What a difference...

...few days make! If my Birmingham preview was an underwhelming experience, my two shows at the Brighton Fringe went really well. I had a packed room and standing people on both days. That was quite surprising, since I didn't print proper flyers (only paper cut-outs that looked a bit like the Italian "santini", look them up if you like) and I didn't print a single poster. Most people came from the Fringe program and website, so there must be something right in the new title/image/program entry combination. Of course it helped that it was free, I didn't realize that free shows in Brighton represent a much smaller percentage of the total than in Edinburgh. In any case, the room was full. And the audience seemed to enjoy it, with some big laughs. All this, of course, didn't wash away my concerns completely. But yesterday I changed the finale slightly to make the conclusion clearer and it worked much better. There is a bit at the end that I find important for the theme, so I can't cut it out, but which still doesn't work that well yet. It's not funny enough and it's not clear (or confusing) enough. But on Sunday it worked better, so I'm optimistic that I can salvage it. I didn't know whether to consider these shows as proper shows or as previews for Edinburgh, hence the lack of promotion, but I must say that they worked in their own right. To the point that yesterday I was excited to have Chortle's critic Steve Bennett in the audience. Now, put these words in a closed envelope with the date on it: I have great consideration for him, I think he knows a lot about comedy and I like his very analytical approach. Ok, I said it, before of course knowing if the review will be positive or negative. In any case receiving some criticism at this stage would be very useful for the development of the show, so I'm really looking forward to the review. Stay tuned and you'll the first to know. One last point: I really enjoyed doing the show with Giada Garofalo. Especially yesterday she was in a great form and it was nice sharing the weight with somebody else. Her boyfriend Nelson helped us a lot too. So, in short it was a great experience, now I'm looking forward to Edinburgh even more.