Despite promising myself I would try and get the script done in advance this week I only had about 5 of the 25 or so required pages when I woke up at 7.30 this morning. But I had a good idea of what was going to happen in the show and a narrative structure which is half the battle. We were meeting a bit later because we couldn't get into the theatre til 5 and one of the actors had other commitments, which gave me a good eight hours to work on what we were going to say. I only need six. I wasn't ill like I had been last week and the ideas were flowing thick and fast and jumping out of me from nowhere. I wrote about Jeremy Paxman wanting to tear me a new arsehole and then suddenly and unexpectedly made that last the best part of a page by exploring the practicalities of the phrase. I was very pleased with most of what was splurging out of my brain and now this project is rolling along am really starting to enjoy and appreciated the freedom. Often by overworking a script and thinking about it too much you can lose a sense of why it's funny and edit and rewrite for days if not weeks. But as this script is going to be recorded within hours there is no time to have real doubts and there's also a feeling that we might as well give something a whirl. To begin with I had felt hemmed in and scared about this ludicrous task I have set myself, but now I am starting to feel liberated. I wouldn't like to work like this all the time, but it's right for this project and I am very pleased with the results. Even though I have done it 4 times now, it slightly confounds my own belief that I am managing to get these shows together in time and to this standard.
I actually had time on my hands in the afternoon, before heading down to the theatre to meet the gang. We had real fun reading through what I'd written, which is usually a bad sign. The rehearsals in which we really laugh and corpse seem to lead to shows where the audience is more reserved. Last week I had been uncertain that the script was funny at all and then it had gone very well, so maybe this week as we all giggled at its stupidity it would lead to a laugh free zone.
I felt a bit too relaxed about it all in fact and worried that it was all going to lead to disaster. Dan had brought in some Haribo sweets (as has become his role in the team) but they were ones that his mother had been brought back from Germany and were called something like Pasta Fruits and were very odd tasting flat strips of jelly, which seemed to be pepper or herb flavoured. That wasn't a good start. Maybe it was an omen.
Unfortunately after last week's impressive audience of 200, we had only around about 100 tickets sold this time, which in the big Leicester Square Theatre makes things a bit trickier. And financially speaking that also is probably not enough people to justify the existence of the project, but hopefully things will pick up. The crowd we had were enthusiastic despite their size and there seemed to be plenty of people in who got the call backs and running gags. There was an impressive amount of improvisation in this week's episodes too, especially involving a running joke about my mispronunciation of pumpkins as cumpkins. But why not have a listen yourself and see what you think -
either at the British Comedy Guide or on iTunes.
I showed Emma and Dan my Kindle backstage and they were not too impressed. Emma threatened to download "The Joy of Gay Sex" whilst she was in control of the device, but I stopped her and compromised by just going for the free sample chapter, which I am sure will just convince my Kindle that I require yet more books that will give me advice on how to go forward with my new homosexual lifestyle. Luckily there were enough things for me to try in the sample bit to keep me going for a while, so I won't have to waste hard earned credits on the whole thing. I have been really enjoying my Kindle, gay books aside, and have read almost the entire new Nick Hornby book this weekend, despite all the other stuff I've had on. It's easy to read and easy to carry and as long as you remember to put it on sleep before you put it in your bag you don't lose your place in your book. I think I am going to like it, but let's come back in a month and see if I am still using it or whether it's stuck in a drawer somewhere. or been stolen out of my hands by a mugger. Not something you ever really have to worry about with regular paper books. But maybe that will lead to a better educated class of mugger.
Thanks for coming to the show tonight, if you did, and it would be great if any of you who didn't could make it to one or more of the remaining six. The project's future life does depend on your patronage.
