Woke up so hungover. My room mate, Josie, made it onto her train back to Cambridge to sing with her choir there. I had a lazy breakfast in the hotel with James and we discussed the good and bad bits of last night. Dan was too hungover to join us.
3 hour drive down to Manchester, checked in at my hotel there and slept for a couple hours. Called A, replied to some emails, and then a short walk over to the venue.
A huge room, but on arrival I felt great. No cabaret seating, just a proper theatre. A proper soundguy. who cared and suggested that we move forwards so I can "get at" the audience. I only had two singers tonight (James, and Dan who was a bit drunk having met up with an old friend), and no Jenni to guest - it was just the three of us, for 90 minutes, in a big theatre, having to put on a show that was retailing at £12 a ticket.
Although we'd only sold a third of the venue out (so basically about a hundred tickets), I got the first laugh in quickly and you could just feel they were up for it. In the back row there was 10 girls; one of them had seen the show (twice) at the fringe, so got 9 mates down to join her. They knew what they were taking on. The front two rows had both sold out and they all WANTED to be part of the show, one them was even having his birthday at this gig so we had plenty to play with.
I worked my arse off tonight - I spent the whole show running up and down the aisles, I wanted every single person to be part of the show, whether it be for singing, being my dancers, being my percussionists, being my poets. Every single one of them joined in. Even the journalist. Manchester is totally a different beast, isn't it? I felt cocky and was adding more and more into the show as it went along, such as individually handing out pieces of percussion (running up and down the stairs to do so) as James and Dan sang "I'm feeling good vibrations" on repeat. I formed a girl band from the back row before shouting at them that this isn't a hen party. We performed the world's first ever percussion-led hip-hop version of 'Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water'. The audience started doing a conga after a misunderstanding.
Dan and James really grew into the show, too. My favourite moment being when we 'lost' Dan as he was still in the toilet, so James sang (beautifully, solo) 'I Will Survive' as Dan emerged behind him dressed as a shark.
I don't like to bring figures into this, but I got paid more than £700 for tonight, just for shouting at strangers and making them sing, but we totally deserved every penny of it - a top, top night that just worked. This can work. We needed this, after last night.
Had a pint with an old school friend who was in the audience, it was amazing to catch up, and then celebrated by eating a pizza alone in my hotel room whilst watching Family Guy.
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