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>After Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The best show of the run. It got more and more fun as it went on and that spurred me onto a better performance. Like all good sets it all slowed down while going really fast. Each minute decision could be taken in the comfort of loads of thinking time but overall the show sped by. There was a clarity to my thinking and I seemed to execute decisions accurately.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It was all so effortless at the time but it now leaves me shattered. The show feels unrecognisable from a week ago. The drunken guy turns out to be my biggest fan. He wants a selfie. Perhaps I misjudged him/the situation/ all hecklers in the history of my act?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-4583697270423570392018-11-13T06:02:00.001-08:002018-11-13T06:02:27.144-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 10
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 10: 11TH AUGUST</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Absolute mayhem before the show. Over crowding.Too many people descending on Espionage. Over enthusiasm to get to my show. People coming into my room while the previous show is still on. A breakdown in queue discipline. The lack of front of house staff is really telling for once. I arrive some 20 minutes before my show is due to start. “You’re early” quips a man who is bound for my show. Is he being sarcastic? I don’t know what he means by that. Whether it is some veiled threat or he sincerely thinks I am early?</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Despite the chaos the crowd file in in an orderly fashion and everyone is completely seated by kick off time 3pm. There are no stragglers at the bar. This is a first. I can start dead on 3pm for the first time in history. A hum of anticipation for the audience and we’re off.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The opening moments are subdued and I wonder if I have misgauged it. About 30 seconds in I realise the TV monitors have been left on from the previous show. They are showing a band of coloured vertical stripes. There is no moving picture. I don’t know how much they distract the audience but they certainly distract me. They also illuminate the audience more significantly than usual. I decide to leave the stage and switch them off. This is a risky strategy. They don’t trust me yet and this will look flakey but the alternative seems worse. If I leave them on any subsequent little thing that doesn’t go my way will then get blamed on the TV monitors and my decision to leave them on. My peace of mind is more important than a slick start. So I just announce that I am leaving the stage to switch off the monitors. I re-announce myself with the off stage mic and this seems to reboot the gig in a more positive direction.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am starting to feel the command of the room more and more now, and I am able to ‘ram the show down the throats of a skeptical audience’ if need be. Today seems like such a day. There is very much a feeling of ‘this is what you’re getting so you may as well like it’. That is just as well because they are not the most raucous of crowds and I don’t even get them with ‘Life is a waste’ It is not until ‘Gay Town’ that I get the first really big laugh of the show, but even in the second half of this routine it falls away and I am wondering what the hell is up with them. Are they really a weekend mainstream crowd or am I getting so frazzled, even at this relatively early juncture, that I am failing to land routines all over the place.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">When they do go for something the laughs are big - testament to the large size of the audience. When that happens I am taken aback by their goodwill and energy. Mostly though it is ploughing on. Impossible to get rolls or momentum.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I mismanage every single build in the show. Can’t really play with them or push an idea. Difficult to play them off against each other. I think I over perform (in terms of energy, trying too hard). They go for bits but can easily tire of an idea. Feels very scatter gun but also my confidence in the show feels unrecognisable from even 5 days ago. So much better now.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">However the punchline at the end of ‘Life is a waste’ works now and that is because I drop that line in earlier in the routine. I realise that this whole routine has to be pushed by my anger at the ex girlfriend and what she has said to me. So it isn’t just a jumping off point, it is a theme I return to throughout the routine to ramp up my resentment and drive the whole thing through. This will need more thorough rework. Ah more work!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">“David Attenborough encapsulates the best of British” this doesn’t work today. Mainly an English crowd and I think they think it is some calculated slight against the English rather than an absurd idea that the best example of a thing is a thing that doesn’t contain the characteristics of the thing. This is a matter of tone - like millennials.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Seemed like show went backwards today overall. Some people being very generous with donations. I think a minority enjoyed it very much but I didn’t have a quorum. I felt very even after the show neither elated nor downcast. That perhaps sums up the gig.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-20277388754641984132018-11-13T06:01:00.001-08:002018-11-13T06:01:03.558-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 9
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 9: 10TH AUGUST<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Before Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have an open sore on my face that isn’t healing.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have reworked ‘Rebound’ today</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I realise I am having to de abstract the material, gradually personalising it more and putting myself at the centre of it. Trying to make it sillier and more playful.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Before the show, a woman tries to convince me that I may have ADHD. I have never met her before. I am sort of sitting not doing anything. I am not doing anything ADHDish.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>During Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Today’s show is like wading through a thick broth of goodwill: warm, nourishing, wholesome but essentially slow and laden. A very pleasant trudge up hill to a place that looks very similar to the place you started at.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">As they file in the audience seem to be very theatre for a Friday afternoon but also a bit boozy and chatty - invariably a good sign.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There is a very good mood in the room as I take to the stage (there is possibly only a good mood in my brain who knows?) it feels like a proper fringe crowd- whatever the hell that is.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There is a sluggish benevolence in the room right from the off, and though it takes on different forms throughout the show, that essential mixture of supportive/warmth/engaged/low energy never shifts. I never really work them out. Try as I might I can never move them into a higher gear for long. I try slowing the pace, speeding up the pace, making the delivery more naturalistic, taking it more heightened. It never works for long. Everything does/doesn’t work. They always fall back into their groove. Maybe they are drunk, maybe they are hot, maybe they are foreign, maybe thats the way they are, maybe it is me, maybe this is them at max? They laugh in odd places too. Often enjoying set ups more than punchlines. Often cooking nicely to fall way at the climax. The stronger routines don’t necessarily get the most and yet other lines that I have struggled to make work in this run get their best response today. It is nigh on impossible to tell them where to laugh. They seem to have their own ideas of what is funny. Don’t get me wrong I would happily take this audience any day of the fringe but there is never going to be fireworks. In some ways I cannot believe an audience this on board are so belligerent about being taken to the next level. At one point I convinced myself it must be too hot. Even as a woman pulls on a jumper to protect herself from the chill of the air condition so I psychosomatically break out in a sweat at the fictional heat.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Occasionally I do manage to punch through and raise the whole energy and it threatens to catch fire but this is just a mirage it doesn’t last. This usually happens where I am adlibbing or doing a newer bit, so something less polished. So perhaps my rhythm is off in some way?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Lots of eye contact today, lots of smiles from the audience, nobody leaves. I command the room, it really feels like my own, it feels like I can do what I want. I take my time (I over run by 5 minutes tut tut), the show goes fast (good sign). Probably the first time I forget nothing. Save for a new bit I worked on today but that is too new to really count.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>After Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A sustained round of applause at the end and a few whoops and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>cheers. Quite a high rate of overseas people in the audience so perhaps language issues? I keep thinking I wasn’t maximising the potential but maybe that was the potential. They seemed satisfied and generous bucket.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-89079912808441656872018-11-13T05:59:00.000-08:002018-11-13T05:59:02.094-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 8
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 8: 9TH AUGUST</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Before Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am starting to understand how to rewire this show to make it better.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Starting to understand what certain routines are actually about and how I can push them further and the emotion in performance I can use to achieve that.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So ‘Beautiful Girl’ is the one that pops into my head today. I have been aware since last week that it is missing a certain element but today finally the mists are clearing. I already say that “at my best that is the real me” I now realise I have to say that “at her worst that is the real her” and that me at my best and her at her worst represents some sort of authentic measure of reality. I have to use this to propel my resentment further and make myself more ridiculous. This routine lies quite far into the show - at about 45 minutes, so I am excited all the way on the lead up to the 45 minute mark for the opportunity to try out my new idea.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>During Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Today is the first gig I have genuinely enjoyed. There is a good size audience and they seem open to ideas if not exactly high energy. I seem to manifest some genuine excitement from the off stage mic for once, so when I arrive on stage they greet me like they’ve heard of me. I milk the round of applause. I can tell they are unsure about me. There is strong support in the third row but otherwise they are a bit wait and see. I mismanage a number of transitions in the early stages of the show and this gives it a generally clunky quality, effecting the build. But I am enjoying the show and these fluffs don’t bother me. My enthusiasm carries me through these early difficulties and I can sense that I am reeling them in and can feel that I am building other pockets of enthusiasm.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It is not until “Better than you’ that they really start to trust me and while ‘Where is Hitler’ doesn’t get big laughs in itself, it charms them in a way that helps bind them more into me the character than the material per se. But this is the first time that this - lets be honest - ragbag of different routines under the guise of ‘Better than you’ feels like a coherent whole. I really hit a more mature and controlled pace at Gay Town and this tells me that the delivery of the rest of the show still has someway to improve yet. I am working on eye contact a lot today and bringing them all in. There is a greater sense of unity in the audience. I apply the changes to Beautiful Girl and it is already a whole better routine and more substantial. I can sense it has much more potential to grow yet and I think it will become the central routine of the entire show. Just the adding of my desire to “drag her down to my level” his added a whole new dimension to it. I am genuinely excited where I can take this next. The audience is actually building during the show today. People are coming in from the corridor and joining half way through. It is the first time that it feels like a coherent show rather than a series of routines. Still not brilliant end but after ‘Beautiful girl’ I did feel on the home straight.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A sustained round of applause at the end.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>After Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">For want of a better cliche,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>todays performance was better than the sum of the parts, even individual flaws were transcended. There was a unity of audience and material which was a personal best for this show so far. Much to do but for the first time I now feel I am in a position to make this into a different and better show. At the end a man tells me quite sincerely that he has met the German woman in my routine. The only others bits of information I furnish the audience with are that she is a doctor and attractive. He asks was she blond? “yep I know her” he retorts - and he ain’t joking. I think some of my audience are mentally ill.</span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-89713092575323586622018-11-13T05:56:00.001-08:002018-11-13T05:56:28.082-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 7
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 7: 8TH AUGUST</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Before Gig<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday was the greatest gig of the run so far. It was a great gig - at the time - but then I made the mistake of actually listening<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>back to the tape and began to doubt the judgement of the audience in liking it so much. My performance was sloppy, laking vocal variation, not smooth enough, the rhythm was all over the place. I think the audience were laughing at what the show was supposed to be rather than what it was. I further made the mistake of listening to tape of yesterday’s show immediately before today’s show and thus demoralising myself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>During Gig</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday the gig was way better than the performance, today it is the polar opposite. I have to confess to listening to the tape of today’s gig before writing this, so it is not the report I would have ordinarily banged out in the immediate aftermath of the gig, imbued with sincerity and genuine emotion. No this report has become contaminated by facts.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Today the performance has clarity and energy, better diction and maintains it’s beat and rhythm in the face of indifference. The biggest criticism is that it mainly oscillates between two modes of speaking and its needs more variety.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The show starts well as I berate the audience for coming on a Wednesday - who the hell does that? I am better at getting into character today, right off the bat and immediately the energy is flowing. This allows me to launch into the first routine (or is it now the second, has the intro become the first routine? What is a routine anyway? If I do it everyday does that make it a routine? Or does it have to have certain other structural qualities to qualify as a routine? Is it merely an aside? Can I do an aside before I have done anything else. You can’t start on an aside can you?) ‘More friendly than I look’ with impetus. I am aware of a certain resistance in the room but I am now undimmed in spirit and and am in the flow. I am perhaps bashing it out a bit too much? But I feel that taking it down a notch and making it more naturalistic will hit the momentum.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I start to notice them falling away at “Empathy” and they are never really into it after that. I can wrestle them back for small moments but honestly they are difficult to hold. Strangely some of the more harsh/controversial bits such as Pubic hair actually do get a positive reaction. I keep fighting for them but they just resist and resist. I am still trying to maintain energy and not speed up but I must be surely?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I think by Animals it is all over and I do wonder if it is even worth doing Vegetarians but I want to do the whole show. Actually I have over run which is the first indication I have that I have not sped up but instead maintained my pace. Actually today the pace was the best it has been and has a stately quality. The show breathed more today. The delivery was better if a bit heightened.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>After Gig</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I fought like a lion today or perhaps a smaller big cat - a puma.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Lowest bucket of the run so far. According to the tape the best performance so far. Audience in a fairly truculent mood at the bucket in telling me it wasn’t for them or not putting money in a defiant way. A Danish man tells me “he didn’t get it” like that is an excuse for not putting money in. A man slowly gets into his wheelchair and goes past with his carer without putting any money in.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The fact that it takes ages seems to add to the defiance. They all feel a bit angered with me, it is sort of different to disappointment. I don’t see what their problem is? I feel like drinking alcohol today.</span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-34619636710327358832018-11-13T05:54:00.002-08:002018-11-13T05:54:48.842-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 6
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 6: 7TH AUGUST</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Nothing interesting to report today.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Before Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Was in a very bad mood up to and including 2pm. Ate a massive and heavy lunch 2-2.30, two mugs of coffee. Walked to venue in slightly better but still essentially bad mood and now feeling sluggish. Held out little hope of being able to get my head in gear.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>During Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Audience would appear to be mainly local (Edinburgh) and largely sober and bit on the reserved side.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I opened with a new bit of material about how my audience are scroungers. Not funny in itself but really got me into character and thus funny in itself. Also it help me talk to them rather than “at them” - which apparently you are supposed to do now.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That broke the ice and it is also true which is good. Then straight into<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>‘More friendly than I look’ and everything cooking nicely. The punchlines all landing thus far. The stronger punchlines getting strong laughs. By the end of ‘Sympathy’ I was getting carried away and enjoying it too much and missed out the whole of ‘Empathy’. I was immediately aware that I had skipped a piece this time instead of just remembering after the gig. So maybe this is progress? Was already stratagising if and when I could slot ‘Empathy’<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>back in. I was able to loop around at the end of ‘life is a waste’ and go back into Empathy. This probably effected the build and ordinarily I wouldn’t have bothered going back but today they are really onside and I can afford to take the risk. Life is a waste is the best it has gone today. I could really feel the beats of it and would like to get every bit of material up to this level of knowledge. Millennials is arse about face today but it seems to make perfect sense by managing the tone correctly. I think I get the tone the best ever today-<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>but this could be an illusion from enjoying the show too much. The whole thing starts to loose momentum around. ‘Better than you’. Noticeable lag at Animals. I can feel my energy going here (45 minutes) and mistakes starting to creep in. I expect also timing starting to go slightly - this a hunch not based on empirical data. Wasn’t able to rally Vegetarian today and need to make more of end. Need to rewrite end of ‘Beautiful Girl’ to make it messier.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Was working on mic technique and posture today. I kept lapsing but then also kept correcting myself. There is something inherently ridiculous about having a microphone too close to my mouth that I can’t take myself seriously. It seems so seriously dated, like I am commentating on the FA cup final in 1955, but then those Madonnas things are also farcical - like you have a scar on one cheek form a non fatal knife wound. Didn’t really think about smoothness of delivery or re-setting my voice to low but then hopefully I was doing this naturally as it felt more effortless today and voice very rested after performance. I think that is perhaps why it lagged at 45 mins that I wasn’t conscious of making much effort until then.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>After Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Best show yet but think the audience were on my side so it doesn’t count.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Moment of the day. A woman tells me that her son is a fan of me -although not there today. She tells me that he watches me on YouTube and then recounts my material to his friends but gets it wrong. Yip somedays I do that with my own stuff- like bits of today.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-55571485440126728732018-11-13T05:53:00.001-08:002018-11-13T05:53:06.660-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 5
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 5: 6TH AUGUST<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Fuck this audience. Or fuck half of them anyway. The half that walk out. Fuck that half. That half that walk out in drips and drabs from about 10-20 mins mark. Particularly fuck the ones that go later in the pack. At least the initial ones have the benefit of being in the vanguard of some ill-informed movement. At least they are pioneers in their own bad taste, there is a certain nobility to their action. Double fuck the later ones who follow like little sheep. Particularly those who, after giving them the opportunity to leave if they don’t like it, stay on for two more minutes just to maximise the damage when they do eventually leave.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And fuck the man who goes “off to the toilet” and never comes back, leaving his partner on her own for the remainder of the gig. And fuck the woman who wasn’t even at the gig but came in at about the 45 minute mark to retrieve the woman who had been abandoned by her partner, apparently sent in by the toilet guy too cowardly to return to scene of the crime.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And fuck two guys who almost stick it out to the bitter end but are offended by some innocuous criticism of Scotland, who can’t even handle a jibe at their own country without their entire sense of identity crumbling before their eyes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Then also fuck the people leave the gig but stand outside the curtain deliberately talking loudly to make it almost impossible for the audience to hear me over the mic. Then further fuck them who when asked to keep quiet deliberately scrape stools across the stone floor to create massive shrieks of noise.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And finally fuck me for having the stupidity to plough on with such a ridiculous charade rather than talking the whole gig down with me in a fit of self indulgence. Fuck me for salvaging what remained of a crippled wreck of a gig and limping home instead of storming out of my own gig and or the Fringe Festival and giving everyone a spectacle.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I would also like to thank the half who stayed without whom the rest of the gig would not have been possible.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Thanks to those who remained despite everything, especially when the cascade of leavers threatened to turn into a torrent. A special thanks are in order to the two American gentlemen who entered the gig at around the half way mark and, blissfully unaware of the previous carnage, go on to throughly enjoy the show: thus providing a model for all future audience behaviour. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I would also like to pay tribute to anyone who may have been in the audience and has never been at a comedy gig before and will probably never go to one again. That is all I have to say about today’s show.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-59226447665621683552018-11-13T05:50:00.001-08:002018-11-13T05:50:29.281-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 4
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>4TH SHOW. 5TH AUGUST</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Before Show:</b> Got delayed on a suburban train that was so overcrowded it resembled a tube train. Accidentally bought a sandwich that contained chickpeas instead of chicken. Fired a flyerer. Bought a substandard coffee from one of those pop up coffee stands outside of a venue from a woman with dirty nails.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>During Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I really don’t know what to do with the audience. They are very Sunday. Very low energy, Very ungiving and a bit socially conservative. I know from the off they will be hard work. They just smell of indifference. The entire first routine is sacrificed to just trying to get a momentum. But we may as well write off the first four routines I would say.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Only at ‘Life is a Waste’ does it get<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>going but even then it is not plain sailing. There is some distraction at ‘Where is Hitler?’ - I can’t remember what - but if people can’t even enjoy lighthearted Nazis banter here is no hope for them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">At one point I attack them (the audience not the Nazis) for being ambivalent about the end of the world. Actually calling them nonchalant motherfuckers. They seem to like that. I don’t know whether the adlibbing just gets me out of the rut delivery wise or they are the kind of people that like being insulted. I could happily call them pricks to the end of time but I don’t feel like it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I do get into quite a lot of crowd work particularly with a Polish girl who is good value for a bit. It lifts the energy but it means I have to loose the end - UFOs. In general the build through that routine is ruined by the interruptions. I am not entirely sure I didn’t engineer them all just to try and build energy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">‘Gay Town’ probably works the best today.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There is no elasticity with the audience where you can play with them a bit lead them up garden path a bit, tease them and play different people off against each other. So ‘Better than you’ and much of ‘Millennials’ are wasted on them. I think that actually material wise ‘Millennials’ was betst today but there wasn’t enough trust in the room to “mock-attack” sections of the audience - I did it anyway.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">At about the half way stage I clear out that entire back row with a carefully pitched paedophile reference. The four of them just get up and leave. I regret not doing that line earlier. it is weird that some people who are clearly not enjoying need a moral excuse to leave. I can imagine them later saying “when he said blah blah blah, that was the last straw’ as if these people had any straws left. I must shed about one third of the audience as the show goes on. It is one of those gigs where the audience actually functions better the fewer of them there are. The final couple actually go after the show has finished as I am doing the bucker speech just to avoid paying. I naturally fully lambast them from the microphone.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Interestingly some bits that have never worked properly before actually worked better today. In particular the bit about loser animals going through a hard time -the best it has ever gone and also the end of Attenborough - that was technically speaking my favourite bit. Had there been more momentum I would have ended it there in fact. I still thought about it. I mustered a kind of end with ‘Vegetarian’ but that is sheer will power.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>After Show</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Delivery too jerky today. I notice when I do smooth it out it goes better. I notice the bits that I do in clubs also go better as they are more bullet proof. I try to maintain posture but have to keep correcting myself. The venue just lends itself to slouching.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am not sure whether it was them or me? But I could pick it up at points which suggests strongly there was more I could have gotten from them. I suspect I botched the delivery but also they seemed to be very little latitude within the audience that limited what could be done with them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am definitely dividing audiences more this year. More walk outs and more generosity in the bucket from those who remain. I am not sure whether that is a comment on my act or the demographic who attend that venue?</span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-38665247468969014102018-11-13T05:47:00.001-08:002018-11-13T05:47:46.113-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 3
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>3RD SHOW. 4TH AUGUST</b></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A full room, a baking room, me trying to direct the audience into the remaining available seats like I’m a fucking traffic warden/air traffic control guy. Them: milling around. Me: I feel I should be in character when interacting with the audience before the show but they don’t teach you that at stand up comedian school. I could pre compere this gig and cheat and they wouldn’t even know!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The sound is tinny and weak. Even during the pre-show music its seems all muffled. The mic has no range and I swap the stage mic for the slightly better, but still bad, off stage mic. It falls apart, a circuit board falls out of it. I shove it back in. It will do.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The number of rewrites and edits proliferates every day. I am now working on the amendments to the amendments to the amendments. I know the show less well now than I did during the first preview 8 months ago.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>You should have seen it then back in the glory days when I could read off notes. Today I forget the second routine entirely “More friendly than I look” I don’t realise that I have missed it at the time but I am forever plagued with a nagging sense that I am slightly ahead of where I should be. That never leaves me. Perhaps tomorrow I will forget the start? Maybe by the last weekend I will have dropped the entire show in favour of a confused shrug?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Feels like a wasted opportunity today. A boozy full house. Up for it Saturday audience but only intermittently does the show get to the place where I want it to be.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I would say “Life is a Waste” (approx 10 mins in). is where it finally gets into gear and then through into “Gay Town” but then once I hit “Millennials” it falls away again. This routine is all about tone. Hit the tone wrong and it won’t work. So when I playfully call them “Dumb fucking cunts” at the start of the routine, I think it comes off a bit nasty and unnecessary which is a pity because I really mean it with love and a deep seated affection .<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The audience are always there for the taking and at points when I hit the rhythm correctly it really picks up-<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>which seems to indicate to me that I am often not hitting the rhythm correctly at all.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">“Better than you” is a case in point - I know this better and I know where to hit the rhythm but here I really notice that different pockets of the audience are going at different speeds like the instruments in David Bowie’s “Heroes”, except not in a good way. My job is suppose to unify the audience but by this stage (approx 40mins) I appear to have fragmented them into several pieces. This is the opposite of what you are supposed to do.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The David Attenborough section is a mess again today. It seems more of an incoherent shambles than it ever did before. I could really see the gig sliding away at this point. - After the show somebody tells me that was their favourite section, I really have to restrain myself not to remonstrate with them. “No it wasn’t”. I manage to keep the show on the road at this point but it feels a will of effort rather than skill<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I try hard to rally it at the end with “Vegetarians”. It picks up enough for a respectable end. I get a firm but not raucous round of applause. The generosity re cash donations at the end is medium.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In general this year people are being generous or putting nothing in. Either I am dividing people or it is something to do with the economy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-28649533324092125342018-11-13T05:45:00.001-08:002018-11-13T16:48:49.192-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 2<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>SHOW 2 - 3RD AUGUST</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b> 2018</b></span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Sometimes this job is too much work. There is a couple from Glasgow who insist on sitting in the most inaccessible parts of the room. Constantly relocating, before the show starts, from one ill-advised seat to another, perpetually seeking out the Xanadu of chairs and doomed to ultimate disappointment. At one point selecting the only seat in the entire room from which it is impossible to see the stage. There are three generations of Finn’s spread over three rows - not because there are loads of them but because they don’t seem to want to sit with each other. There are a couple of men - I think American - who will go on to not smile once during the entire show but will place £20 in the bucket thus demonstrating that either they enjoyed it more than they appeared to or they don’t understand the value of pounds sterling. I seem to think they hate me because for some reason they consider me homophobic and judge them for their politics. I have no reason to suspect that but sometimes you have to invent motives for people. There is a woman with curly hair who laughs in all the right places but can never seem to infect everyone else with her laughter.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">They have all chosen to sit in a giant horse shoe shape. Filling up the periphery of the seating while the centre remains empty.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Even before the show starts they are all working against me. This is a form of collective stupidity that immediately annoys me.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Before the show kicks off I ask/cajole/bludgeon them to move to the centre of the audience. They oblige but in asking I have probably pissed them off. Only the Glaswegian couple remain rooted to the spot apparently finally satisfied by their latest bad choice of seat.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I start as yesterday without crowd work. I do not regret that decision but the whole show is a slog. The audience are now sitting together but that doesn’t mean they are working as a team. They are with me but it is impossible to build a head of steam and as they don’t laugh enough and always in the right places. It takes a discipline to keep the show in shape.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I just focus of performing each line or I think “performing the fuck out of it” as it is known in the business. But I do find it a stupendous effort to try and corral them. I suppose it is ultimately my job?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The Glaswegian couple are the best of the audience. Despite my earlier writing them off in my head as idiotic losers, they are in fact warm, delightful, silly, down and dirty.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If only they had sat in the middle I think they could have taught the rest how to be an audience. But alas cast off to one side they are too apart from the rest to make an impact. I regret secretly hating them in my head at the start. When they speak to me generously at the end I really think I don’t understand people at all.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday I rewrote the start of the show. Today it is the turn of the piece “Millennials” to be completely reordered, but this latest edit scrambles my brain. It is easy to remember new sections extremely difficult to forget old versions. The chance is that in a moment of pressure I will lapse into previous iteration.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I think I run out of energy at this point. Millennials is a bit of a dogs breakfast and I probably rush the second half of the show. I certainly<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>manage to cram more material into today’s hour than yesterdays. I haven’t listened to the tape yet but how could it be other?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I found it difficult to maintain a pace and rhythm for a show I don’t know well enough yet (and keep changing daily & by the way, will continue to do so for at least the next week) which received a lacklustre reception.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8316742896816463693.post-15109168749420427882018-11-13T05:42:00.000-08:002018-11-13T16:48:30.830-08:00THE OPINIONATER: SHOW 1<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">SHOW 1 2ND AUGUST<span class="Apple-converted-space"> 2018</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have rewritten the opening to my show in the last few days and haven’t yet had the opportunity to try it out. I used up all my preview shows with what I later decided was an unsatisfactory opening.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So the first routine of the first show of my run is untested. The ending needs working on and also there is a huge section about Animals/David Attenborough that needs streamlining. I am not sure I remember the current order of material and I keep forgetting some of the punchlines but apart from that I think the show is in pretty reasonable shape.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have the usual worry that no one will turn up but it doesn’t happen. The first audience members<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>sit in the front which is ominous/a good sign. So basically I can tell nothing from it. Another pointless omen. Audience mainly seem Scottish - I would say west of Scotland.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I don’t ask. I don’t want to do crowd work at the start. I just want to start at the start of the show. Like a show. Like proper comedians do on Netflix.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Just start… like start.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I try being silly on the offstage mic as much to get me in he mood but also in an attempt to break the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>ice.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Good immediate audience rapport. Straight into first routine. Never done it before so really no memory upon which to base and know where to pause - here we go - just have to guess where they will laugh etc. But all goes well at start and puts me at ease going into initial section of Reptiles, Face, Sympathy, i am l playful at this moment. I seem to think I am using movement well but this maybe an illusion. Then I forget a whole section: Empathy…!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>4th routine in forgotten in its entirety, But show doesn’t suffer. Or does it? I think with hindsight it could have projected show to greater heights. So fuck up undisclosed to me even at the time as I am having too much fun. In previews that was where the show picked up so I assume today it would have boosted it. Ah the show that could have been!!!!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In “Life is a Waste” I forget “Where is Hitler” bit and then stick it in almost as a non sequitur which accidentally makes in funnier and makes the man in the front row spit out his pint. Difficult to replicate that moment again though.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But show generally bubbling along nicely all the way to Millennials. Here it starts to feel a bit disjointed. Also there are some millennials in and they don’t seem to see the funny side of it - which is the funny side of it for me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I don’t think I ate well enough before the show. I suffer noticeable lag at about 45 minutes. I can feel the energy drop. My performance isn’t as good, my head is a sea of fog. I am having to concentrate on what I am doing rather than coming naturally. I think the dip creeps in at Beautiful Girl and then all through Animals/David Attenborough suddenly it seems my routines are full of traps I deliberately wrote for myself. What was I thinking? I might end the gig at the end of David Attenborough but suddenly I realise the end of that is also a new bit I have never said out loud before so not a strong enough out. I therefore end of Vegetarians: a reserve routine that I suspect as the show grows will get squeezed out altogether. I do wonder if it is wise to do it because it takes the show time to the full hour but I don’t want to get off.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A group of about ten people leave 5 minutes before the end to (a) avoid putting money in the bucket (b) possibly in hindsight got upset by the millennials-too easily offend routine (oh the irony) (c) thought I was shit but waited till 57 minutes to make sure. Fuck these people and never come back.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Over all good show for opening show. Good bar to start off the run. Was pleased with start and kept it playful for the first 30 minutes anyway. Forgot sections. Thematically a mess. Things that have to be fixed : mainly Animals/David Attenborough - as expected.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13729777809391207888noreply@blogger.com1