You know when you’ve made a set of plans that leave you pretty busy but you can just about do everything and then someone adds something extra and you’re left thinking…shit how am I going to do all this stuff?!
That’s kind of how the summer has started for me and I’m also going to use it as my excuse for no blog since May! This is my review of my shows at Brighton Fringe…
So where did I leave off? The video I posted was just before my trip to Brighton to play 3 gigs at its Fringe. These were my first proper performances of my new Edinburgh show. It had been 2008 since I’d done any comedy gigs and so I was nervous for a few reasons.
I grabbed the hire car and we headed for the South coast, checking in to The Hilton when we got there (special offer, bargain) the room was huge and it felt good to have somewhere calm to base ourselves. By the time that was sorted I only had a couple of hours before the show so we got the equipment to the venue. This would also be my first experience of playing in a free/laughing horse venue so I was interested to see how it differed from playing paying venues (not too different, a bit more rushed, needed to do more of my own tech).
I was worried no one would show up so hit the streets for some flyering – as it happened for a sunny Friday afternoon when most people we’re either still working or on the beach I had a very respectable crowd. The technical set up was a little bit fraught but I got started roughly on time and for a first gig it was a respectable performance, I did however break my projector screen taking it off stage.
We then met friends for a meal in the evening at the wonderful Riddle and Finns which I recommend if you’re looking for a great fish restaurant in Brighton.
We had a fairly early night and after breakfast in the room I set about finding a projector screen in Brighton. In the end I bought some fabric that’s used for photographic backdrops and managed to convince a very nice dress maker up stairs to let me use one of his tables to put eyelets in it so I could hang the screen.
I’m delighted to say this solution just about worked (with a few creases on the screen) and feeling a little more confident in the show I put in a much better performance than the previous night.
Afterwards we headed to the pier with friends for fish and chips with champagne. One of the party wasn’t too keen on the Louis Dornier and so we also had a bottle of Piper Heidsieck – Chaz and Dave played repeatedly in the background and it was generally a fantastic seaside experience. It seemed there would be nothing better to do after eating and drinking for a couple of hours than going on the Waltzer.
This we did with some gusto and many jokes about being sick (assuming no one would be) but sadly one of the group (naming no names) did get somewhat unwell on the waltzer…I’ll leave the visualisations up to you. That brought an end to our Saturday night.
On Sunday we needed to check out, the fantastically hot weather was continuing and with the flyering I’d done the previous day seeming to have little bearing on the crowd size I lazed on the beach with some friends that had come to see the show. This was a big mistake as 3 hours sunshine and chatting directly before going on stage was not a winning combination, I was a bit mentally lethargic on stage and so it wasn’t as good a performance as Saturday.
At the end there was a woman that wanted to talk to me, she’d only walked in half way through the show and so had missed the whole set up of the story. I had a slightly odd exchange where she was offering to invest money in the show/me but at the same time wasn’t exactly saying she loved it. That left me in a slightly weird place mentally and also meant I couldn’t catch up with some friends properly. This affected my thoughts for a while after the show but grabbing some pizza and pasta with friends and family helped keep me occupied.
We then drove back to London, I was shattered, it’s hard to imagine I’ve previously done 27 shows in a row because 3 had left me worn out.
I took plenty to work on from these shows and I’m delighted to say that seeing Snoop Dogg a few weeks later helped me put the slight odd exchange at the end of Sunday’s show to the back of my mind.
Phew! First part of the catch up done…I’ll post the rest separately.
Jim x
