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I was going to try out bits of Christ and a Bike and Talking Cock at the Good Ship in Kilburn tonight. I really wanted to use my day to learn all the routines, but got distracted trying to find the relevant slide shows. Once I'd found the disc that I thought had the stuff on it, I needed to find either my disc drive or my old laptop with a disc drive included. It took me an hour to locate the latter (God knows where the former ended up - I presume I found a special place for it in my last tidy up, but I have no idea where that is).
I found versions of the slides I needed (though not, I think, the actual final ones, but no matter), but then I couldn't find the adapter to connect a projector to my computer or the clicker to advance the slides onwards. I have two of each, but clearly I had put them somewhere special in my last tidy up, but I don't know where, so I had to go out and buy another set. Luckily I was able to listen to my old shows a bit as I did this, but it still ate into the day. And I realised just how tricky the Christ on a Bike routines in particular are. The bit that everyone thinks is hard - knowing the genealogy of Christ - is actually pretty much hard wired into my brain (though I am stuttering a bit over the last bit when I am going backwards), but the routine around that is phenomenally complicated. I am confident I can get both of these shows up to speed in the next couple of weeks (Talking Cock is largely pretty familiar) and I am hoping it won't take much to get What is Love, Anyway? We're All Going To Die! and of course Lord of the Dance Settee into shape. That still leaves me with six more shows to learn and a new one to write. Today made me relish the challenge. It was a lot of fun getting the 10 commandments, the genealogy and my childhood parables up to scratch and I did adequate performances of them all tonight (though lost my way in the Booz of Rachab bit). It's really fun to revisit this stuff again, though pre-sales for the Leicester Square Theatre run are a bit disappointing. Perhaps it's apt that I may be doing all this work to perform the shows to a quarter full theatre. Unlike with Edinburgh I can't lose any money on these and much as it would be nice to make a bit, this stupid challenge is about something else and the journey through time and my career and life. Happy Now? will be about coming to terms with where I am and performing to a hundred or so people a night is probably where I am. It's both brilliant and slightly disappointing at the same time. Which is sort of perfect.
It'd be lovely to play to full theatres, but I'd be very happy with half-full. I remain as always a delightful secret. A part of me would, of course, be pleased if the run led to some kind of recognition for what I've done, but conversely I am happy enough that I am held in regard by the secret cabal of audiophiles who like me. It's a stupidly hard challenge, but I've done other similarly hard or relentless things in my career, largely to general apathy.
In the end I didn't need the projector adapter as they had an HDMI connector and the clicker didn't work (may have had a flat battery) so I had to point at the man on the desk when I needed the next slide. But it didn't matter. I did two hours of stuff in this small venue and once again slightly regretted that I didn't think to just do the old shows and then tour a best of show. The audience seemed to like it and I got some nice comments afterwards. There is always a slight air of surprise when people do that, I suppose because they assume that if a comedian is good at what he or she does that he or she will be on telly. So when they see one of the dozens of good comedians who isn't on telly they can't quite process it.
Or maybe they've just seen me before and I've been shit.
Hopefully the new show will come together in time. Though I have a few months to work on it before the tour and I wonder if the last show should be an hour of new material and then an interview/q and a session about the 12 shows. Jimmy Carr had suggested that I film all the shows and do a documentary about this ridiculous quest, but I don't think I can afford to do that. But maybe we can film the interview (if we do that) and I might try to put together an audio podcast of what I am up to - if there is time.
If I build it they will come.
This isn't true, but it's nice to pretend.
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