CNPS numbers spotted 0 (776) - I have seen very few 777s in the last month and don't have any idea where one is. I hope I won't be stuck here for long.
I had taken 35 to a garden party out in the countryside. It was the birthday of that woman who keeps popping up throughout my Herculanean tasks Emma Kennedy. One has to wonder if she is stalking me, or if, in fact, the CNPS gods are trying to force us together. We will find out next Thursday when I take her out on a date. Please Gods, do not make kissing her one of my tasks. Or worse. Gulp.
Embarrassingly I called 35, "34" all day, as did all the other guests. It wasn't until night-time that I realised my error. Part of me was glad - I was a whole day closer to the end of this than I had anticipated - but most of me was horrified by my error. How must 35 have felt to know I cared so little about her that I couldn't even be bothered to check her number. What if 34 comes up in the lottery on that Wednesday? How is she going to feel?
Weirdly, I was taking 35, who I had only met today, to see me perform my first gig on the show in Battersea tonight as well. She had no idea about any of the other stuff that I had done; this was going to be the performance that she judged my whole career on. I was also in a nervous state throughout the whole day. I really had no idea whether it would be a disaster or merely a minor catastrophy.
As it happened the gig went as well as could be expected. I was quite pleased. I had been planning to buy the audience a drink after the show to make up for the fact that it wasn't ready and I was reading it, but unexpectedly the (admittedly small) theatre was full. People were standing at the back. I told them of my plan and said that I probably couldn't afford to buy drinks for them all, so would only get them for the five people who seemed the most angry afterwards.
The scripted stuff went OK and there felt like a good balance between jokes and more serious stuff. I am aware that about 90% of this material will not be in the final show. I spent about 20 minutes setting up the idea of the show, which would not give me much time to discuss the tasks themselves. But things were relaxed and the audience were kind and I felt that even when I came off the script and started just telling the story that they were mainly entertained by it.
Luckily the large amount of stuff about CNPS did seem to hold them. They laughed at my stupidity, but were possibly slightly gripped by whether I was going to succeed or not.
I did just over an hour and then said I'd better wind things up. There is a long way to go before I get the script right, but at least this was a positive starting point. I have a couple of months to play around with it, but it might be a show that is loose enough for me to give a slightly different version of it each time.
I was much more relaxed after the show and 34/5 seemed to have thought it was OK. At least I hadn't been a total disappointement after forgetting her number.
