Today, I finally finished compiling my 2017/18 tax records (with my wife as my unpaid assistant), which makes for depressing reading unless you're a fan of minus figures.
(If so, then get ready for this: -4922.679232)
(I know: phwoar)
I find myself at a crossroads over what to do next. The past four years have been primarily about performing stand-up to fringe audiences to work up my solo chops, having always performed comedy as one half of a double-act up to that point. While I've taken shows to London, Brighton, Bath, Leicester, Hitchin and Letchworth over that time, there's no doubt Edinburgh was the biggest underlying factor, with the other dates being either a warm-up for or a cool-down from three consecutive Edinburgh Fringes, with me writing another solo show in 2015 that I didn't take to Scotland, but was still put together with going there alone as my motivation.
There's no denying the experience has been challenging, both creatively and financially. You could argue I'd had it fairly easy career-wise up to that point, with my musical ability bolstering my acting work from the get-go, propelling me - if you can call it that - into large-scale tours of the UK & Ireland (and a handful of stints in the Netherlands) and then the West End, with my keenness for comedy resulting in eleven seasons with a reputable writers' group at The Soho Theatre and to co-running Mostly Comedy, where I've played host to many of the industry's biggest names. Whether this was ever reflected in my bank balance is up for debate, but I've certainly been able to scrape a living as from acting, music and comedy since graduating from drama school in 2002.
Performing stand-up was something I went into through the backdoor accidentally, after co-hosting a comedy club and seeing the acts that came through underlined that it might be a good way to be more self-sufficient; potentially carving a career from who I was specifically, rather just being an easily replaceable jobbing actor / musician going from short-term contract to contract, always waiting for the phone to ring; consequently, I began looking for an agent who could secure anything bar the actor / muso work I could easily get myself and had less interest in doing over time.
If I were to summarise my thoughts on the past four years of working alone I'd say it's been a slog, but that I've produced some of the work I'm proudest of within it. The culmination of this period was filming last year's Edinburgh show where I came out with a record that's representative of what I'd set out to do, which was to tackle the subject of depression along with my more petty frustrations with honesty and humour, getting laughs from my backstory while trying to normalise the things I would have buried in the past. Whether it's led to a phone constantly ringing with opportunities is by-the-by - that's not the sole mark of success - but while I've already committed to some work-in-progress dates this year with a few more in the pipeline, I can't let 2019 be another year of retracing the same steps; something has to change for me to feel I'm moving forward (or at least in a different direction) before I stagnate.
(If so, then get ready for this: -4922.679232)
(I know: phwoar)
I find myself at a crossroads over what to do next. The past four years have been primarily about performing stand-up to fringe audiences to work up my solo chops, having always performed comedy as one half of a double-act up to that point. While I've taken shows to London, Brighton, Bath, Leicester, Hitchin and Letchworth over that time, there's no doubt Edinburgh was the biggest underlying factor, with the other dates being either a warm-up for or a cool-down from three consecutive Edinburgh Fringes, with me writing another solo show in 2015 that I didn't take to Scotland, but was still put together with going there alone as my motivation.
There's no denying the experience has been challenging, both creatively and financially. You could argue I'd had it fairly easy career-wise up to that point, with my musical ability bolstering my acting work from the get-go, propelling me - if you can call it that - into large-scale tours of the UK & Ireland (and a handful of stints in the Netherlands) and then the West End, with my keenness for comedy resulting in eleven seasons with a reputable writers' group at The Soho Theatre and to co-running Mostly Comedy, where I've played host to many of the industry's biggest names. Whether this was ever reflected in my bank balance is up for debate, but I've certainly been able to scrape a living as from acting, music and comedy since graduating from drama school in 2002.
Performing stand-up was something I went into through the backdoor accidentally, after co-hosting a comedy club and seeing the acts that came through underlined that it might be a good way to be more self-sufficient; potentially carving a career from who I was specifically, rather just being an easily replaceable jobbing actor / musician going from short-term contract to contract, always waiting for the phone to ring; consequently, I began looking for an agent who could secure anything bar the actor / muso work I could easily get myself and had less interest in doing over time.
If I were to summarise my thoughts on the past four years of working alone I'd say it's been a slog, but that I've produced some of the work I'm proudest of within it. The culmination of this period was filming last year's Edinburgh show where I came out with a record that's representative of what I'd set out to do, which was to tackle the subject of depression along with my more petty frustrations with honesty and humour, getting laughs from my backstory while trying to normalise the things I would have buried in the past. Whether it's led to a phone constantly ringing with opportunities is by-the-by - that's not the sole mark of success - but while I've already committed to some work-in-progress dates this year with a few more in the pipeline, I can't let 2019 be another year of retracing the same steps; something has to change for me to feel I'm moving forward (or at least in a different direction) before I stagnate.