Looking back at my piece and the comments I received from people who came to watch it, there is this overwhelming sense that it did become a sort of stand up routine. This wasn’t my initial idea for the piece at all; I wanted my solo performance to be light-hearted and ‘jokey’ [for want of a better word] but at the same time, I wanted to highlight issues that did affect me in some areas of my life. To do all this and then end the performance in a light manor was my main objective and I’d like to think I achieved that goal.
Today I saw a performance where the performer corpsed and walked out [leaving us all in a state of bewilderment]. This happened because he had a script of about 13 or more pages and his genius writing style couldn’t be fully conveyed, as he walked out and left us all wanting more. Without belittling the aforementioned actor, I have always thought it best to write and/or create nuances of action an build upon them in a natural way. The only reason I wrote a script [of two pages] was so that my technician could follow the cues for lights and other effects in the piece. I never wanted to learn or create a script because this didn’t feel natural to me; it felt staged and designed for a purpose. Although my performance was staged and had a purpose, I wanted the audience to feel as if they were just talking to a friend or listening to and anecdote about a situation they found themselves in earlier that day.
This leads me to Stand Up Comedy. I have always enjoyed comedy and could often be described as a joker [or pratt]. One comedian I particularly enjoy is Billy Connolly; his wit, enthusiasm and ease of storytelling have always appealed to me. At the start of my process, I had his story telling in mind; the way he flows around for a few moments, wandering off track and then BOOM! brings your right back into the action and hits you with the punchline. Don’t get me wrong, I never for one second thought I could devise a piece with to echo his brilliance. But, I wanted to create something that seemed to flow and then brought the audiences attention back to the main point in one fell swoop.
I wanted to tell stories, my stories, things that have happened to me; but I didn’t want them to seem glorifying or ridiculously boring, so I made my choices quickly and that way there was no way I could change them, as they were the memories I was immediately drawn too. Thus why I didn’t talk about days when I didn’t eat and focussed more on my odd movements I used to do in front of the mirror. This follows then; do some weird movements, add a beat and hey presto. A light hearted section that involved a rudimentary movement that incidentally became a weird tick.
For me to enjoy my performance, I had to create a piece of theatre which allowed the audience to see the world [my world] they way I saw it. Thus why everything was light-hearted. As well as this, I knew other people would probably talk about serious issues in their performances and I knew some could relate to my theme of insecurity. Hence why I needed mine to stand out to highlight the fact that nothing is really serious if you joke about it. If you laugh at it with me, if you laugh at me with it; then how can something like getting chubby or losing hair seem so bad.
A phrase that often gets banded around is “first world problems”. Basically if your phone dies and you complain, it’s a first world problem; there’s no signal or WIFI, first world problem; there’s a big traffic jam.. etc. That’s why I decided to call my piece: The First World Problems of a Working Class Citizen. To show that actually there are worse things out there in the world and I am really lucky to be in the position that I’m in and we should all be blessing small mercy’s. That’s why I chose to end my piece with the overlapping of a song; the song is called Average Man and is by an artist called SimpleKid. I felt his lyrics spoke to my theme and end stance on life; I thought long and hard about that, but decided i wasn’t going to end my piece with, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life [ a little to cheesey for my liking].
And as for people commenting on my comedic style and hilarious script, I would say thank you, but there wasn’t a script to speak of. It was just me, my stories and a structure for them to go in; I would like to compliment myself and say “well it’s in the way I write” but it simply isn’t true. All that can be said in the famous words of Frank Carson is “It’s the way I tell em”.If I don’t enjoy the memories and the thoughts, how will the audience.
I feel that my last comment would be something I would pass on to others wanting to do Solo Performance; if you don’t enjoy telling something but you want your audience too, then let them know something personal, something deep, something that you like or found stupid. When an audience is let into your mind and your own personal memories, they feel an uncontrollable sense of power, they know you in that moment better than anyone, so they feel a sense of ease around you; tell them something with a smile and someone will laugh.