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We're getting down to the wire now
Posted Saturday, November 01, 2003
We're getting down to the wire now .. this last week was a brutal affair . I'm rehearsing So much things to say' ( The show I'm taking into the Wyndhams on the 10 th of November for three weeks til the 29 th ) at Bush studio's in Sheperd's bush. We are in a tiny rock and roll rehearsal space , with red walls ,a mixing desk and some leather chairs down one end , a drum kit and some speakers and amps down the other end. In the middle of this , is me and table and chair , and in front of me Miranda the autocue lady . to the left of me Ken Bowlley , who does my music/sound fx these days and at various times , Simon Mcburney (creative associate) or Kim Fuller (co writer).Kim and I go back a ways , so we have a shorthand for getting to the funny places , it is usually a sedentary affair , involving sitting around and drinking lots of tea and saying yeah ,but what if this happened?' I've had some of the funniest times of my life with Kim when he's on form , he can take off and fly round the room. Working with Simon and Kim however , involves a certain amount of diplomacy. Simon is creative consultant ,which basically means that although he is not the director , he gives advice , helps us with choices , thematic concerns , design ideas , lighting etc..he's an invaluable member of the creative team. Simon's whole modus operandi is based on getting up and walking the idea around. He believes in improvisation and quality of idea'. So when we get stuck on something , he'll talk for about half an hour , extemporising on a theme all the time ,and then he'll ask me to get up and act something out We did this other day when we were stuck on what to do at the end of the show. I wanted some kind of magical interweaving of character /theme/plot and so on ..So Simon asked me to get up and to improvise a variety of endings and it worked, suddenly we had an idea that was worth grappling with . Once I'd done the improvisation a couple of times , and Miranda had made notes Kim was able to go away with tape , notes and the encouragement of the room and put the whole thing together.
Thursday was a tough day I got up early and tried to practise the show as much as possible . Although I've done many one person shows over the last 29 years , it doesn't appear to be getting any easier , particularly the learning aspect of it.
Perhaps the idea of learning something when it still needs to be moulded and cut is anathema to me? Dunno all I know is that my brain is resisting learning this show until we are all happy with the shape /jokes/themes etcit's almost as if my instinct is saying , Bother learning that dude , it's gonna go'
So , I work all morning Thursday ,and then meet Kim down at the Norden Farm arts centre in Berkshire. It's a cool place , although at times ,the audience can be a little conservative. Still , I've had good shows there before , so I didn't mind. Kim and I worked on the show , and I rehearsed all afternoon-but I was very tired, I could feel myself
getting bogged down ..agggghhhhhh.
So its just before show time , I do the sound check and I'm in the dressing room and I get an E Mail from my mate Rebecca I rang up my pizza delivery company , I said I wanted a thin ,crispy supreme-they sent Diana Ross round' I laughed my head off. Any way got the clothes on , Ken came in and miked me up and I was ready to go but in fact , I wasn't really ready I was as far away from ready to perform as Geri Halliwell probably is from getting another number one. I was still in rehearsal /rewrite/ argue mode I was not in Comedy /Jokes /Grin mode so I went out on stage and boy! Was it hard work , the audience picked up on my energy and we had a major league schlep of an evening. Don't get me wrong it wasn't their fault . But when I came off stage at the vry end , I felt like I'd just been beaten about the face and neck with a copy of hope and keens old act
But! What was good about it , was there were clear indications of what should stay in the show ( lots of good moments ) and what should go ( lots of crap moments). Kim stayed at my house that night and we vowed to get up the next day , listen to the cassette of the first night and do cuts and re writes where necessary.
Listening to the tape was grim I hadn't really figured out what my persona for the show would be I'm doing all these characters and I still don't know where I fit into this show. So we stopped for a moment and watched This is My life' which is the tv version of have you seen this man?' the show I did about my Mum. Once I'd reminded myself of that performance , the cuts and re writes did not seem so onerous , we had a productive morning and then at 2 we drove down to Newbury , to rehearse at the Bacon Arms'. We couldn't rehearse at the venue because they had a show on in the afternoon.
The staff at the Bacon Arms very kindly made me the BIGGEST BOWL OF PASTA I HAVE EVER SEEN No joke it blocked out the sun. So thanks to them. I rehearsed and we did more cuts and re jigging. This time , I was determined to be in Go' mode before the show , so I did stuff , listened to loud music (Groove Armada superstylin) sang a bit , sat quietly , ran the lines..
Then I got ready ,miked up , and then walked out to a fantastic reception from the Newbury posse. It was a really good night and gave me a real indication of what was possible . The new ending worked really well and I thought negated the need for anything to follow it ..(good bye 50cent as substitute teacher). I really enjoyed the performance and everyone rushed backstage to say , well done and all that cool. So it's the weekend now ,and I've only just had a chance to look at a care package that has just arrived from DVA ( the lovely guys who take care of my web site for me.
I've just seen something absolutely hilarious , it's the Donovan Bogarde/Mrs Johnson chat room . Please have a look the guys have done a great job and I laughed out loud there's more where that came from , so stick with us..
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