I just watched
back my set from Wednesday’s Mostly Comedy (which Glyn edited down and sent to
me) and was pleased with how it came across.
It featured a mix
of new material and a routine from my first solo show, which I haven’t touched
since that particular show’s last performance. It’s a bit ridiculous really,
but I scrapped pretty much all of it immediately after the last run, and have
seldom performed any of it again, mainly due to one negative (and frankly not
very professional) review that I received, that nearly made me give up hope as
far as doing solo comedy goes; such is the potential impact of a poorly timed
critique for your confidence.
With a bit of
distance, I’m starting to feel this decision was too overzealous on my
part. Looking back on some of the bits and pieces in my first show, I’m actually
quite proud of the writing. This has only really occurred to me as a result of
dipping into a few videos of my early solo gigs and realising that a lot of it
was actually quite well-constructed - probably mainly as much of it started
life in the form of prose written for this blog.
I think the time
may have come to reconsider some of this content and see which bits could still
be used. This also may be a bridge to what I write about next. It goes to show
that sometimes you should trust your original instincts and not let someone with an axe to grind temper your feelings about what you do; be true to what you
like and you’ll believe in it more and do it to the best of your ability.
(Watch me forget
this tomorrow though.)
I was quite
heartened by how the new bits came across. It gives me the strength
to keep working on more new stuff, which had been waning, thanks to a drop in
my confidence in my ability that has come about post-Edinburgh. I don’t even
really know why this happened but it did. It’s probably partially due only
having myself (and my wife) to talk myself up and motivate me to keep doing
what I’m doing; it can be hard when you have little outside input or anyone
cajoling you on with what you do.
I’ll try to keep
hold of this small, slightly more positive outlook for the next few days as I
carry on writing more new stuff; the guy who wrote that review can -
quite frankly - sod off.