There is usually a point with a new comedy script that you've never performed in front of an audience, where you start to believe that there isn't one single vaguely amsuing joke in the whole bloody thing. About midway through this afternoon I reached this point with episodes 3 and 4 of TWTTIN. We'd read them out a couple of times, done a bit of editing and were trying to write an extra bit for show 4 just in case everything failed. And I was convinced we'd managed to write almost an hour of dud material. I was tired and worn down and a long evening stretched before me and I wasn't sure how I was going to get through it.
Even though I knew that at some point I have felt this way about nearly every script I've written and they are turned out OK, there's still a part of you thinking, "You were wrong all those times, but this time you're right. This is shit." After such a good start to the series it would be a shame if the middle of the run was a disappointment.
Just after 4 we headed over to Bush Hall for the rehearsal on mike. All the cast have been working hard on other projects (apart from Danny Robins who thought this last week would be a good time for a holiday in Spain, the whassock) and were also tired and crotchety. Usually we've over-written a bit, but this time it felt as if the scripts were pretty close to the right length. If only one sketch were to fail then we'd be in trouble. If more than one died on its arse then it could be a very bad couple of weeks for us on Radio 2.
It's hard to inject life into a script without an audience there to fan the flames (is that why they are called fans? No, of course it isn't. It's short for fanatics, you twat) and we stumbled through, me getting grumpier and less convinced of my work as we went. And it wasn't entirely pre-gig negativity causing this. It was clear to me that some of the sketches weren't quite right, that nearly all of them needed an extra idea, or bit of energy or additional gag to make them work. We had about 45 minutes after the rehearsal to eat our dinner and take stock of the script. We pinpointed the areas of weakness and together made a concerted effort to quickly re-write or change an attitude or accent of a character.
And this little burst of work at the 11th hour really helped do the trick. Plus adrenaline kicked in. At 7pm I had felt like I was ready for bed, but by five to eight I was full of beans and looking forward to the show. We had a packed house and there was a terrific atmosphere and blow me if it didn't nearly all go very well indeed.
The slightly conceptual show 4, the framework of which I had been writing on Saturday night when the rest of you were out taking drugs and making love to beautiful strangers ended up playing out very well and all the doubts I had had about the scripts more or less evaporated. I think the cramming at the end had certainly helped and many of the new jokes got the best laughs of the evening, but it would still have been fine without that. Does this mean that at the next rehearsal when I start believing that the script is crap that I will remember what happened today and say to myself "Oh, it will be OK"? No of course it doesn't. I will think that this time I actually have managed to write a load of horse shit. And the frightening prospect is that there is always the chance I will be correct. But maybe the moment you lose this fear is the moment that you lose the ability to be funny.
It's a lot of pressure doing these double recordings and beforehand I was wishing we were just doing one show a week, but afterwards I realised that we are now over half way through the series. One more night and we're finished. Once they're done and dusted and it's all worked out, it certainly feels a whole lot better.
And I managed to not drink after the recording again, which is a double victory, although once I was asleep I dreamt I accidentally drank a pint of Guinness without thinking and then thought screw it, might as well get pissed and ate loads of chocolate and went a bit mental. A warning and a prophecy all in one go.
