If I were to sum
up my life at the moment, it would be very much a case of ‘having something I
really need to do, but never getting to it due to another fifteen things that
end up in the way’.
The thing I need to do is work on new material
ready for next week’s Brighton shows, but instead, today inevitably became
about preparing for tomorrow’s first St Albans Mostly Comedy date. This was
unavoidable, but it was still frustrating, as by the time I finally got to
running the short set I’m intending to try out tomorrow, it was getting
later and later, so I could only give it a handful of goes before I had to the leave the office and go
home.
I long for the
day when the thing that’s my personal priority is the thing I work on the
most. It’s always the same; I’m constantly giving the tiniest fraction of my
time before any gig I do to running or tweaking my set, so the chance of me
doing it well in performance is left in the lap of the gods, plus I’m usually
stressed or brain-zapped by the time I do it.
It was my intention
that this week be primarily about learning the new material I’ve been fiddling
with lately so it's in a performable state ready for next week, but this wasn't what happened in practise, due to a constant stream of administrative
details for the many Mostly Comedy dates we’ve got coming up in Hitchin, St Albans
and London. My frustration about this extra work’s been compounded by not being
able to pay myself for it, thanks to the large chunk of punters (that's the correct
collective term) who opted for a refund when James Acaster had to pull out of
April’s Hitchin date, which ultimately resulted in me doing more work for free. I’m still annoyed that was the overriding reaction, despite an excellent
replacement, as it served to illustrate how people now book based solely on
names, when there once was a time when most of the acts were unknown (which James was when he first came to the club) but people took
the chance in support of the night.
Whatever the
case, I still intend to do ten minutes of new stuff tomorrow. It will probably
be a little rough around the edges and rickety, but that’s okay. Everything’s got to start
somewhere…and I’ll be damned if I’ll turn down the opportunity just to be slick and well-rehearsed; I see it as a very expensive way to get the
opportunity to try stuff out.