This is a gig I’ve done before (as compere and doing storytelling) and while I love it to pieces it can be a bit tricky sometimes.
The seating configuration is in thrust, so, as you’ll see from the video below there’s audience behind and in front of me. This means that delivery becomes harder – I realised that trying to offer nuanced facial expressions is part of where i get some laughs so I lost that a bit as well as good eye contact. I also found myself getting a bit distracted and riffing more than I should and bumping bits of material so I can hit the songs I want to test quicker.
I think the main thing I learnt was how important doing a sound check is (it was a bit unbalanced at the top) and being disciplined, it took me longer than usual to get them onside and even at the end it felt like by dicking around at the start I’d lost something.
I need a stronger song / set piece after my opening song Bestiality, it needs a follow up or something to contextualise it. I have 3 types of songs, the crude big laugh, the smartly clever and the link. I always worry about the smartly clever and the quieter songs as they’re not belly laughs, but the addition of the link element (70s TV star here) really helps when it follow straight on, it moves from thoughtful to dark and provides a dynamic shift that I quite like.
TO DO:
- 3 x big hitters, relatable, fun and probably a little filthy
- 2 x smart quieter songs, more personal but poignant, maybe a waltz
- Find another song link cycle (like 70s TV Star)
Here’s a bit of the video from the night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9PGDnJnzQI