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This afternoon we took Phoebe to a baby disco at the Speigel tent on the South Bank. We had had a tough day of child care and travel to get there and I was concerned it might sap my remaining power ahead of my (kind of) final Happy Now? performance. But it was an absolute tonic and delight. We were a bit late and it was in full swing: various tiny people and their parents all bopping or sitting around as the DJ and her assistants kept things lively. Phoebe was in her element. She loves dancing, but she also loves new people and she was soon bobbing up and down before running off at alarming speed into the crowd, seemingly with no concern as to whether she ever saw us again. It was a whole lot of fun and I highly recommend it. But only to people with children. I think if you turn up without kids you might look a bit weird. And I suspect you would be correctly arrested.
One of the team behind the disco was (unbeknownst to me before) a friend of mine, a lady called Frehd. I first encountered her in Adelaide in 1997, when I went on a trip to Kangaroo Island with various comedians from the Festival I was at. One of them had, I think, taken a bit of a fancy to Frehd and invited her along, but at the time she was working as a clown and couldn’t afford to take a day off, so instead he hired her to come with us. Which meant we went on a day trip with our own clown. A clown to comedians. It would be a much more palatable version of Pretty Woman. A man hires a clown he fancies and then she comes and clowns for him and his friends and some kangaroos. Luckily it was more like having a pal along than a seedy clown whore scenario, but it made the day much more memorable.
I danced with my daughter, but she squirmed and ran away when I attempted to join her in a slow dance (like so many women before her). Spirits were lifted and it was terrific to see her having so much fun. She kept trying to crawl up the steps that led to the stage. She likes steps a lot, but it was hard not to wonder if she was really more interested in being up in front of everyone. Are these things genetic? Perhaps.
Afterwards I walked back over the bridge to the theatre. There seemed to be a lot more homeless people around than usual, already taking up their places in doorways by mid-afternoon. Had they just been transposed by the Queen’s Birthday celebrations (in itself something of a jarring thought)? Or is it just further sign of the breakdown of our society? One homeless man was having a sleep on the bench like statue to Oscar Wilde, using the intricate metalwork of the sculpture to hang his backpack on and make it harder to steal. It was tragic, yet bleakly artistic, like Wilde himself.
My last show (aside from a reprise in Stratford-upon-Avon in September) was a blast. I was playful and confident and managed to ad-lib some new bits and do all the older bits well too. It was 9 months to the day since I had performed this show for the first time in the same theatre and it’s certainly come a long way (despite being surprisingly OK the first time - most of that first show’s stuff survives in some form). I audio recorded tonight’s show, as it’s moved on a fair bit since the DVD recording, and will put this on the DVD as an extra. So you’ll be able to get a flavour of the show at its start and then in the middle of the tour and again at the end.
I was a little emotional to finish it off. I don’t quite know how I managed to get this show together what with everything else that has been dominating my time (and the tiredness and illness that has come with it), but I am very proud of what I’ve achieved with it. Now onwards to the next one.
