It should have been the proud homecoming gig that would be the highlight of a film of me, if there was ever to be one. But my big (ahem) tour gig was ill-feted to say the least.
I had envisioned the first time I did a proper gig in Cheltenham would be a big deal, all the old friends who have been supportive, plus the ghosts of my past and all the girls I’d asked out (with a staggeringly high failure rate) coming to marvel at just how darned good at comedy I was and how sexy I had become.
In hindsight I guess I was destined for a disappointment.
This “tour” really was booked on my fragile ego, the mere idea that I was told I’d be good enough (and therefore big enough) to tour after my first two meagrely sold Edinburgh shows was all I needed to say yes, despite the fact that no one, not even me, knows who I am.
The first gig; Derry in Northern Ireland was quite painful, and mercilessly avoided being mentioned on the notblog as it was in another rest period, but booked to play a 60 seater (about the most I could manage if I was lucky), I sold little over double figures… the problem here though being that it wasn’t in a 60 seater tiny intimate nice studio where 14 people wouldn’t seem too desperate, but instead the 300 seater main theatre with 240 of the seats removed (I kid you not) – meaning technically yes, it was a sixty seater. But in reality my entire audience fit on the front row, it couldn’t have felt worse if I’d have moved the gig to an aircraft hanger.
But at least I should be guaranteed an audience in my hometown… I’d even emailled the local paper to tell them about my great return… from growing up there I know for a fact the only two famous people Cheltenham has produced is Eddie the Eagle Edwards and Edward Jenner who discovered the cure for Smallpox… I was scared the local media would be biased due to the lack of an Edward in my name, but I pushed on regardlessly.
They didn’t reply.
And most of the people I used to have as friends in Cheltenham have done the sensible thing, like me, and moved away. I got an email from the venue a week before, in a slight panic as ticket sales were nil. I emailled round all my friends and a few days later was relieved to be told one ticket had been booked.
But was promised a good showing, so took the train down a few hours after finishing another night shift stint work hell and arrived with only an hours sleep in my pocket.
I got to the venue, it’s odd, in a posh boarding school place with its own private theatre (presumably so you can act out the buggerings) it’s a million miles away (not literally) from the scummy comprehensive school that I went to in this very town.
I snuck into the theatre bit, it was as big as the one in Derry – great.
I found the office and was told, thankfully, that I wasn’t in that room, but another, they led me to what was essentially a dining hall room type affair, with an echo, a fucking high ceiling and a sense of despair I hoped only I could feel.
I have a track or two to play off a CD, I checked that this would be OK, I was told it would be, and that they’d set one up for me. I presumed this meant, like in all places, that someone would be there to play them from a mystical backstage one, but no, I was given the rather ludicrous site of a 1980′s CD player on the stage with me, so I could do my own (um, subtle) tracks, I should have said something I guess, but by now a wave of nauseous unease was washing over me, which, at the time I put down to sleep deprivation.
The audience slowly arrived, it was my family, their friends and work colleagues, and a few of my friends. I decided to run away, but instead, I foolishly carried on, thinking of the money.
The people I knew were in because it was me, the people I didn’t know were in because I was the family/friend of someone they knew, so they’d been pretty much coerced into showing. The net result of that being that no one there really came to see comedy, nor did they ever go to see comedy, and as the next 90 minutes of my life seemed to prove, they didn’t much like comedy.
Stuff like Pulp Boy (and I hope, Missed Connections) works very very well in a little dark room in the middle of a comedy festival where comedy nerds that love comedy go to see things, it doesn’t go down nearly as well in a dining room full of uninterested people and the lights on them so bright that I can see all of their bored faces and see them making comments to each other.
I make it out to be a little worse than it possibly was, but it was certainly no less than horrific. Made worse by the patronising “We thought you were good” comments after making me feel like I was doing some amdram shakespeare for a hobby.
So these people who have been led to believe that I’m doing alright at comedy all left the gig slightly miffed at how I achieved anything… I question I started asking myself on the way back.
I’m looking forward to my poky damp cave in Edinburgh again, maybe I should do all my gigs there.
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