I didn't get much sleep last night and the day was a bit of a blur. I was knocking things over and being forgetful all day. I need my sleep.
I had a gig at Old Rope in the evening, where comics try out new material. There were only 20 or so people in the audience, plus the comics, though there was still a nice atmosphere, though the crowd weren't big laughers. It's hard when the room isn't full for people to lose their inhibitions.
I was also worried that tiredness might affect my 30 minute headline spot, but it's a good opportunity for me to experiment with being more chatty and to talk about stuff that pops into my head.
So I started by asking the people on the front table where one of their number was missing. They told me she was outside smoking and I discussed one of the unforeseen consequences of the smoking ban which was that it was making it easier for smokers to pull, as they end up outside the pub together, sharing cigarettes, getting lights and generally being able to talk to people they might not otherwise have met, with whom they have something in common - smoking. I had a good illustration of this as I had recently been on a first date with a smoker, who kept popping out for a fag, which she was having to cadge and towards the end of the evening, as I was buying her a drink she went out again. She seemed to be taking a long time so I went out to find her, to discover her snogging someone else. Which was quite annoying. But at least a good indication that the date probably wasn't going that well. Annoyingly the bloke she was snogging was a TV producer who had earlier been telling me how great I was and how he wanted to work with me on some new projects. But this incident put me off him as well, so I lost the girl and a job opportunity as well. Unless he saw this as part of the deal. But if anyone should have been kissing him it should have been me. Although this event was slightly humiliating at the time it is nice to know that, as always, I can probably get a routine out of it. In a way it's more depressing for me when my life goes right.
So that worked well which was gratifying as it wasn't something I had planned to talk about and the set continued brightly, but when I got on to the "Give Me Head Til I'm Dead" bit, which has been something of a banker of late, went down to near silence for large chunks. The people seemed engaged by it, but weren't choosing to demonstrate that through laughter. In my slightly woozy, tired state this seemed quite a bizarre reaction and after I had finished I discussed this. I said from their reaction it felt a little like I had not been saying anything out loud, that all the things I was saying were just going on in my head and that they were staring at me wondering when I would start talking. If that was the case they were being quite patient, but I suggested that they were maybe thinking, "Well he was on TV eight years ago, this must be leading somewhere. He wouldn't just stand on stage saying nothing and gesturing wildly without it leading up to something worthwhile."
I managed to ascertain that they could hear me, but still felt spaced out and whittered on, sometimes amusingly. It was kind of fun. And there was something interesting in the idea of the performer being unsure that the audience could even hear what he was saying, both in a literal and metaphorical sense. Because although they could hear the words, I wasn't sure if it was all getting through.
I got the tube home and started reading "England, England" by Julian Barnes. I only read the first page and it was so beautifully constructed that I had to stop. Sometimes you realise how much further you have to go to be good at what you get. It's both intimidating and depressing and quite exciting. You see a comedian so good that it makes you half think that there's no point in continuing or read a book that makes you realise your limitations as a writer. But in the end it hopefully pushes you on to try and get better at what you do, to push yourself closer to reaching that level. And all this philosophy was coming about due not to drunkeness, but to sleep deprivation. Maybe I will be better at what I do if I give up the booze and just drink the equivalent in coffee instead.
