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Back on the road and the tour proper kicked off as Giles the Cannibal arrived in a huge people carrier and drove us to Sheffield. We’re away for four nights and doing a run of big gigs which have all sold well, so it should be fun, but it was tough leaving my girls behind.
I was knackered having had another night where I woke before 5 (and this time Phoebe really took the piss sleeping in til nearly 8 and I failed to get the work done in the car that I had hoped. I didn’t listen back to the previous performances or think about the bits I needed to work on. Traffic was bad and we were running late and I half fell asleep for the last hour.
It was great to be back at Sheffield City Hall. This was one of the first venues that I did well at (I mean not so well as to go into the main hall, but the bit I am in can seat over 400) and numbers were up again this year. Usually a man called Foxy is operating the desk, but he wasn’t there this time, but the crew we had worked hard to get us set up in double quick time, even though I had lost the cable for the projector and hadn’t factored in that we needed to get sound out of the laptop. There was no time to prep the show.
I took a chance and wore my wedding suit, even though that meant I risked doing a partial Monty in the city that that film was set in. I joked about it throughout the show, but realised that none of these people would want to see my cock. They are all laid-off steel workers who now make a living stripping 9 to 5, so for me to take my clothes off would be a busman’s holiday for them. "We strip all day and then when we’ve got some down time we want to see a man who keeps his clothes on."
The zip held up, but unbeknownst to me there was a small tear at the back of my trousers (four years of stuffing my wallet in my back pocket had taken its toll), so the Sheffield people saw my pants when I turned around.
There was a moment of fun at the start of the second half when i realised that my computer was nearly out of power and we had failed to plug it in in the rush. I got off stage to try and find a plug, but couldn’t find one so had to call on tech support. It made for a fun start to the second half.
The first half of the show is expanding - it was about 55 minutes tonight and I am really pleased with the way it’s going, but the second half is still a bit of a work in progress. It may help if I move something from the first half into the second, but I am worried about breaking the flow. Even though I have a couple of bits that need some work I am still pleased with it overall and I am getting great feedback from the audience. If the whole tour can go as well as the gigs have gone so far then the heartache and loneliness of life on the road will have some compensation.
I felt a bit battered, but happy with the way things had gone. Then we packed up the car and drove to Leeds so that we could stay in the same hotel for two nights. More night closures made the journey a bit too long, but we’d got an amazing deal on a posh hotel and I slipped into my comfy bed and hoped that I wouldn’t wake at 5am again.
One of the short films I was in last year, “While You Were Away” has been selected for 2016 ÉCU Film Festival, which is exciting. I will let you know when you can see this weird and dark short.
The 100th edition of RHLSTP with the brilliant Richard Bacon is now up.
