One thing I’m not
doing much of at the moment is writing new solo stand-up material.
This
annoys me, as it’s the one thing I’d particularly like to be doing, yet I seem to have lost my mojo. I hope this is
temporary; if
not, I'll have to eke out what I’ve written thus far for the rest of my career.
Part of the
reason for this was the mad panic dash of putting together my
first solo show for the Brighton and Camden Fringe Festivals this year. This happened
largely by accident. A slot came up as part of The Comedy Project’s season at the Soho Theatre in March, at a time when Doggett &
Ephgrave didn’t have anything new to present. We discussed it between
us, and Glyn kindly gave me the green light to use it as a chance to do some of the solo material I’d been writing and tentatively trying out since October
last year.
Then, me being
me, I perhaps decided to run before I could jump. After committing to do thirty minutes
of new material for TCP, I thought I may as well keep the ball
in the air for the few months that followed. My next intended port of call was the
Camden Fringe Festival in August, which I felt would give me time to work up an
hour of work-in-progress material. Then a couple of dates came up
as part of the Brighton Fringe in May, which I thought was a good way to bridge
the gap, so I said yes to them. This led to me doing a show in Brighton that was
still in its early stages, but foolishly not marking it as such. It was
well-received by the punters, but reviewed scathingly by Chortle. This knocked
my confidence (that thing you’re not supposed to admit in public) and briefly
slowed me down. I picked things up again for Camden, enjoyed the shows, but as there
were only two, I didn’t have time to consolidate on them – and I’m now in the aftermath, deciding what to do next.
I think I can
afford to give myself a few weeks’ break. I’m proud of the inroads I’ve made in
eight months. The style of stand-up I’m doing on my own differs a
lot to the stuff with Glyn, as it’s more personal and storytelling-based and
relies less on projection. I’m still finding my feet with it. At least when I
start working on my next solo project, I’ll have over two years’ worth of blog to fall back on. If all else fails, I'll read it out loud from
beginning to end. Imagine the reviews for that.