And jumping...

...which is probably the best way to prepare yourself for a new fall, but for now I'm enjoying it. The show today was a real cracker, the 2x1 audience was numerous and they laughed heartly all the way. Unfortunately tomorrow we'll be back at normal prices and I have sold only 2 tickets so far, but it's the first day of the Half Price Hut so I have released 20 tickets for it and I'll push them like cake or sliced bread or whatever the right expression is. Now I really, really, really want my show to be seen.

And galloping

Indeed I had fun at my how. The audience was very good in number and they seemed to enjoy themselves. Three Italian girls came backstage to give me feedback, the UK-resident among them loved it while the visiting friends confessed to have understood very little. This made me realize how much I was missing the immediate feedback I had last year when I didn't have a backstage where to hide, so maybe I might decide to thank the audience at the exit. After the solo show I rushed straight away to do ten minutes at a showcase, which made me feel very professional: no time to loose here and no need to rest either. The audience was young, nice and responsive. Then I switched my phone on and discovered that a critic from Chortle, the industry's main website, had been to my show. It was probably a good thing that I did not know it in advance, but I'm now happy that he was there and I'm looking forward to the review. I don't mean that I expect only praise this time, but Chortle's reviews tend to be quite articulated and alwayd an interesting reading. Regardless of the review, however, I think I proved to myself that the show is something I can be proud of and that my presence here is not a waste of time, money and energy but a small contribute to one of the most amazing events in the world.

Back on the saddle

Sorry everybody for the gloominess of yesterday's post. Apparently what I was supposed to after the "fall" was to get straight back on the saddle. I was helped in this by the fact that today at lunchtime I was on a panel show based on the theme of skepticism and rationalism. It was good and I got some of the biggest laughs. I always thought improvisation wasn't my strength but now I think it's a side I should develop more. But above all the experience reminded me that the Fringe is about having fun, only that way you can bring other people to share it and have a successful show. I then went straight to do some flyering. Doing promotion after a confidence crisis feels weird, but it's also the best thing to do: you repeat so many times how brilliant you are that you end up convincing yourself. Which, by the way, makes me a bit worried for the guy flyering beside me, who had the brilliant line: "my show is rubbish". And today tickets are 2x1, it's raining after a glorious morning and the venue is packed with people. It's the right day to have some fun.

*

The first review is out and I got a real trashing. If I had to write a parody of a bad review exaggerating its harshness for comic effect the result wouldn't fall that far from the actual words of that review. It has left me feeling completely broken. I dont't know what to do next. Going to see a show? What, a brilliant, well reviewed one? A bad one one in which to see the reflections of my fears? Every poster or flyers around me celebrates brilliancy and success. I have just be given one with five stars, for Christ's sake, some people have no shame. I feel like somebody dropped by his girlfriend on Valentine's Day. In Venice. On a gondola. And everywhere I look I can only see teddy bears and heart-shaped cushions.

Busy days

For yesterday I was planning to take it easy and focus on the preparation, but I forgot that it was the day of Meet The Press. It's an event that seems to exist to remind you of how difficult it is to get any attention from anybody and how fierce the competition is. I queued 1 hour to get in, half hour to talk to BroadwayBaby and 2 hours and a half to talk to the Scotsman. At that point it was time to go to my venue for the show. I felt knackered and not looking forward to standing for another hour. Fortunately being physically tired helped to relax, the delivery was precise and animated and the audience laughed all the way. It was the first performance when I thought I was getting the result I was hoping for. In the evening I took part to a very funnily wacky talk show hosted by Robert Commiskey. It was nice, as it also was Electric Cabaret on Thursday in front of a packed audience who rewarded me with big laughs and a couple of applause breaks, that holy grail of comedians. I'm happy that this year I have been invited to quite a few of these events, not only they are a good chance to promote your show and socialize with the other comedians but they are so much easier than the solo show and they help you to recharge the confidence batteries when it's needed. And on Friday night I watched Richard Herring's show "Christ on a bike", very clever and very funny. Now I have finally got the C Venues pass so I'm planning to see more shows. Stay tuned.

First lessons learned

Today it went much better. I had around 15 people, I kept the audience light on and that helped a lot, I got many more laughs and the visual connection with the audience helped my confidence. But I forgot a couple of bits and I finished earlier. I came to the conclusion that in these two days I dedicated too much energy to the promotion of the show and too little to the show itself, maybe because I had only 0 and 2 tickets sold. For tomorrow I have got 6, so I will resign myself to the possibility of having exactly that number and concentrate on script alterations and on the preparation of the delivery. The most important thing is that your audience leave happy, regardless of how small it is. Otherwise even the best promotion becomes a lie or at least an unkept promise.

The baptism of fire

I'm in Edinburgh and I have done my first show. I arrived by train at 12.35 and went straight away to the venue to collect my flyers and print some complementary tickets. The reason for such haste was that I had two reviewers booked in and no ticket sold for today, despite a quite healthy sale of 54 tickets in total. I printed 20 tickets and went flyering like crazy in front of the Fringe box office, fighting for attention with Ivor Dembina and Lewis Schaffer. I mananaged to "sell" all my tickets to people who looked truly determined to come and in fact at the end I did a show in front of probably at least 25 people. Problem is, I have never heard people NOT to laugh so much at a comedy show. I had few chortles but norhing more. Strangely enough I had quite a generous applause at the end. It would be tempting to ask whether they knew it was comedy, but it's never the audience, it's always the message you send them. I think the biggest mistake was not to leave an audience light on. The room is narrow and deep so I could only see a couple of rows, which made impossible to interact with people. My delivery was ok, without any major setback apart from skipping a bit, but I didn't move enough in the space, which is a mistake I make often. Not, after all, errors impossible to correct. Problem is that I can now expect a bad review from ThreeWeeks and The List. Aside from the psychological blow bad reviews can just be ignored, but the "opportunity cost" is big, there aren't so many publications likely to see you after all. It's the revenge of that anonymous "source" who criticized my venue for allowing critics too early, to which I replied in my usual cocky style: it's up to us to be ready. Yeah. And I don't think you'll have a chance to vote for me in future editons of that "Who Is Your Comedy Comedy God?" survey, given the Foster's panelist was in today too. Not so bad, after all if it wasn't for Stewart Lee who would remember Frank Chicken?