Heady night last night, heavy bowels this morning.
Was at the BAC doing a mishmash version of either Romantic Comedy, Pulp Boy or the proposed amalgamated 90 min tour show, Stories From A Lovelorn Idiot.
After putting off even thinking about it for the last few weeks I spent all of yesterday trying to remember the Pulp Boy story and getting worrying blanks, hoping it was all still lodged somewhere after I mentally discarded it on the last day of the Edinburgh Festival.
It came back frustratingly slowly, much slower than the material from the show the year before. Scared the bejesus out of me.
And faced with low advance ticket sales for the BAC I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the gig and was wondering which of my family members I could pretend had died.
But no, at 7ish I was on the way down to south London to tell the probably two audience members (Claire and her mum, we could have done it at christmas) about me splitting up with someone a few years ago. On the tube seat was both of the modern day beano and dandy, as in the London Lite and The London Paper. I checked the listings, I was in there with a nice one line blurb about the show, maybe peopleare paying attention? Then I checked the second paper – the same blurb, wor for word – no one is paying attention.
At the gig I double check the time slot as I was originally down to do just an hour of Pulp Boy, they tell me I am down for just a 60 min set. This means a choice, either ROmantic Comedy (easier to remember), Pulp Boy (panicking me with huge holes in my memory) or a cut and paste 60 min version of the tour show. I decide the latter, hoping that it’ll keep me on my toes enough to shock the missing bits back into my memory.
I check the tickets sales, the techie chap comes back and says ominously that they’re not that good, only about 20 people… this, at ten pounds a ticket on a monday night, despite what he might think, is good. Esp as I know of another few people I know on the way.
The show starts, I mix the two shows on the stage like a DJ, but referring to a list, unlike a DJ and it goes well. Once I’m in to the flow of the story all the blanks are filled and I enjoy myself.
That was a lot of stress, but, I guess, worth it.