Another big audience of cheapskates. Tomorrow will be the real test as prices finally go to full price for good.
My throat was a lot better, though still a little scratchy but I gave my best and most relaxed performance of the show so far and really enjoyed it. Now that I (mainly) know the words I am able to concentrate on doing the jokes well. I am even starting to chuck in more ad libbed bits, though doing this near the beginning caused me to forget where I was.
Half way through a siren went off. "That's a very loud mobile phone," I commented. Then a pre-recorded female voice advised us that there was an emergency and that we should leave the building. That's some kind of heckle.
No-one made a move, but having checked with Simon Streeting, who typically had no idea what was going on, I suggested that it was probably a good idea for us to leave. Reluctantly people started standing up and I have to say it is a good job there wasn't an inferno sweeping through the building or most of them would have died in their seats. Heroically I stayed on stage to marshall the people out, even though I could easily have run off first. I was trying to think of some way to continue the performance, which was going really well.
Then as the first people got to the door one of the Pod staff came in and told us to ignore the warning. I don't know if that meant it was a false alarm, or whether they thought that my show was so good that it was worth dying for.
So everyone sat down and we resumed the performance. "A little fire wouldn't hurt me, I'm a hero," I told them, secretly wishing that this had all occurred at the bit about the fire-walking. "I thought Al Quaida are trying to wipe out my show," I said, "Where were they on Wednesday when I needed them? The cunts!"
I've got over myself. I am going to have fun. This is a show for the punters, not the critics, I think. And as Richard Pryor said in the Guardian today, who ever said as a kid that they wanted to be a critic.
This was in a piece where comedians asked him questions. I had asked him the hackneyed question that comedians always get asked "Where of you get your crazy ideas from?" hoping that he would recognise I was messing around. but he answered it seriously with "I get my ideas from life." (unless that is his parody answer - me and Stew always just used to say "We copy them off the Goodies" which some journalists took at face value). What a waste of an opportunity that was for me. Ah well.
