I’ve been at
Doggett & Ephgrave HQ today, stitching together material for Saturday’swork-in-progress gig.
The biggest
challenge at the moment is to make it feel cohesive. Parts of it sit
together nicely; others feel pretty cut-and-shut. If the material doesn’t
flow, it could be irritating and tiring for the audience. They’ll be no natural
resolution and no sense of an end in sight. I don’t want that.
There’s a loose
theme forming, centring on my relationship with my family, but not everything
fits into it. I’m not too
concerned if the links are a little haphazard on Saturday – I’m using the gig to find out what works and what doesn’t – but
it’s something I’ll need to smooth out before the Soho Theatre date in March.
The audience for that will probably be a lot less patient, based on previous
experience. That gig is a month away today. No pressure.
To throw a
spanner into proceedings, I started the day by discovering my computer didn’t
work. It wouldn’t switch on. It wasn’t plugged into the mains initially. When I
did, it powered up, but the battery wouldn’t charge. My first thought was that
the battery had died, which would be a lot less serious. The downside is it’s a
MacBook, and therefore harder to have a fiddle with yourself. I’ve made an
appointment at one of Apple’s poncily-named Genius Bars in their Cambridge
store on Friday. I could do without going. I’ve got a gig in Letchworth that
night, for which I’ll need to use it. I don’t want someone to knock the
power lead out mid-performance to have it all cut out. It’s charging now though,
so it may be all right.
The music stand I
ordered for Saturday’s show arrived today, which is good news. It’s far easier
reading notes from it than from the back of my hand. It makes me feel like getting my recorder out. That's not a euphemism.
