Edinburgh is approaching with unseemly haste, but my state of preparedness is both unfamiliar and slightly spooky. I am not reading the show off bits of paper, I am not frantically writing bits to fill in gaps, I am not walking the streets looking at number-plates- I am pretty much just doing the show and it's going well and then afterwards wondering what ten minutes I should cut to make it fit into the hour time slot. And the audiences seem to be, on the whole, enjoying it. It's going to be a slightly divisive show. Some people aren't going to get it (those with the wrong sense of humour - not for the show, just their sense of humour is no good), but hopefully they will be a minority. Mostly people seem to be getting something out of it and tellingly in the feedback I am getting every routine is someone's favourite and there isn't really one that is being selected by everyone - which hopefully makes the balance right.
Tonight in Wimbledon I had the quietest and most reserved audience yet. They were quite middle aged and middle class and how one might imagine the people of Wimbledon were if you were going to make stupid generalisations about people based on preconceptions. I am sure this was just a coincidence. There were both genteel and Gentile.
Usually when I am looking for a woman to call a trout whore (you'll see if you come to the show) I pick on someone who is clearly enjoying the act. Yesterday in Hammersmtih apparently this was Channel 4 News's Sarah Smith, but tonight I had little choice from the unpopulated first couple of rows. Either a dour faced woman who had sat through the whole show enjoying the show about as much as her husband whose face was fixed into a permanent scowl (that's just what a comedian loves to see) or a woman in shadow a little further back, who seemed straight-laced but a bit more smiley. I went for her. Like Sarah Smith she did not answer my question about whether they would prefer my system of sperm to the one god had created (the only two people not to have given me a response. I would say the answer is either yes or no, there is little middle ground). But she took it in reasonably good heart.
Later I was told that an old friend from University who I hadn't seen for years was waiting in the studio for me. I went up to greet him and saw he was standing with the woman I had verbally assaulted. "This is my wife," he told me, "By the way, she is a Catholic."
Oooops.
Luckily they seemed to have enjoyed the show well enough and not have taken offence. But it had been a weird one and the lack of response generally slightly unsettled me. Until I recalled that most years that is pretty much the response to all the previews. It says a lot about this show that this is the first slightly tricky one I have had and it was by no means a disaster (and if it was we all know I would react in the same way as if it were a triumph). It doesn't take much to shake my confidence and of course self-doubt can be a disaster in this profession, but I have to say that this is definitely shaping up to be one of the best shows I have done at the Festival. It certainly has an excellent shot at being the one with the most accomplished first preview performance.
The pre-ticket sales are very encouraging and if you are planning to come down in the first few days when tickets are cheap or if you are hoping to see the show on a Friday or Saturday then it's a very good idea to book your seat now.
You can do this here or if the website is out of tickets for the day you want then ring 0131 556 6550 and hopefully there will be some left there. Do come and say hello or email me and let me know what you thought if you make it along. Or better still write about it on your website,
like Ian Hobson has done, especially if you are going to be as flattering as he was! And thanks to all of those of you who have already booked and are giving the show the appearance of being a hot ticket! That's the last direct advert I promise you. I'll keep you in touch with all the feedback, both positive and negative.
In the interest of balance have a look at Spud's comments here!
But do remember they come from a bloke called Spud.
