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Nearly got to the end of this mammoth run of gigs and tonight I was back at the Reading Hexagon for the second year in a row. There was no snooker this time and I had 100 fewer people in than last year. I would have thought snooker would put people off. Did the 100 not come because I wasn't doing snooker or because I did do snooker last year? The same thing happened at St Albans.
But the good news was that I still had 400 people in, putting this very much in the top ten of gigs based on sales. Admittedly that's about a third of the capacity of the venue, but whilst that might bother the theatre management, it doesn't bother me. If I could get 400 people at every venue I went to I would be over the moon with happiness (and putting it on a stick).
It's amazing to play these big spaces with a (for me) big audience. It gives a chance to let the jokes land and ferment and the laughs grow, plus gives an extra something being on a stage this big. I always say it, but the comedians playing the big venues to huge audiences have it easy. Or at least you'd have to go some to fuck it up.
The hard bit, of course, is getting the people to come to see you.
I am so lucky to get the opportunity to play these bigger venues to numbers that I could once only have dreamed of. I doubt that I will ever fill the Reading Hexagon and there's every possibility that I will never play there again, but every now and again I step back and marvel at the wonder of getting to play venues like this and thank my lucky stars. Though persistence and hard work and refusing to give in are probably more responsible than massive balls of gas billions of light years away. I guess my lucky stars are the ones that exploded to create the atoms that went to make up me and the stuff around me. I'd thank those guys, but they exploded some time ago and never got to know that disaster for them would lead to my triumph of playing a slightly more than a third full venue in Reading.
More playfulness tonight. Some of the stuff from Glasgow has stuck, but I have been unable to recapture whatever I did with the “Family Sea†bit back then, when I hit everything just right, made my point and accidentally came up with a new joke.
When I was talking about having an ancestor called Andrew Cockburn (parodying the lameness of the literal “joke") a man shouted out “Coburnâ€. I suggested that his surname might also be Cockburn which is why he was defending the erroneous pronunciation, but then also explained to him at length how, had I pronounced it as he wished, then it wouldn't really be a funny name as I had promised. Sometimes accuracy is the enemy of comedy. In fact the audience would be so confused why a non-funny name was suddenly in the list of funny ancestor names that they would lose all confidence in me and no longer be able to enjoy any of the show. Why did he put Coburn in that list? It makes no sense.
It was an enjoyable distraction and I the routine came out in the moment, fully formed. It's a kind of magic when this happens, but needs the synergy of performer and crowd. Think I managed to take the piss out of the interjection without belittling the Mr Cockburn. Or just as much as he deserved.
I did at least finally manage to sit down and have a think about the first episode of Relativity before the show. And felt mildly less terrified about my workload as I realised I did at least have some ideas for it (and thanks once again to this blog for existing and being capable of remembering all the details that I've forgotten). We're starting with a funeral. But don't worry there will be a wedding and a baby too (though not necessarily in that order). Writing work always feels like a millstone at this stage and I constantly have to remind myself how lucky I am to be put through this torture. Mainly the torture of trying to apply yourself. Once you start it's rather good fun. If you're lucky.
I am looking forward to a long summer holiday - am planning on three months of fun with my family and trying to sort out the house stuff that still needs doing. The good thing about working so hard now is that I will have done enough to see me through to September….. but what's the betting that some other irresistible job comes up to drag me away from the reading, light writing and larking around with the kids that is currently pulling me like a magnet through these exhausting weeks.
Final RHLSTP recording on Monday - last chance to see one (in London) til September. And high guest standard continues with Mark Steel and (most, if not all of) the My Dad Wrote A Porno team.
Tickets here. Selling fast!
And RHLSTP with Kiri and Rachel from All Killa, No Filla is now up
