Certain little things are making me anxious at the moment; the lack of fringe venue confirmation (even though several comedy chums have now had their slots offered), the crying noise my car seems to be making, the sheer lack of communication with the freelance place...I assume I still do stuff for them, I mean, I'm doing it, but it's all a bit suspiciously quiet. I'm also just getting annoyed that nobody replies to anything at all on email, Facebook etc...but that's more of an ongoing aggravation. Also, FH seem quietly content being a band without me being around, and the choir replaced me remarkably quickly when I couldn't make the latest show. There's a possibility here that my profile, as a drummer, isn't quite as strong as it used to be.
And that's fine, because I've been quite open about the fact that I'm pushing the comedy a bit more at the moment - I just have more control over it. Apart from the lack of fringe venue and a certain Cambridge promoter refusing to confirm dates for shows I'm doing for them even though they offered them to me last week. But last night was sooo good, it was basically validation for my career choices. All 51 minutes of it, every joke landed, all the new stuff worked, there was loads of press who told me afterwards how much they enjoyed all of it...glory for Richards.
Tonight, after spending a bit of a day freelancing in the hope the company still exists, I was back in Leicester for night 2. Even though last night was a stormer, I still felt there was some bits that needed reworking, so spent a couple hours looking at that in the afternoon. On paper this one is a brilliant show, but it wasn't as good as last night. Half-full venue, which is cool (17 people in), front row loved it - crying with laughter, and the 'big' moments in the show got the laughs where they're supposed to be, but there were also moments where it felt a bit flat. Also, I just got the sense that as a room it took about 20 minutes for the show to settle, by the end they were onside but if it takes a third of the duration (I got it up to 60 minutes tonight) for the audience to feel comfortable with me, it's just a sign that I need to start in a less...sluggish manner. If that was an Edinburgh performance I'd be quite happy with it, but my expectations of Leicester are suddenly a bit higher.
The soundguy said to me afterwards the performance was brilliant but the audience were drowsy and there was nothing I could have done about that. That's very kind, but I still know deep down there's much that can be improved with this. Which is cool, because I'm stuck with this show for well over a year.
Full credit and respect to Fiona, who is not only incredibly good company on car trips (and in general) but for also listening to me whine all the way home about the bits that just didn't work in the show which she'd just seen and quite enjoyed.
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