Tonight I had a weird and unsatisfactory gig at Too2Much in Soho. It's a venue that used to be (and may still be) a sleazy strip joint on Brewer St (I think it used to be the Raymond Revue Bar) and a fairly small space with room for only maybe 50 audience members. I am keen to experiment with my mood and by just making stuff up on the spot. It didn't really fly tonight though and a proportion of the slightly strange audience were bored by me. I was a bit negative and aggressive and although I was doing this for humorous effect, I am not sure that the audience were entirely sure it wasn't my true feelings. And maybe there was a bit too much of my true feelings in there. I am enjoying playing the part of a man on the verge of a mid-life crisis who considers himself cleverer than the audience and who feels that he has wasted his life doing this stupid job. In a sense that is true, but I actually love my stupid job and enjoy the ridiculous things that happen to me because of it. But there is that dichotomy where I am aware that I have maybe remained artificially immature and missed out on some things that my married friends with kids have experienced. In reality I know there's plenty of time for that, if it comes to it and this really isn't a bad life and is much better than many of the alternatives that might have come my way. I am just interested in exploring it and the way I am pulled between being 40 and 21 at the moment.
But I think most of this Friday night audience didn't really get what I was trying to do and I don't think I did a great job of expressing some of the more controversial ideas. It's a difficult balance and of course depends on people getting what I am doing as much as me doing it well. Some of the audience were certainly way off.
As I bemoaned the fact that things weren't exactly zinging along I said in a deliberately self-defeating and mocking way, "I used to be on TV, you know."
"Yes,
used to be" said a couple of voices from the crowd, completely misunderstanding that that had been the point of me saying that. I imagine they must have thought that I was appealing to them to find me funnier because I was on television in 1999, like I deserved their respect because of this.
They were way off, but I suppose I was out of kilter too and it shows one that it can be a subtle balancing act to get this right. Yesterday in Brighton I hit it exactly right, but today I took the wrong path. It doesn't matter. We live and learn.
As with poker, just when you think you've got the thing licked, stand up will throw you a curve ball that makes you realise you still have a lot to learn. That's why this is a brilliant job. Luckily MC Russell Howard was on top form, lightly riffing and skipping through a succession of original and interesting ideas. Do look out for him. He's going to be a big star I think.
