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I had started the month very strongly with my diet, but my lack of exercise in the last two weeks due to my cold slightly put paid to my progress. I weighed in at 83.8kg, still 0.2kg down on last month and 11.4kg down on the year, but 4kg up on my August low point. The cold still kinda lingers, but as I headed out to the theatre tonight I had a spring in my step and my body seemed anxious to run. With Christmas coming up it might be difficult to shed too much weight, but I am hopeful I can get down to about 82kg for the year’s end and then redouble my efforts and turn this into a two year project (although if I can maintain a weight of 83kg I will be happy with that). It’s actually quite gratifying that I am maintaining the weight I am at in spite of not really paying attention to the diet and I don’t want to slide back to where I was twelve months ago (when I was 97kg).
I don’t know why but today felt like a switch had flicked in my brain. Whilst happy about many things in my life I had been a bit blue about the fate of my play in Edinburgh and concerned about how my career might progress and confused about what I should do next. None of these things have really changed, but for some reason the weight lifted from my shoulders today.
I think it’s been good to take some time to mourn the artistic failure of my play. The loss of money is annoying, but I always knew that that would be inevitable. I wanted to make sure that everyone was properly paid for their work and eight weeks wages for seven performers, plus expensive Edinburgh accommodation for them all, plus fees for directors, designers and crew meant there was no chance of the project breaking even. Putting it on in a large venue (at preferential rates if I did my stand up show in the same space) was my only hope of getting some of the money back. And I hoped that my stand up show would sell as well as it had in the last couple of years and maybe a little better at weekends with the increased capacity. Even so I knew that the jaunt would cost me, but was happy to take the gamble, because I thought the idea was a good one and I was fed up of writing stuff that didn’t get made and if the play was a success then that could lead to all kinds of opportunities. I would rather spend the extra money I make from comedy on making more comedy and I suppose I knew that this was the last year I might be able to take such a risk with my income. In last week’s podcast Stewart Lee laid the blame for the financial loss at the feet of my management, but I don’t think that is fair to them and it’s a bit patronising to me. I knew what everything cost, I assumed that my audience would at least hold steady and if anything was a little bit pole-axed by the changing nature of the Fringe, where audiences are gravitating towards seeing TV names if they are paying money or (correctly) going to see Free Fringe shows instead. The latter is an excellent development for comedians and the Fringe and my realisation that the Fringe is no longer for me is not a petulant or negative one. The competition requires non-established acts who are want to take a step up from the Free Fringe to spend money and the costs of everything are sky high. There’s not a practical way to make it work if you are beyond that stage where you want to experiment and are now hoping to be “discovered” or reviewed. Things will have to change and that’s a good thing. I just chose the wrong year to do this project and should maybe have either premiered this play elsewhere or chosen an idea with a smaller cast and a simpler through line. I was over ambitious, but I am glad I took the chance.
I can do my stuff elsewhere without the competition or the need to spend too much money on promotion or having to fight to get reviewers in (something that my PR people managed to do for the play - but it’s not their fault that the reviewers didn’t go overboard with enthusiasm. If that’s anyone’s fault then….)
I was willing to take these chances and I must take responsibility for how things turned out. In hindsight, if I’d known the play would lose so much money and my stand up show would only break even then I would have certainly cut my losses and put on the play in a smaller and more suitable venue. But I had good reason to assume that my audiences would be big enough to make the shows work in the venue we chose. And hoped to minimise the losses.
The financial gamble of the Fringe has worked before and it's not like the acts spending money up there aren't aware of the investment/gamble they're making. You can add up what you've gained and lost (and this year's losses were paid for by the last three years' gains in any case for me), but the work you do there leads to other work (just as the podcast work I have done for free seems to somehow pay off down the line). The plays I wrote in the late 1990s all cost me £10,000 to produce and none of them lead directly to any earnings, but I doubt without them that I would have ended up writing Time Gentlemen Please. Why do acts still go to Edinburgh and spend money on producing their work? Maybe for some of them because they believe in what they're doing enough, but surely at least partly because they know that in the long run the potential rewards outweigh the risks. Not many of them will go on to make £20 million a year like some of the acts who once played the Pleasance Attic, but they are going in with their eyes open and know that they can make that money back and more. If you just looked at my Edinburgh losses and gains I would be several thousand pounds down, but without it would I have had the career I have had?
The thing that hurt was not the loss of money (as much as I would have liked not to lose money) but the artistic failure of the play, that I had invested so much time and passion and of my soul into. But as much as I have never really had a breakaway artistic success, I have not really ever done anything before that has “failed”. And this was a failure in terms of mediocre reviews and ticket sales and having any chance of an immediate future life. I still think that whilst it wasn’t perfect there was a lot that was good in this play and I know some of the audience saw that and many enjoyed it. But I guess what I am trying to say is that it’s taken me a few months to mourn the loss of this play and my crushed hopes for it. The sadness has hung over me for these weeks and I have questioned whether I even want to write anything of such substance again and wondered what it means for the future. Dammit, I knew the play and the idea was good and had lots of potential and it was very upsetting that others dismissed it and often for dumbass reasons. And even though the stand up show got better reviews, I also felt that this was amongst my best work and wasn’t getting the recognition that it maybe deserved and it felt like it might be the last chance for that to happen...
But today, for no reason, the sun came out from behind the clouds and I felt a new energy and happiness and the desire to move on. I’ve had failed relationships that it’s taken me years to get over, so comparatively this is not so bad. I don’t understand why it happened today or where the surge of endorphins came from that made me feel happy for no discernible reason (I may have been drugged). I don’t think it’s just because I had such an enjoyable gig last night (though I might be that shallow), as I’ve had lovely gigs in the last couple of months that have made no difference. It might be that I am just feeling better as my cold finally seeps away. But I was in a scarily positive mood.
And my first night at the Leicester Square Theatre was loads of fun too. It was about half full, which was a lot better than I had feared about a month ago when ticket sales were very low and I tore into it with passion and did another performance that I am very proud of. I have said this before (and that’s kind of the point) but I reach a point about every six months where I suddenly feel a leap forward in what I am doing and realise that I now finally am a good stand-up. Suddenly I’ve got it, when before I was just scrambling in the dark. But then six months later I realise, oh no, NOW I get it. Now I’m good. It’s been going on for a long time. I remember doing a performance of Someone Likes Yoghurt at the Battersea Arts Centre where I felt exactly this, but I was wrong then. But tonight I got it right. There is no way that the Richard Herring of June 2015 is going to look back and say, “What an idiot I was then, NOW I get it. NOW I am good at this.” Because I get it NOW. Like I said all the other times. But I was wrong then. But not NOW! This is a complex and weirdly subtle show and it takes a lot of work and energy to make it work. Tonight, in spite of being a little bit chesty still, I had the energy and drive and the underlying happiness that it needs to fly.
I am here all week. I know you like to keep me as your special secret, but if you could just tell one friend each about me then that would be a big help!
Get your tickets here! But certainly my realisation of what is important and how lucky I am to be in the position I am is much stronger now that it was in August. I still have to fight and I still have to struggle and nothing can be taken for granted. And much as it would be nice to know that I had guaranteed work and ticket sales and people clamouring to produce my plays and TV work, maybe when it stops being a struggle any more you lose something, or have to manufacture an artificial struggle which can send you spiralling to personal disaster as we’ve seen with so many successful and now dead-by-their-own-hand-either-deliberately-or-accidentally comedians. Luckily I will always have Me1 Vs Me2 Snooker so I will forever struggle against myself without ever being able to win.
My job is all pretend and none of it is important and none of it matters in the long run. I am really looking forward to 2015 on a personal level (and maybe this spike of unexplained joy has something to do with that), but now, out of nowhere I am looking forward to seeing what happens with my job as well.
I am over the play, like I got over those failed relationships. Though who knows me and the play might hook up again in a few years time and realise what was great about each other and give it another whirl. My wife says that I am not allowed to do that any more with my failed relationships, which seems a bit selfish of her, but I will do what she says. She happily supported my decisions to take this dumb risks with our money, is still proud of me for doing this stuff and put up with me when I was a bit grumpy about where my hubris led me. She's the total best and has kindly agreed to make another human being for me to love just as much. Take that Rasputin you dead prick.
Let's see what 2015 has for us.
This month's monthly subscriber draw prize winner was Dunstan Orchard from San Francisco (our third overseas winner - bloody foreigners not coming over here and giving us their money). He has kindly turned down the expensive to post and rather parochial Doctor Who Regenerations DVD set and the signed Pointless book, so these prizes will rollover into our mammoth New Year draw which will also include my handmade me1Vs Me2 snooker T shirt, a stolen copy of Stewart Lee's third TV series which I will sign (most of the material has been stolen from me, so that's only fair) and much more. To be in with a chance of winning these prizes and getting access to a secret channel of backstage RHLSTP interviews (and other stuff), ticket offers and advance warning of big star RHLSTP guests (so you can get tickets before they sell out) then
donate a pound or more a month here. All your money will go towards financing future internet projects. We've started planning for a video version of AIOTM. We need about four times as many subscribers to get that going, so your pound a month could make all the difference.
