After a very stressful journey into Cardiff with a broken mobile phone and a bundle of nerves I ended up at the Chapter Arts centre place with about twenty minutes to go before I was supposed to be on.
Luckily the roaring crowds weren’t bothered about waiting a bit, as there weren’t any. All in all about 9 people, mainly other acts and whatnot were in when I started. But I didn’t mind, to be perfectly honest I’ll probably be lucky to get any more than ten people in next month on most nights. So I’d better get the hang of doing the show to this number.
Unlike the last Red Lion preview I have done a lot of work before this one. This was make or break for me.
I started, I felt a bit shaky in front of the sparse crowd, but the opening material was winning them over. The proper opening of the show soon followed, it went well, but have noticed some redundant lines that are merely there to refer back to later, except I’ve taken out the referring bits. So these lines, are superfluous, looks like I’m going to have to go through the show with a fine tooth comb to trim off any remaining fat.
As I approached the solid middle I was having a great time. The whole middle section flies as every other time. I’m proud of it all, I honestly think it’s pretty top quality stuff and they’re eating out of the palm of my hand.
I then make a mistake, this is the first time (and left this too late) that I’ve done the show without notes to refer to – the first casualty of this was that I just missed a section out. Nothing too major and I didn’t even notice at the time.
I also didn’t check what time I actually went on, so had no idea if I was approaching the planned 45 minute mark for where I was in the show, or whether I was over or under running. As we started late and there were other shows on I decided to err on the side of caution and cut a further tiny section not integral.
As I wrapped up the show I noticed the section I’d forgotten to do, only as I refer back to it, I covered my tracks easy enough by inserting the relevant bits in here, no one noticed, but I felt it lessened the impact.
But that’s why we do the previews.
The Cardiff chaps loved it, and so did I. this was the ideal last preview to have, I’m very confident about the show, and apart from a couple of very very minor tweaks I’m very fucking confident and looking forward to the first night in Edinburgh on 3rd August.
Here’s hoping there’ll be some people there…