Melbourne Comedy Festival Week 1

It's been a rollercoaster of a first week at MICF with my new show, MYTHOS. Previously, I've always had a Pre-Melbourne season of previews to knock a show into shape, but this time, Melbourne was a standing start for me. I had done two half-hour previews in London to try some of the jokes, but structurally, it's been very much working the show out on the fly. 

This is always a mixed feeling, because of course you want every audience to enjoy themselves as much as possible, but at the same time, doing anything interesting requires taking risks. So, it's always a tightrope for me between sticking to things that I know will work, and genuinely being willing to fail. This first week of the festival has been very much dictated by that tightrope, with the additional moving data point of each night's audience being different. 

Every audience is a different... individual personality, for want of a better word. The actual people in an audience will react differently with one another, the room, the show, and average out into an audience vibe. In larger audiences, you can sometimes have a number of different sectors or groups that you can identify from the stage, but in a smaller room (my MICF room seats 67) it tends to feel more or less like a single unit. 

When you are sure of a show, then it's easier to tell how much an audience's 'personality' is affecting your performance - you can play with the energy, the delivery, the placement of the jokes, your confidence, and counterbalance the weight of the audience with confidence. When you're not sure of the show, a joke that 'should' work is a riskier balancing act. 

On the third night of the run, I had a quiet show, after two very lovely opening nights, and it threw me hard. They were lovely, but it wasn't until I spoke with them afterwards that I realised that they were quiet-appreciators, rather than deeply unimpressed. 

Now I'm a week in and I have a strong sense of the rhythm of the show, the balance of its themes, and the line I'm trying to draw. The end still needs finessing, and I need to clarify for myself what exactly I'm trying to say, in order to communicate it as powerfully as I'd like. Tomorrow I have reviewers in for the first time, so tonight is my last real chance to get that right before people with *opinions* come and have them in public. 

That said, I think it's going to be a good show. I think it's already a good show. I want it to be a great show, and I have my fingers crossed that I can get it there. I'm certainly enjoying the process.

xx

A