Not Tonight, Joséphine.


Tonight was one of my standard ‘travelling to London to set up for a show that didn't happen' affairs; an experience I seem to go through with alarming regularity.

To be fair, it was almost inevitable tonight's show would be cancelled, what with it being a Monday night in the midst of the World Cup and on the first day of Wimbledon, smack-bang in the middle of a heatwave, with a late gig kick-off of 9pm; you didn’t need to be Mystic Meg (or whoever her modern-day equivalent is) to predict that. Nevertheless, I went through the motions in the hope I’d have a chance to talk through a few ideas for Edinburgh to some semblance of an audience, be they last-minute bookings (which didn't happen) or comps given out to paper the house (which I offered with no uptake).

I nearly didn’t go into town anyway, as for some reason I had barely no energy as I got ready to leave, I had been feeling a little battered down by the whole process over weekend, largely due to being sick of doing all my preparatory work on my own without a sounding board to encourage me, or any sense of a problem shared. My wife does as much as she can and I have my splendid PR on the case too, but outside of that, it’s just me in a room, with only myself to turn to for ideas or to tackle any of the problem-solving or the endless admin along the way; that’s if I even have time to look at the actual show, what with various other commitments and Mostly Comedy stuff to be dealt with.

The crux is that right now I’m not enjoying it, as everything’s so pressed, plus I keep having to cancel so many of the dates I'd booked purely to run the show in; the opportunities narrow as the pressure increases and it starts to feel like a thankless task. Having said that, I know my attitude can change very quickly once things start to pick up, but either way, I can't put myself through this again next year unless I have more help; I'm beginning to reach the limit of what I can do on my own.

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