It’s very seldom
something like filming a show goes well without question, so I was extremely
fortunate and grateful for how last night’s recording of my solo show at The
Market Theatre went.
For starters, I
was amazed we sold out, as that only tends to happen when we host an act at
Mostly Comedy that’s a big pull. I’ve cancelled countless performances through
the years (admittedly primarily in London) due to poor - or no -
turnout, so I’ve grown to expect people won't come; each time this happens chips away at your self confidence despite the many perfectly justifiable reasons for it, so I was genuinely surprised and delighted when ticket sales suddenly picked up last week. Admittedly the venue has a small capacity, but last night’s
crowd were responsive enough to be an audience three times its size.
I was pleased with how easy our get-in was too. Glyn, Paul and I began at around 2pm
(though to be fair Glyn had been there earlier to prep the
space) and managed to set the PA up quickly and get a good sound without any
problems. We then zipped through lighting it and getting camera angles we were
happy with before Glen Davies arrived (who had kindly agreed to
essentially do a half-hour’s warm-up) with plenty of time to run his set, rather than there being a race to-the-finish as per usual.
Best of all, the show itself genuinely went as well as it possibly could in the
circumstances, and I mean that in a positive sense. Prior to last night I’d
lost a little faith in whether it worked, partly because I'd downed tools
for a while and partly because I'd read too much into how sparsely it sold at the Fringe. As time goes by, it's harder to remain positive in the
face of how difficult it is to get good representation to move my career on as I'd like; I begin to feel like the industry is metaphorically avoiding my eye based on an
arbitrary decision in the past. Then, despite how well the show is
received by its audiences, you lump it all together and question if it even works.
Last night, I had
the boost of a crowd who were behind me from the beginning, plus a rare sense that a show performed on my home turf (which can be surprisingly
difficult) went as well as it could. Everything I’d learnt in Edinburgh fell into place and the material got big laughs with everyone going along
with the more challenging material too - and despite what the only review I got in
Edinburgh said, the songs didn’t jar either. Now at least I'll have a
copy of it I can hawk around a bit to show what I do; let’s just hope
we switched the cameras on...