Malty Comedy,


Tonight’s sold out St Albans Mostly Comedy with Reginald D Hunter and Hattie Hayridge proved a suitable way to round off our first run at the Maltings Arts Theatre and redressed the balance nicely following our rough-around-the-edges RAF Museum date with Reg last month.

The silhouettes of Hattie Hayridge & Reginald D Hunter at tonight's St Albans Mostly (05.07.18)

The set-up was a little different to our first show at the venue back in May, when we performed on-the-flat in front of raked seating (whereas the seating was being used for an outdoor production of Much Ado About Nothing by the resident theatre company this month, so we had to put in a stage to eliminate sightline issues), but we ostensibly managed to fix any potential problems, so the show could run sufficiently slickly. We did have a tech flare-up not long before the house was due to open, when we couldn’t get a monitor mix independent from the house mix as part of the sound system appeared to be missing from the rack (having presumably been pinched for the outdoor show too); this meant we had to do without monitors all together, which was frustrating, though at least the full house damped the sound enough to give us reasonable on-stage clarity.

The best thing about The Maltings compared to The Sun is having the luxury of a backstage space to disappear to, instead of always being on view. I was particularly grateful for this today, as the continuing heatwave made it difficult for me to cool down. Having somewhere to relax makes the world of difference. While the rostra and the big screen helped raise status and give our material extra attack, I still preferred May’s set-up as it felt smarter; I'd much prefer to return to that when we go back in the Autumn.

Hattie and Reg were on great form and our stuff went well too. I tried out some new ideas that felt pretty rough-around-the-edges before the gig but were well-received which was a relief as this gives me more to add to my show, which must be a cozy seven minutes long by now, which is nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about at all.

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