Get in, Get Out.


If there’s one thing I’d like to remove from my performing life it’s not being able to get into a space until just a few minutes before the show begins.

This was pretty much the case with tonight’s London Mostly Comedy. The show before us came down just after 9:00pm and we were on at 9:30pm. We knew it would be like this, to be fair, as there’s always another show booked into the same room before us, but being forewarned doesn’t make it easier. There’s still a mad-panic-dash to make sure everything is set up and works before we begin.

It doesn’t help that we tech everything ourselves, as we can’t afford to pay anyone else. While our technical set-up isn’t complicated, it’s essential to our act. When you only get in the space a few minutes before curtain up and don’t know quite what the situation will be until you walk in, it adds tension. You also don’t get time to run all of your cues. The show is performed to the mental background noise of ‘will this all work’.

Tonight, it didn’t. The venue has a new projector that for some reason showed some of our usually perfectly-visible slides as an almost black screen. If we’d had time to run through every slide before we’d begun we would have known this. As it was, a couple of visual jokes were lost.

I run the slideshow and audio cues myself on stage by remote control. Tonight I used a new remote, as our old one had given up the ghost. The new design is shocking, with all the key buttons I use positioned within a tiny surface area. Finding the right one is akin reading braille. On top of this, there was little time to take in the stage space we had to work with. We were performing on their panto set, which should have been perfectly adequate for us, but I hadn’t realised how tight it was until I ran on at the top of the show; another setback of getting in last-minute.

At least the technical and front-of-house staff are excellent. It’s not their fault it’s like this. They do everything they can to make our get-in as slick as possible, but it’s hard when you’re working against the clock.

I suppose we should be used to it. We’ve done countless gigs in venues with barely any set-up. Sometimes we’ll turn up to find there’s only one mic, as the promoter didn’t consider the fact that we obviously need two. In one Edinburgh venue, people literally had to walk past where I was on stage to get to the toilet. I had to put up with this every day for a month. There’s always something.

Despite this, tonight wasn’t awful. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t awful. Glyn had a good one, me not so much. Reaction was muted for my solo set, but most of the material was untested. I was also flustered by the tight get-in. That said, I did enjoy some of the banter.

At least tomorrow’s Hitchin show should slightly less rushed. I have a casting in the afternoon though, so I’m not sure what time I’ll arrive. Love it.

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