I have been trying to think of the best way to display the Gospel of St Matthew (and the other bits of info) required for my feat of memory in the Christ of a Bike previews. In the Edinburgh and tour versions I will have a technical person and the space to do the whole thing via projector, but in these small rooms where there's no where to hang the equipment and where I am on my own I need to be able to prove that I have got all the info right. I went into a photo shop to see if they could blow up an A4 document to A1, but it was going to cost be £20 a page and they wouldn't even be putting the info on card. God knows what they would have thought I needed the stuff for. Some strange bits from the Bible plus a load of strange seemingly random letters, plus another page which detailed my own relation to Jesus Christ. I think I might have called the authorities if I was presented with these documents and a Jesus like figure who needed them blown up to the biggest size possible
I decided to try Prontaprint in Notting Hill to see if they could do it cheaper, but on the walk up there I checked the documents that I had been trying to get to fit on one sheet and realised I had accidentally deleted some pertinent info, so I trudged home again. Once there I realised I could use my printer to double the size of the pages, but only if I copied them in four sections, so I spent a couple of hours that I could have been learning the show, trying to fit jigsaw bits of the Bible together. I got better at it as I went along and managed to save myself £80 by doing it myself. And the signs proved to be good enough for the small room in Hampton that I was performing in. And even though this is only the second preview it all seems to be ticking along fine. I have stumbled a bit on the backwards bit (which is the only really hard memory test, mainly because it needs to be fast), but the other bits are good and though I had a script in my hand I did manage to recall a lot of the jokes without referencing it too much. And it's a much better show than I had thought when I first looked at it. It's getting laughs all the way through and it's terrific to have this as a starting point. There will be some new bits, but the old bits are nearly all good enough. I am looking forward to getting this up to full speed.
Luckily for me a nice, but criminal man called Tom had made an illegal bootleg of one of the early shows, as the script I have written down has an awful lot missing from it. Evenso the recorded show is maybe the 5th one from Edinburgh and is still far from the final version. Tantalisingly Tom had also found another later bootleg on line which is a lot more assured and has a whole load of extra bits and some much better jokes. Unfortunately it cuts out in the middle of the begat scene, just before it gets to the good bit, which I am sure I have forgotten loads of. So if anyone else has the full version of that later show (or preferably one from the tour version or London run) or knows of any other bootlegs, please do let me know. I am absolutely delighted that people made these illegal copies, though would be less happy if they did it now. But back in 2001 it was much more hassle to record stuff and you could only really do a DVD if someone paid you to do it (though annoyingly I could have easily made some kind of record of the show, but didn't - just as we totally failed to record any of the Lee and Herring tours because we are dicks). But reconstructing this show is a little bit like having to create a true version of the Bible from all the scraps of various Gospels. Tonight my memory managed to dredge up a couple of bits that are neither in the script or the complete bootleg. I hope it will all come back to me, but I think it's likely that some jokes will be lost for always.
It feels exciting to be gearing up for Edinburgh and I am glad that I am only 11 days away from completing this season of AIOTM (please come to one of the final two shows if you can). There are tickets still available for all the Edinburgh shows I am involved with, but they are all selling well, so book ahead if you can. At the moment edfringe.com has not Collings and Herrin tickets, but hopefully there will be more released shortly. Keep an eye on the site and make sure you snap them up when they're there!
