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Catie and me were gigging together at the Queen Mother's Theatre in Hitchin (the cow didn't even turn up to see it - I only did it to meet her). Catie's dipping her toe back into the stand up scene and I am still working on putting together a show about my doomed bollock and we had a baby sitter, so we made it into a mini date too. We had dinner first and then hung out in the dressing room together. Which is still a good date by any standards. Then as part of the never changing dance of love we did some jokes for each other in front of nearly 200 people from Hitchin. It's a tale as old as time.
Catie has some great new jokes - I am glad she's back doing stand up. I first fell for her watching her set back in the mid-Noughties, though we wouldn't start dating for another year. Though she's doing less material about sex now and more about her husband snoring. I wonder why things have changed.
She also featured in my set, though I was bigging her up for how she looked after me when I was ill, so I think that makes me a better person. Also I don't snore. As she points out in the routine, she'll tell me I'm snoring and I will tell her I can't be because I am not even asleep yet. Is it really feasible that I think I'm awake, but am not and that I can't hear my own snoring?
Catie was great, but so was I. The show is very loose and relaxed and there's loads of ad-libbing (a lot about the Queen Mother right at the start that I wasn't planning, hadn't thought about until I was on stage and still don't know where it came from). I have sometimes doubted myself as a stand up - I am not one of those comics who insists they always blow the roof off, though I understand why they claim that - a lot of this is about confidence and if you convince yourself you're amazing and are going down brilliantly, even if you aren't, you will weirdly have a better chance of doing so.
I didn't blow the roof off - thank goodness, the Queen Mother would have been furious - but I was in command and even when I wasn't really sure what was coming next I ad-libbed jokes and ideas. It's not easy to make a story about cancer laugh out loud funny for an hour, but aside from the couple of more serious bits (still with some decent gags) it was wall to wall laughs. I think I might actually be good at comedy. Maybe I should give it a go.
It's great that Hitchin has a lovely club and is pulling in an audience and I am still excited about building this show up to a 90 minute tour in 2024. It's been too long.
Tomorrow though I start a different tour - RHLSTP.
