Monday, August 08, 2005

05/08/05 Park's Circus opens!

I had a rather harassed day organising "public liability insurance" for the show. My fault. There have been so many emails relating to the show from the venue, the Fringe Society etc etc that the insurance requirement got lost in the rubble.
Thankfully we managed to arrange it that afternoon...after a struggle!
Me old mucker Nicky Hind arrived in town. He'd flown in from San Francisco for a little European jaunt and was keen to see the opening night of this comedy extravaganza. He's the elder brother of Bob Pereira Hind.
We've known each other for a long time...early in the last century...as we both had the privilege to grow up in the exciting metropolis that is South Queensferry.
Many an enjoyable evening was spent getting pissed at the famous Hawes Inn, as we irritated our mutual friends with a stream of in-jokes and relentlessly "hilarious" banter. This was where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "Kidnapped". Yes, that is an interesting fact isn't it.
Anyway, Nicky came and helped do some flyering for us.
We had an opening audience of 13. This seemed a good omen...in a kind of "Omen"/666/Damion kind of way.
Some old academic aquaintances of mine arrived in a fairly pissed up state, and proceeded to act like an audience for the "Old Mother Goose" pantomime at the Kings Theatre. Any comedic pause was taken as an opportunity to come up with a hilarious heckle.
I was a bit disgruntled by the whole thing, but I was still pleased to see the pissed old fuckers and enjoyed a post-show beer with them in the handily located "Castle Arms".
The other notable cock up was the moment when it became clear that the audience were more lit up than the stage. I think Matthew had reversed the required house lights/stage settings. Anyway, this got a good laugh when Patrick became aware of it and mentioned he thought that the audience were doing a show.
My own performance was ropey and I went into my Metal Mickey-esque over-fast delivery again. It was my first gig for 3 weeks though (the previous 2 nights gigs I'd been scheduled to do had been cancelled afer a promoter/venue manager dispute), and having such a long gap had contributed to a stuttering display.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jim

I think you need to make it clear that there was only one "heckler" - a rather small balding individual who thought it rather amusing to interrupt continuously.

The rest of us let you get on with your act and whilst 1st night nerves were apparent the material is good and with more refined delivery will have them rolling in the aisles 9except of course the joke about the Weak Heart!!!!