EDINBURGH FRINGE 19th AUGUST 2015

SHOW 12

19TH AUGUST 2015

AUDIENCE: 40

WALKOUTS: 0

BEFORE

Yesterday was my day off. I am therefore feeling more tired than if I had had no day off at all. Two days ago also seems a long time ago to have last performed my solo show. I fear I may forget it. However I am in good spirits tonight and feel enthusiastic. 

DURING 

I have forgotten to dim the house lights. Hopefully this will be interpreted as a deliberate artistic decision. Nevertheless it will make the audience slightly more self conscious without realizing why.

The audience are very flat from the off very subdued in their response to my “hello”. There are two elderly (80s) women from London, who do seem to know that London is part of England, perhaps it isn’t. While not wishing to descend  into the squalor of ageism, I feel that they will not enjoy this show and in some very specific and confused way that I cant quite articulate. 

There are laughs in the right places from the start but small laughs and no momentum. There are also multiple pockets of contempt and indifference. A man on the front row with two teenage daughters looks like he has suddenly regretted his entire life. The two old ladies are indeed bemused and locked into a waste of an hour of their life they will never get back. Four people in their thirties to my right are barely present mentally. They range from zombified to outright hatred. A woman with red hair eyes are not focused on the stage. She stares into space from two metres away. A man from Dundee looks like he wished he was dead right now. The feeling is reciprocated. I wish he was dead too. There are outriders who are enjoying my world view  but they are not a quorum. There are other people mainly sitting toward the back who are fair weather friends. They will come on board if I get a critical mass but right now they reserving judgment. 

All the easier accessible material, i.e the stuff at the start fails, to make headway. I am trying to vary the delivery. I am checking I am maintaining the beat, I trying to maximise my facial gestures, I am making sure I don’t speed up. But that leaves a void at the end of punchlines where the laughter recedes too quickly and leaves a gap. I am unwilling to speed up to fill the gap created by them. Their gap. That they made. They can have their gap if thats what they want! Still I feel sunny. I am enjoying the show and I feel that if they have a brain they will get on board. And still the indifference continues. There are a handful of punters carrying this crowd and I fear they will tire. I suppose I should start mentally preparing myself for this to be the worst show of the run. I hate it when that happens. When I set a new minimum, a new lower bar. 

The line about having a white kid gets the least laughter it ever has. It is the only occasion when this line hasn’t properly landed in the entire run. I conclude the audience are (a) thick. (b) racist (c) thick and racist (often a popular combination. I call the audience out on this. I accuse them of being racist, but not being stupid. I don’t want to be over insulting. Lets deal with one problem at a time. Around the Jacket routine I feel my performance pick up, the energy goes up the commitment goes up. But they don’t really get the end of this routine. They shouldn’t get it because it should only make sense to comics. Except everybody gets it. Every audience in my run has got it. Not these. guys. The good thing about this show tonight is that it is being under appreciated by both young and old. So I appeal to all demographics equally. 

So I the show has chugged along on the fumes of laughter from a few intrepid souls in the audience. But if anything my belief is going up, I am really committing to this show. I don’t know what is happening. Tonight this audience cannot destroy me. But now I am coming to the tricky bit. AIDS has never worked with a lukewarm audience and the whole routine seems like a suicide mission tonight. This could be the moment where I loose them , still it never occurs to me not to do it. After all, it is the show. As I launch into AIDS, the man from Dundee who want to die gets up to go to the bar, or maybe he is just going to kill himself. Either way I will not be deflected from this  routine. He even scrapes his chair on the floor in a contemptuous manner. It seems an ominous portent but I am not thrown. 

As I get into the most unpalatable section of this routine something happens. At first two people start giggling uncontrollably, it maybe enjoyment or social awkwardness but I think they sense a release. I think they feared I might shy away from something and now I have shown I won’t. But this laughter just builds and now the fair weather friends are on board. This routine has just gone mainstream. Suddenly it tips over and only the hard core haters are left marooned in their own comic misadventure. Now they are the minority and they are confused. They have been left on the wrong side of history. Ha! Now they resent me more for making this work. AIDS just builds and builds. Even all the inherent traps in this routine are just spring boards to the next bit. AIDS has never worked so well… ever. The gig is going very well now. Even the guy with the teenage daughter is coming on board. Even the teenage daughters are coming on board. I take delight in delivering the AIDS material directly to those enjoying it least. And the rest of the audience note this and it bonds us even more. I know this gig has turned in my favour and that it will be strong to the end. The early tension was almost worth it. I am aware the the audience are having two separate gigs. The majority are loving it. The minority are hating it. 

The Bad Driver routine is a cake walk after AIDS and that goes better than any previous occasion.  

Jesus is average and I take my time with Love and Hate at the End and it provides a strong end to the show. 

AFTER 

This was my favourite show and my least favourite audience (with some notable exceptions). It was also the lowest bucket take I have had this year. There were some people donating tenners and asking for photographs while other people donated 20 pence and looked like I have just murdered their entire family in front of them. I am feeling very optimistic tonight while despairing at humanity. It is an odd feeling, I recommend it. Tonight tested my mettle but also moments hit heights that no previous show has done. AIDS and Bad Driver have never been bettered and Love and Hate was amongst the best I have done.