As usual I somehow got the script together, though did jettison a sketch about Earls Barton as there wasn't quite time to get it right. A couple of the sketches certainly needed some pruning, but we knocked them into shape in rehearsal. It didn't seem like a classic show as we read it through, but there was one moment that reduced us to weeping, jibbering wrecks (with laughter) both times as we read it and which I thought made up for any deficiencies in the show. I wondered if we would even get through it on the night without having to stop and collect ourselves, but typically we got through the bit no problem (it involved ketchup and brains), whilst there were several other places where we enjoyed ourselves maybe a bit too much. It was a filthy script and if the audience participation was anything to go by an even more depraved audience.
Every Sunday night I want to die and yet by the end of the show on Monday I have had such a good time that it doesn't seem like a ridiculous notion to do it all again the next week. This time we had enjoyed ourselves probably more than ever and there were lots of enjoyable improvisations. I am fortunate to have a funny cast who can make even the weaker bits fly with their absurd and ridiculous interpretations. If you are really interested in studying how the show gets put together you can read the rehearsal scripts and compare them to the finished versions
They're in the download section. The podcast is available as always
on the British Comedy Guide or via iTunes. You will also see some blanks in the script, because as well as editing down one sketch in the interval between the two halves I also managed to write the Subo bit in the five minutes before we went back on. It's really seat of the pants stuff.
But plenty of extra ideas came flying in during the recording itself. I was particularly pleased with my sudden decision to tell Red Hot Chilli Pepper fans that they had to choose between us and their band. They were not allowed to like both. It was interesting too that although having sex with rats was already in the script, the conversation also turned to having sex with bats and cats as well. Strange, yet poetic. Only on a rhyming level.
As usual I can't quite believe we pulled it off, but I am proud of myself and my cast (even if some of the things we said were shameful) because this is not an easy feat and takes a big leap of faith, but I am glad to say that it increasingly feels like the audience are taking that with us. It was one of the lower attendances this week - though still, in fact topped 200 despite what I say in the show - and this is enough for us to tick along nicely, though it would be wonderful if we could get more for the last three. So come down to
the Leicester Square Theatre next Monday if you can and then
the Bloomsbury for the two Mondays after that. I have to say the live audience do seem to have a good time at these things, even unbelievably the sizeable minority who have never heard the podcast. So join the fun and help the revolution!
And I was proud and concerned when @DanielJSmith informed me on Twitter that he had managed to get the word "Clackerlackadackdack" into one of his exams today. " I was talking about the evolution of language, and said how today the word doesn't mean much, in the future..." he claimed, though he also said it was only General Studies which he was forced to take and which didn't count for anything anyway, so it probably won't matter when he fails.
AIOTM's fronds are spreading far and wide and bifurcating.
