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Just looking back at that "I Killed Rasputin" poster from the last blog. That "You'll Believe A Monk Can't Die!" tagline is so good. It's a funny joke, but also the ridiculousness of the accepted story of Rasputin's death is central to the play. With that and the duck tear joke, maybe I am not so bad at this after all. Two good jokes in eleven years. I should carry on with this.
I am quite a fan of the afternoon gig, especially if the gig is within one hour's drive of my house. You don't have to stay up late, you can get other stuff done in the day and if you're in the audience you can probably get away without a babysitter - your kids can go on a playdate (or if you're bold and don't mind hearing a man call Basil Brush a cunt) then you can bring older kids along with you.
I certainly felt good about it after this lunchtime gig in Chesham, though I hadn't been quite enthusiastic when I had to leave my own family behind on a Saturday morning. Why had I agreed to this? To be fair I feel about most things like this and then I do them and usually end up enjoying myself. I am exactly the same as my 7 year old son in this respect.
The Chesham festival turned out to be lovely and the people running it all very enthusiastic and excited. I was talking to Esther Manito, who I've never met before, but who I had heard great things about. I'd watched a couple of her specials and knew she had the kind of attitude and chops that would make for a good RHLSTP and I was right. It's quite a tough gig for a newer comedian, when the audience might not have heard of you, but she had them on side from the start and we had a lot of fun.
A live RHLSTP is a different beast to the studio ones that I've been doing recently and it's great to play off the crowd for laughs. The future of this long running project is not certain, but I think a mixture of studio and live ones will probably be the way forward. I might do fewer podcasts. Or I might do more. I guess it depends on whether anyone gives me any actual work.
I was listening to Adam Buxton's fantastic (both in content and even more so in production) audiobook on the way home and he is a writer/performer plagued by self-doubt. Similar to me in many ways, but probably more so overall. He is extremely funny and way more talented than me (though I would say that, due to the old self-doubt, but he is) and absolutely shouldn't be so crushed by self-criticism. It does seem that people with utter self-confidence (or who at least seem to have it) do do better, especially in our job. Yet those people seem more detached from the human condition (which for most of us is surely being plagued by our own uselessness, stupidity and kept awake at night by our many mistakes) and in the long run that honesty and humility and the fact that we empathise with him, maybe make Adam the greater artist. And his vulnerability is what elevates him beyond the run of the mill idiots trying to do podcasts and comedy. I have no vulnerability. I am simply too strong.
Of course most of us, unlike Adam feel like useless cunts because we are useless cunts. So that's no consolation.
I got home and took over childcare duties, taking the kids to the supermarket so we could get the ingredients to make a lemon meringue pie, that Phoebe was very keen to have a go at. We got as far as making the pastry and putting it in the fridge before we ran out of time. I made dinner and it already seemed impossible that this was the same day as I'd actually done a gig. In a good way though.
I put Ernie to bed and fell asleep on his bottom bunk at 8.30pm. So daytime gigging means you avoid the adrenaline keeping you awake til the small hours, but also knocks you out (may only be true for 57+ year olds).
