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They accidentally put out the bleeped version of Taskmaster tonight and for about twenty minutes I assumed everyone was calling everyone else "cunt". Which just shows that censorship can actually make things seem worse.
Twitch of Fun, especially when I've been working on something else all day, is a thrilling and ridiculous leap into the dark for me as a performer. Sometimes it's awkward and embarrassing and I have no idea where I am going to take things and then suddenly one of the puppets will suggest something that will spark off an unexpected and funny train of thought. The misses are still funny, but the hits are a kind of magic and I am fascinated by what happens when self-consciousness disappears and the subconscious takes over.
By rights the whole thing should be total shit and I am not saying that some people won't come to that assessment, but they are wrong. As much as I love doing crafted stand up shows and improvised conversations with other people, I still believe that the more esoteric things I attempt are the best things that I do. It's easy to dismiss them all as self-indulgent madness (Ally certainly seems to think it is going that way), but talking in an even occasionally entertaining (or in snooker's case, deliberately boring and befuddling) for an hour, with no more than the flimsiest idea of where you might be going, with no other human to bounce off (not trying to put down the puppets who do an amazing job of passing the ball - or being a ball in some cases) is pretty hard. And creating characters live in front of (a very small) audience, with no rehearsal or even consideration also lifts the curtain on the creative process. If you've watched all of the Twitch output (and my God, I hope no one has) then you have seen the entirety of my ventriloquism training. Aside from the King of the World having come out of his box declaring that he was the king of the world (which wasn't on a stream, but still came as spontaneously as everything else in the show) nearly everything else has happened on air. It's crazy.
Tonight the Richard Herring character seemed surprised that his decision to confront his cancer by making a puppet of his tumour and talking to it hadn't attracted more attention from critics. He thought that any other comedian doing this would have got more notice.
I understand his surprise, but the vacuum that I largely seem to operate in is probably what makes these things work. It's a long process (self-playing snooker is approaching its tenth anniversary) and once things have got rolling it's pretty difficult to join in - anyone tuning into Chapter 107 of stone clearing might think it's an inexplicable and impenetrable podcast with in jokes that are unfathomable (also true for Chapter one though).
So I can only do this stuff for myself and the handful of diehard fans (who are fed up waiting for the next adventure of John Mcclain and so have to fill time watching a man arguing with puppets) who are prepared to put in the person hours from the start.
In the end Twitch of Fun will either expand beyond its limits and collapse into destruction or I will build up something that might have a proper shelf life and even become more than a streamed show (I sort of want to do something live with it, but am not sure there will be enough interest to justify the time and expense of that).
Anyway, all that matters is that as much as this show sometimes makes me squirm, it is a highly enjoyable and fascinating comedic experiment. For me. I am only talking about me. And it's utterly remarkable that anything remotely funny comes out of it and even more remarkable that occasionally something profound emerges. I will keep arguing with my cancerous bollock and my great-grandad's hideous puppet until it all implodes.
