Edinburgh Festival - 6th August 2013

6th August 2013  Pleasance Court Yard 

7th show in the run

Length I hour.

Before Gig

 A day of interviews. I am interviewed by Arthur Smith who keeps getting my name wrong. I don’t have time for dinner before gig. I eat a hog roast sandwich. It has too much apple sauce and not enough stuffing. I sit outside rather than sit in dressing room and run through the  changes in show. The dressing room is empty today. It is usually full of props, costumes and personal effects  of all the acts appearing in that venue. Today it is almost empty. Apparently there have been some backstage thefts and no one is now leaving their stuff in the dressing rooms. I like the new uncluttered appearance but feel sorry for the victims of crime. 

During Gig

A full house today. A responsive but not overly energetic audience. They greet my entrance very enthusiastically but my words less so.  I ask who gambles and who doesn’t. There is a bit of interaction at the start but slightly noticeable clunkiness as I go into the material. 

The “Bookies Shop” ,“Professional Gambler” “Risk is Manly Section” This has been reordered and I am now feeling my way this section. Bookies Shop today regained some of the visceral quality it had before. I came up with new punchline on stage for “Professional Gambler” and I can see how to make it better now. This just by moving it in the running order. Don’t know why but change of position has opened up new possibilities. “Professional Gambler”  is the star of the opening 15 minutes of the gig. I have dropped “thats the opposite of what women are looking for in a man” line. 

Possessed by Demons Struggles. 

“Mirapex” works well, although they don’t go for the initial mention of Dyslexia. This routine is a good weather vain for the gig and it is also odd because different audiences go for different bits of this routine but overall it tends to always grab them.

“Vicious Circle of Debt.” I come into this too high energy and wrong tone but I manage to correct it through the routine. The routine is compelling but needs a funnier end. 

“The understanding addiction” material engaging. 

“Dentist” works well. Particularly enjoying describing my Scottish childhood in this bit but strangely “Hairdresser” falls flat today. I think set up was too time consuming or perhaps they just didn’t like it. 

The gig rattles along at a level but they aren’t the biggest laughters. There are pockets of enthusiasm. There are three couples who are most responsive members of the audience all seated near the front. People at the back are quieter. I remember to fake eye contact with the back but i do go to the front people when I need laughter for a specific bit. I know they will deliver. 

Kids with sweets routine works really well for the first time since it was moved to this position in running order. This routine aside. There is a general slumping around the “Scrapyard” “Adults are weak” “Feel the fear section” I start to worry the gig is slipping away from me at this point. 

“Feel the fear” routine feels a bit stranded where it is now and still needs work on the ending.

The room is getting exceedingly hot. The heat seems to creep upon me suddenly about 40 mins in. Sweat starts to run down my face, only now, am I aware that I have been too hot for some minutes. I ask the technician to turn the air conditioning on. I ask the audience are they hot? They seem unsure at first. I think the heat has so addled their brains the don’t notice they are hot. 

“Tipping point.” I now use the Von Stauffenburg example (as discussed in yesterday’s blog) and this routine works better as a result.  I go into “probability” with more of momentum. 

(one road testing of this material is no basis for determining how good it is. It may be offensive to other crowds). 

When I mentioned I have a degree in Engineering and understand probability I am heckled by a man in the front row who it turns out is a Maths undergraduate. His heckle is along the lines that Engineers don’t really understand mathematics, they just think they do. He is playfully throwing down the gauntlet but it is a gauntlet that needs picking up. It is true that I struggle to remember anything beyond school level mathematics these days. It is also true that a maths undergraduate should know more about maths than an Engineer. But I decide to go all in here and take him on. I decide to go head to head with his maths knowledge and prove that I know more than he does. There is a slight risk here because I almost certainly don’t. He could humiliate me. He could expose my tenuous grasp on the subject matter. He could expose the flimsy premiss upon which this section of the show hangs upon.  In a straight line he has me beaten. Fortunately we won’t be going in a straight line. I will see to that. I will choose the ground we fight upon. I will decide the terms of engagement. I will blind side him by pre-prepared punchlines. I will misrepresent his views and bluff my way through this bit by my stagecraft. There are moments during the next few minutes where I feel I may have had a successful career in the law/politics, the chicanery I demonstrate is wasted on light entertainment. It is a travesty of justice and I love every minute of it. I win the argument and “prove” I know what I am talking about. I rattle off pre-prepared mathematical terms I barely know the definition of. Fortunately, my bluff is never called. To be fair it is good humoured, he isn’t trying to fuck me up, but I didn’t know in advance I could win. He may have been one of those good humoured pendants who could have politely chip away at me. The interaction really lifts the gig.  Only now do I feel it lacked something before that moment. I briefly wonder what could have come of the gig, if I’d known earlier that he was a maths undergrad. Pointless Speculation.  

I return to this guy at moments throughout the rest of the gig with some mock one-up-man-ship. I refer to Nate Silver as “one of your lot” - a mathematician. 

I still need to work on the “Nate Silver rant. After the “Nate Silver” section. I go to drink from my water bottle which is sitting on a stool. Now I have the idea to sit down on the stool and after the aggressive rant, I now lament losing the end of my show to an American. It really works. But does it work only for tonight or is this to become a regular thing? Whatever it lends an emotional charge to the show and a certain poignancy it has so far lacked. 

I stumble off the stool as a slightly annoyed drunk saying. “I understand probability, look how many people know of anyone who died in a petrol station fire” This routine suits this tone - a rather desperate clutching of straws by an increasingly deluded man. 

The ending works well. i really hit “this is not gambling” line with the right attitude. The last 15 minutes are a constant build towards the end as though I am assembling a deluded argument - which I am. This is the best ending to the show yet.  

After Gig

Three things came together to really consolidate the ending. Switching on the air con, the audience interaction, and my sitting on the stool gave me the right tone to do the closing material. I am not sure in which combinations these things helped? I wish I could remember exactly what i did right today.

This wasn’t the best gig of the run but it was the most satisfying and it had the best shape and ending to the show thus far. All the more satisfying because I had to work the crowd for most of the show. 

I am noticing a slight sensitivity to mention of race and racism in Edinburgh. Other London based comedians have commented on this phenomenon too. It is as if all white audiences when they fear that anything mentioning race or racism is in itself racist.