It's the third week of the festival and I've had every intention of keeping a regular blog but as the waves of shows, shmoosing and drink crash against the once solid rocks of memory, making a foamy mess of thoughts, the hectic slog of Edinburgh shows, guest spots and pick up gigs makes it hard to remember anything in any kind of order. I'm doing my second solo show this year and two valuable lessons I learned last time were;
i) Keep the name simple rather than clever. Unless you're on your fourth or fifth year and are rewarded with a returning audience people won't know who you are, so need a solid reason to see you. You probably don't have the luxury of being cryptic with your title. My show is entitled 'Danny Pensive's Map of Britain' and includes jokes about Britain and a map. Tidy.
ii) Allow the show to develop during the run. Looking back, things that are now in my show include an audience of thirty people agreeing that the north south divide is in Buxton, a woman who doesn't believe in Brecon , having a baby by text message, the 'head in the fan' game and a bloke who answered the question 'What famous food comes from Worcester?' with the word 'crisps'. During the run some of these may stay in, some may be culled as the show goes on, but their presence is there to keep the show fresh and my mind flexible, and well the names of British towns pulled randomly out of a jar as the show goes on.
I've always tried to keep my approach to comedy as flexible as possible, certainly with Danny Pensive, my character stand up and self-styled champion of the simple minded. Writing the funny is the hardest job I think there is and I'm not prolific writer. With Edinburgh shows I'm of the opinion that loose is bad and feel the need to cram in as much stuff in as possible - even though I know it's a bad thing I can't resist the urge for density. Every show needs to breathe and finding the right level of flexibility within the framework of the show is key.
I heard some TV producers have a term - "in the room" - which is a derogatory assessment of how comics playing a crowd get laughs. If the response to the comic's material is great they are doing it right, but if the comic gets more laughs from the interaction with the audience, the comedy is 'in the room' and thus harder for the telly man to trap, box and sell. There's a logic to the argument, but it's flawed as good comics apply both of these approaches at any given time.
The best show's I've seen this year include Stand up Mark Olver: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Sketch duo The Chris and Paul Show and The Boy with Tape on his Face and all of them have the beautiful balance between the carefully structured gag and looser improvisation, or for want of a better word - a sense of play. This comedy is very much 'in the room' but if you ask me, that's where it belongs.