Popped in to the office for a couple hours, but given the events (outside of work) yesterday afternoon I was the only one in, and kind of ran out of things to do. I stayed on, just in case, and did some of my 'proper' stuff (sorted some sackings for the film, some PR for the shows, spoke to promoters about my other show, discussed fringe stuff with new pianist) but probably won't charge them for this.
Then drove to Stamford, which is much closer than I thought. I allowed 3 hours, got there in 50 minutes. I knew ticket sales for this one would be low; you can just feel it sometimes. Venue was probably my favourite so far in the sense that it felt like one of the proper fringe venues, it was in a cave, it just smelt like the Edinburgh Fringe. Walking on that stage to set-up I felt great. 9 tickets sold, 5 of them by mistake, so an audience of 4. Tough first half - nobody engaged by it, I wasn't enjoying it, they weren't with me at all. Amazed that they came back for the second half but there was a real sense that 'right, it didn't work, but we're doing this properly now' and I was quite confrontational in my performance - I was asking them lots of questions. They asked quite a few back, they were an intellectual, chatty bunch who really did question bits of the show but I could justify it. By the end of the show it felt like we were all friends, it was nice. Had a quick drink with them afterwards, turns out one of them was a journalist for the NME, they've all got interesting jobs.
One of the audience members said to me that she was feeling uncomfortable throughout the performance and she couldn't work out why and then it came to her afterwards so we discussed it in great length. In short; I'm on stage playing the loser - the loser with women, the loser who doesn't get his deposit back, the loser with cats, beards, all that. Yet, (in her words, blush) I'm clearly a very funny, confident, intelligent man who is quite comfortable in his own skin. The bits she enjoyed the most in the show are the cajon/poetry stuff, because I'm clearly happier with this, and she wasn't keen on the dating scenes because it was so self-deprecating she wasn't convinced I'd be that inadequate in real life.
I was thinking about this on the way home. I am on stage a LOT at the moment, I am getting pretty confident with what I'm doing. As a result, my awkwardness is diminishing...but at the cost of the material? Have I accidentally shot myself in the foot by knowing what I'm actually doing up there?
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