Edinburgh Festival - 13th August 2013

13th August 2013  Pleasance Court Yard 

13th show in the run

Length 55mins

Before Gig

I sit outside in an armchair thinking about my show. The armchair is located behind some containers that constitute the Pleasance “This” and “That”. I don’t think too much in detail about the show. I just know it should be tighter than yesterday. For once I don’t worry about caffeine consumed, food ingested, hydration levels, sugar levels, energy levels. I practice voices that I will not use on stage. I loose track of time and I only step into the backstage area about 5 seconds before the house lights go down. The audience sound chatty and energetic.

During Gig

I decide to muck about on the offstage microphone. The audience now appear ambivalent and but I get an enthusiastic applause and one whistle from a woman who seems to like me a bit too much for someone I have never met. Do I know her? I spend the first few minutes imposing various identities on her before giving up and thinking I’ve never met her. She is currently my favourite member of the audience, a position which sadly, she will struggle to maintain as the gig goes on. She will never be dislike by me but in the minutes ahead she will never again retain the lofty heights of the esteem I hold her in now. 

A mainly English audience today with one Irishman and one American. A few Scots, but barely enough to start a fight in a chip shop queue. 

My favourite audience member reacts strongly against my line about toothbrushes. She goes “Ughhh” I can see she is going to be a prude but hopefully a large over the top caricature of a prude, one that I can react against. I think earlier in the run her “ughhh” would have dented the start but I know it well enough to dodge her distain and keep it on track. I over extend my self of lottery, adding even more bits in today that ultimately detracts rather than adds to the routine. 

Certain absence of rolling laughter today. Always get the feeling I have lost the audience until I reach the punchline and they are still there.  I keep wanting to say to them. “Do you remember me from a few minutes ago? The guy you thought was funny?”

“Possessed by Demons” working better with rewrite now incorporated. More fun to be had here. I added new material about RBS which adds a Scottish angle and sets up the pay off better. 

“Just a number” not really getting laughs today but essential for the narrative and still with a dramatic quality. It is an annoying bit of material for me (difficult to get right).

Sugar stuff all well although I again said Dentist when i meant hairdresser. This happened yesterday and I need to think of them as two separate routines in my head rather than the one routine to stop this fuck up. 

“Dad Embarrassment” working well today but an erratic routine at the best of times. 

“Scrapyard” and “adults are weak” Ok but noticeable step up with “Kid” routine and this was just in the delivery. It is older bit of material and I perform it better. I’m stiller, pause better etc. 

“Feel the fear” has become a favourite of mine. A few days ago I bemoaned having to this routine. It looked ready for the chop but a rewrite and it has a new lease of life I am now enjoying this thing and having fin with this routine. 

“Tipping Point” has strong ending but setting up still feels a bit convoluted for my liking. 

“Probability” Energy starts to pick up here, and it is becoming a tight routine. There is woman in the audience who studied medicine at Aberdeen University. Audience interaction here about how my degree is better. This stupid one upmanship with an older woman pleases me and the audience no end. 

The show has been average ( and I actually mean average in the mathematical sense: adding several quantities together and dividing this total by the number of quantities, and NOT average as in a disparaging backhanded compliment “That was below average” way). 

The audience has been nice but there feels something missing from the show and I believe the audience will be going out slightly short changed. I realize I have to raise it at the end. I have to do something. I don’t know what “something” is but I don’t think the conventional ending covers it. If I stick on the conventional ending it will politely run its course I will competently (and I mean competently as in competent and not as in below average) bring the show to the end. I don’t want to competently bring this in. I have a certain feeling that I have to do something and I don’t what it is. It is more an emotion than any kind of logical thought. This perhaps gives me the incentive I need to go out on a limb at the end of “Nate Silver” and extended this section by ad-libbing and essentially hoping I hit something worthwhile. At first I don’t hit a comic theme but I carry it with emotion. It seems like I am struggling to find the words because I am struggling to find the words. I have the idea from yesterday to complain about Nate Silver not being an artist and I lead with that. But after trying a number of dead ends I find what I am looking for. I start asking what is the essence of success and why isn’t Nate Silver at the Edinburgh festival if he is “successful” I have hit the comedy seam and it builds a head of steam towards the closing section which for the first time this run truly changes gear, right at the end.

After Gig

This was not my best gig of the run but it is my favourite. The Ending tonight was the first time I really felt it was worthy of the name ending. It ended on a high and appeared to pull things together and have a definite conclusion. The difference between a “show” and a stand up routine is that in a stand up routine should end on a strong joke but it doesn’t have to structurally work. It doesn’t have to draw everything together. Perhaps this is the first “ending” I have done in my career. Maybe I was previously just getting off the stage?  

Tonight I feel I glimpse the better show that this could be and the better act I could be.  

I want to build on this from now on. The ending was far better than the show. Is a better last five minutes with an inferior preceding 50 minutes better than a better 50 minutes followed by a lackluster 5 minutes? Obviously ideally I want a barnstorming 50 followed by a high octane 5. That’s the dream. 

The Alternative Comedy Experience

TV Recording 8 July 2013

Before Gig

Tonight I am taking part in a television recording of The Alternative Comedy Experience. I appeared in the first series of that show and we are now recording the second series. Everybody keeps assuring me “Just do what you do. Don’t mind us with our cameras and lights.” Just do what you do. Do what you do? What do I do exactly? I’ve never thought about it before, I’ve just done it. Now that people are telling me to “just do it” I keep thinking about what it might be? What is it, that I do? I don’t really want to ask people, they’ll think I’m flaky or mad or something. I don’t think TV producers appreciate being asked “What do I do?” by bemused performers, seconds before they go on stage.

 

Tonight the show is being recorded at the Edinburgh Stand comedy club, a stage I have played many times before. It is filmed as a regular gig and then chopped up and edited into a TV programme. The beauty of TV is that mistakes are edited out. If I fluff a line I can just say it again. In theory there is less pressure on me than a regular live gig - where I am not afforded the luxury of second takes. So why then am I feeling more nervous that usual? In fact, why am I feeling more nervous than the last time, when I recorded Series One? Series One that was back in 2012, a different time. Back when I had the wind of youthful arrogance in my sails. During the first series I hadn’t known what to expect so I had done what most comedians do and shrugged my shoulders and said “We’ll see what happens” Last time Stewart Lee had assured me that “nobody will probably watch it anyway” Whether this was a ploy to get me to relax or a heartfelt prediction I will never know? But either way it worked. I hadn’t been too stressed about it all. This time is different. This time feels proper. This time the show has a pedigree. This time there is a benchmark of the first series. This time I know what I am doing. Knowing what you are doing is fatal, because if you know what your doing, then you know when your not doing it

 

Tonight is unusually hot. We are enjoying some kind of heat wave. The Edinburgh Stand Comedy is located in a basement bar. It doesn’t, of course, have air conditioning. Why would it? It is Scotland after all. In the sweltering July heat add TV lights and TV cameras and then throw a ban on anyone opening the back door, lest the outdoor sunlight flood in and ruin the subtle studio lighting. I am worried about dehydration: both the audiences and mine. Unfortunately there is not much I can do about the audience. They’re going to have to drink for themselves. But I can at least prevent myself from suffering heat stroke.  I chug down bottle after bottle of free mineral water. Eventually the bottles of water run out and runners miraculously appear to offer to get me yet more free mineral water.  Free mineral water, generously afforded by limitless TV budgets. This is the life, free bottles of water, cascading down in an endless rush of decadence. I am on free water, nothing can stop me now. Unfortunately, the TV budgets haven’t stretched to installing extra toilets backstage and now there is a queue for the toilets as I realize I may be over hydrated.

A sound guy comes to attach a clip on Microphone to my lapel. Can I still go to the toilet now? Won’t the sound of me peeing get recorded and added to the DVD extras? Will the Director mock my pissing technique, safely ensconced in his director’s gallery?

 

During Gig

Tonight I perform an unusual set comprising of some very new material, some old routines brought back for one night only and bits of last years Edinburgh Show. I have attempted to give it a through line but it is really just a ragbag of unconnected routines (so the same as every other stand up set then). I discuss sugar and dentists, I discuss rioting. I discuss disgraced MP Eric Joyce. I discuss paranoia. Then I move onto a routine about the drug Mirapex. I am working with this routine live a lot at the moment and it is currently in a fairly mutable form. It doesn’t stick to a predetermined set of words. “Just do what you do” right? So I do what I do, and I don’t stick to an exact form of words.  Tonight I mention someone who is bipolar as an example (other nights it may be dyslexia or some other condition) but I come unstuck when I realize I don’t know what the noun for Bipolar is. Mental block! Is it Bipolarity or Bipolarism? I go for Bipolarity. Bipolarity sounds right in my head but the way it comes out of my mouth sounds wrong. Maybe it isn’t bipolarity, maybe it is bipolarism. I say bipolarism. That sounds worse. I stop. This is TV. They can edit that out. I go for bipolarity again it turns to mush in my mouth. I ask the audience what is it bipolarity or bipolarism? They don’t seem to know. It would have been good to have sorted this out before going on stage. It has now become a thing, this bipolarity. It has punched a whole in my set. I am now convinced that it is bipolarity. We go for it again (spot the “we” now. If I am going to fuck up I am more than happy to share the blame with the audience). The audience laugh as I launch into the set up - of course they do, I have had about five attempts at this. But they don’t laugh at the punchline, as the joke is no longer about the original concept it is now about a man who cannot say a joke without screwing it up.

I do other routines that go as planned with all the right words in the right order so nothing interesting to see there. But the bipolarity displays a level of sham-bollockness  that I don’t think I would ever have committed at a regular gig. The possibility of editing in postproduction, led me to make a bigger car crash of it than I otherwise would have. It is impossible to just do what you do when there are TV cameras there. They affect your thinking.

 

After Gig

Hopefully, the bipolar section will be cut out completely. But will it though? Such is Stewart Lee’s contrary view of comedy; he may well choose to keep it in through sheer perversity. Or it could be edited to make it look like I got it right and thus TV is vindicated as a medium.

New - 4th May 2013 - Leicester Square

Gig Report Saturday 4th May 2013

99 Club, View - Leicester Square

Before Gig

Boxers are supposed to avoid sex before a fight, something about making them too relaxed otherwise. Should comedians avoid sex before a gig? Tonight I am very relaxed. Possibly too relaxed. Indeed if I wasn’t so relaxed I would be worried about my state of relaxation this close to going on stage.    

During Gig

I take to the stage in an odd bouncy kind of a way. I don’t know whose walk it is, but it certainly isn’t mine. I hope it isn’t another comedian’s walk. I don’t want to be accused of stealing material. I hope I haven’t stolen it off Russell Kane or somebody. I hope I’ve nicked it from a member of the public. It’s alright to steal off them isn’t it? The walk elicts a laugh from the audience which simultaneously stops them applauding before I reach the microphone. The last couple of bouncy steps are thus taken in silence. Bounce, bounce. I sense the audience feel they are in for a treat, they like my walk. I hope the bounce hasn’t raised expectations too high. 

They clearly like me at the moment but I have to clear up the stopping-applauding-too-early situation before I go anywhere near a routine. I adlib something suitable. It works. God knows what I say, I am so relaxed I can’t remember. A bald man heckles he calls me “Iron Man” I am only vaguely aware of the superhero. I haven’t seen the film. I don’t really know if that heckle is an insult or not. Iron Man’s a good guy right? But why shout out compliments? There is some discussion back and forth while we nail the heckle down. All done in very leisurely way. We conclude it is not an insult. I become aware of how out of touch I now am with popular culture - I no longer know what constitutes an insult or a  compliment. Stand up comedy has done this to me. Commenting on peoples’ lives has put me in a position where I no longer understand the very peoples’ lives I am supposed to be commenting on. The audience are aware of this paradox but they warm to me the more because of it. Its is like they are rewarding a disobedient dog.  Some days you can’t do anything wrong. 

This is literally the most relaxed I have been at the start of a gig - ever - and I’m not even doing routines. I would like to say that I feel that I’m in my own living room but I am so much more relaxed than that. I have never been this relaxed in my own living room ever, not even when I’m swearing at the television or failing to empty the bins. This is ultra relaxation. Perhaps I should perform like this for the rest of my career? This is a watershed moment. Already I am constructing answers in my head to hypothetical interviews. “Well, David Letterman, I think I developed that ultra laid back style back in the Spring of 2013”.

But fear not, not all of my mind is working on fantasy interviews, some of it is still concentrating on the gig in hand. I have enough presence of mind, for instance, to realise that I didn’t check the time on my watch before I took to the stage - another side effect of this new relaxation mantra. This slap dash attitude wouldn’t have been tolerated in the old days. I estimate I have been on stage 5 minutes now. Usually I can rely on my internal clock but I don’t trust it. There’s been a lot of adlibing already and it’s knocked my sense of time. Did I agree a signal with the venue staff? No. There is no signal to tell me when I’ve done my time. This is why too much relaxation is a bad idea. This is why hippiedom fizzled out. I would like to say things are flying now but it’s all too zen to be flying, more cruising. Maybe I should cruise. Now I feel I should do something else.   

I feel that I am too relaxed, that somehow the audience should get more energy for their money. As I go into the dentist routine I decide quite consciously to pick up the pace. I noticeably increase the energy, move about the stage more, gesticulate more. More energy. There is no noticeable difference in the audience response. They are just as happy, no more so, no less so. 

The only glitch is where I talk about gay marriage and I sense a certain resistance and conservatism in the crowd. The bald man apparently doesn’t like that routine. A mixture of confusion and disappointment from him and he quietly leaves. Perhaps he needs the toilet? Perhaps he need to catch some train of sorts? Am I still Iron Man now bald man? 

I pull them back with some self deprecating stuff and it’s all plain sailing to the end. I have abandoned the earlier relaxed mode for a “heightened relax mode”. I bet the audience  didn’t even notice. 

After Gig

The change of gear didn’t seem to have any impact, either good or bad. Maybe things would have nose dived if I hadn’t change or maybe they would have got even better. I fear I am no closer to knowing the answer.