I prepared for my first night at the Leicester Square Theatre by going for a six and three quarter mile run. I couldn't work out if this was going to prove inspirational or disastrous. Would it fill me with energy or cause my legs to stiffen up so I moved around the stage like a robot? Given how little running I have been doing it was surprisingly easy work. It took me 72 minutes, coincidentally almost the exact length of time I would be on stage. Maybe I should have run my lines while I ran the streets and riverbanks.
I still love it down by the Thames and resolved to get back to running down here more often. The water was strangely still like a lake and turned silvery grey by the setting sun. I passed the boat house where I had hugged Jonathan Aitken as we disembarked from our
Boat Race Victory and smiled at the surreal nature of my life.
My legs pretty much held up for the night despite the pounding I had put them through. I got to the Leicester Square Theatre nice and early, but as there was a show on had to get into my dressing room through a convoluted back entrance during which time we were stuck for five minutes as the theatre manager struggled to unlock a door.
The theatre is located underneath a church just off Leicester Square and the dressing room was unusually claustrophobic, feeling a bit airless and very warm. I had printed up my script so I could read through it as I waited, but discovered that my printer must have run out of paper and the complicated last five minutes of the show were missing. It was less than three weeks since I'd last done the show, but I wasn't sure how on top of it I was. It's always nerve-wracking doing these first nights, but I figured that being kept on my toes might spur me on to a better performance.
Mark Little had overrun and so we only had a limited time to do the tech. But it's a very simple show to operate. I just need the lights on, a working microphone, the intro CD to be played and then when I am finished the exit CD to be played. The guy at the desk seemed not surprisingly blase about it all. I felt like a bit of a prick repeating that I wanted my closing music to come in immediately after I've said "Good night," but I did so because it seems to be an instruction that people find confusing. Most times the music will still come in after I've left the stage.
In the dressing room I realised that I had forgotten to mention that the operator also needs to fade the intro CD down once I am on stage - otherwise the music will run on for a couple of minutes. But I was pretty sure he'd work that out for himself. I also realised that although I had put the trumpet on stage I hadn't picked it up to practise the uncomplicated tune I had to play. I wished I had at least familiarised myself with the instrument as I have only played it once in the last few months.
I didn't feel entirely "in the zone" beforehand and it hadn't quite sunk in that I was actually about to do the show. I had never even been in the venue until the tech. It was more like a cabaret bar than I had envisaged. It has more seats than The Arts Theatre where I used to play, but seems much smaller. It's a very wide room, with a simple and small stage. I was playing in front of the curtain as the set from "Defending the Caveman" were behind it.
I was a little anxious about everything clearly, knowing too that there were press in tonight, which is unusual on a first night. On the positive side we'd sold over 200 tickets, which made it my most successful London opening ever. The theatre holds 400, but it was still enough to make it feel well attended, and it is an excellent start, much better than I anticipated and augurs well for bigger and better audiences (
So book ahead).
It turned out to be a bit of a shaky start. The idea with the beginning is to break stand up tradition and launch straight into a rather theatrical and mock-Heroic monologue. However, not only did the play in music not fade once I had picked up the mic, despite me waving my arms downwards to indicate a fade, it became quickly apparent that the microphone was not on either. At least the lights were on, but apparently the video adverts for other shows were not immediately turned off either. I had spoken a few lines before I realised the mic was off. It's not the kind of opening where I want to stop and start again. I just hoped the audience could hear me. But once the power was turned on the difference in the amplification was startling and slightly off putting. It wasn't the audacious beginning that I had hoped for and I was distracted from the performance by worrying about all these issues and what effect they had had on the crowd, as well as worrying about whether I'd remember what happened next. For a few seconds the awkwardness was palpable. Then, as I voiced Jesus's delight at being the only person in Heaven with a cock my microphone fell apart. As with my potato cock in last night's gig, such a ramshackle and amateur opening might have thrown me entirely even a few months ago, but in fact this schoolboy error actually helped dissipate the tension. I commented that that was what you got if you dared to mock Jesus. Not that it was a particularly bad punishment - he was a forgiving kind of fellow, just making his annoyance felt. Everyone laughed and from then on things picked up - although it was in a sense a shame to break out of the theatrical opening monologue, slightly devaluing the moment later when I revert to stand up mode.
I made a few minor errors and nearly missed out a chunk or two, but I am (as usual) being overly self-critical. It turned out to be a solid first night. It will undoubtedly improve as I get more familiar with the space and the material, but after that shaky first couple of minutes I felt the crowd were focused and enjoying it.
Perhaps inevitably the closing music did not come on until I had left the stage, but these are issues that will be sorted out very quickly. Thanks to the power of twitter and the internet, plus the old fashioned method of people coming up to me afterwards and speaking with their mouths, I got some immediate and very positive responses. One correspondent seemed to blame me for the technical mishaps and the effect they had on my performance and offered the incredibly helpful advice "Just act confident", but apart from his pompous and patronising email all was good.
In fact I don't need to act confident, because I have a very good feeling about this show and this run in an underground bunker in the West End. Once the first night jitters and gremlins are out of the way I think that it might end up being my best London run ever. It's another step forwards and it is gratifying to see the audiences increasing, if rather gradually over the course of the last few years. When I did my favourite ever show, "Christ on a Bike" at the Arts Theatre I think I probably only got an audience of 200 people in the entire first week. I have hopes that I might actually sell this place out at the weekends. We'll see. Thanks for coming, if you did and spread the word.
I am if nothing else the poster boy for persistence.
Thanks to Andrew Viner for making that poster a reality!
