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Note to Self.


Today I continued the work I was doing yesterday, whittling down a jokes’ list to send to my PR before we meet on Friday, and watching the video of my extended work-in-progress set from May’s Hitchin Mostly while making detailed notes.

It felt good to be working extensively all day, knowing I’d squeezed as much as I could out of the time. The most pleasing aspect of my set that night was it was surprisingly relaxed considering the circumstances, with a good percentage sitting comfortably together in a way that related to the show’s title. Watching it also reminded me there’s nothing wrong with taking your time over a story without trying to race to the next laugh - and while some of my delivery was rushed, a lot of it landed well.

My only concern was a lot of the positive reaction at the gig was fed by the ad-libs that came about from moments specific to that night alone, and while this was as much a part of the performance as the prepared material at the time, the big laughs were largely fed by how I dealt with a heckler, so might not be representative; you have to settle on an actual script at some point. Having said that, I’m still heartened with where things are at, though I still need to up a gear pretty quickly.

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