Just The Tonic in Nottingham is a great venue. It was here in 2001 that
Christ On a Bike really came together (which is lucky because it was the last gig before Edinburgh - I was actually driving north the minute I was off-stage) after some other more dodgy previews. And tonight I had a blast doing the new show, which admittedly has been going well before, but which seemed to especially rock tonight. It's partly because most previews have a small-ish audience and you get 150+ at this club, but also it's a very comedy literate audience who like to see new stuff and who don't spend the first two minutes drunkenly shouting "Tell us a joke" as happened at my gig last night at the Amused Moose, where I was unlucky enough to have a stag party in.
It's really exciting when a show comes together and annoyingly pretty much everything is working. Annoying because I ended up doing about 80 minutes so will need to lose a quarter of the material in the next two weeks (which again, is nothing like as bad as last year where I had over 100% too much material and had still not written the last third of the show at this stage). But hopefully it should all mean that I know the show well enough to do the all important first few shows in Edinburgh (when the press should be in) to a polished standard and be playful with the material, without fearing that I might mess it all up. The Rudyard Kipling and monkey fucking bits are working great now, though I fear I might have to lose one of them (hopefully not). I suspect I can lose at least five minutes from the Pope/Catholic bit which is the major portion of the show at the moment. I am sure I will pull it all together. Plus I still need to sum up the show at the end and link all the routines together, but am getting quite a good reaction from just saying that I still need to do that. I have a very good feeling about the show this year. I am sure if yoy can be arsed to check that I may have said the same thing last year (and then didn't have an entirely satisfactory Edinburgh), but this time it is different. I have nothing to prove and nothing to lose and the reaction and the pre-ticket sales suggest to me that it's going to be OK. Even if, as usual, the critics don't go overboard on it and even if some of them slag me off, I know that what I am doing is good and I am pretty confident the audiences will like it. It would be nice to get some proper recognition (if only so that when I play in Dorset or Wales or Carlisle more than 30 people come to see me), but I feel that if I keep touring the country and going as well as I am generally going, that the audiences will start coming to me anyway. I know this is all a bit show-offy, but I am conscious that I generally only every write about the bad gigs (as they are usually funnier) and I just want to acknowledge that this year has been a very important turning point for me already. It's very exciting when a gig goes this well. Thanks to those of you who turned up and made it such a pleasurable experience.
I was on a double bill with a show called
The Pool of Life which looked very promising (especially as this was their first proper run through) and which I recommend to anyone going up there.
