Is it me or my imagination?
I can turn up at a venue having decided to wimp out of my slot and go up with a ‘who gives a damn’ attitude and afterwards I will be glad I did it. I like improvising. I don’t think I can gauge how good it is for the audience, but at least I don’t get so awkward that I suck the air out of the room.
Find it Difficult
Preparing new routines or chunks of material – anything longer than 2 lines – I find difficult though.
In the following events, I regress to a time when I felt extreme humiliation after the anticipation of performing in public and feeling incredibly wrong and pitied for doing it.
1. Learning a routine for the first time I perform it.
2. Writing a new skit for a routine, whether I’ve read it to someone or just written it. I can remember it but my inner editor is being so savage that I deliver it swimming in self doubt.
3. Being on late in the evening at a tough gig and thinking my material might tickle the audience and it doesn’t.
It is the same experience i get with job interviews. If I prepare solidly with answers for difficult questions such as ‘is there anything else you want to ask me?’ I do worse than if I went in not caring if they hire me or not.
Sun came out
That has only happened once, at a place in North London. When I went in, the wind was going 100mph, a tornado hit Kensal Green and during the interview the clouds parted and there was bright sunshine when I left, knowing I had a job I didn’t really want.
I was the kind of kid who wanted to read out loud and to be on stage but didn’t get chosen. I am dyspraxic and cannot read aloud well and, now I realise, I have to know stuff backwards to not have a mindblank if I feel a bit anxious.
Somehow, I need to write, learn and deliver material as if my world is not going to shatter if it doesn’t work, so I don’t regress, become awkward and suck the air out of the room. Afterwards it seems as if people avoid eye contact with me, and yesterday I realised it was because I was being so awkward, not because of my gig. I couldn’t hear the people who said they were laughing and didn’t believe the people who said they liked it.
Synapses
It all comes from having to push hard to be allowed to join in family sing songs and conversations in my childhood. On various occasions I got missed over and finally, after much pleading, someone said ‘If you must, Soph, what have you got for us?’ and all my preparations would leave my head and I’d start very awkwardly before someone took over to save me before I could get going (usually after 3o seconds) leaving me humiliated and feeling like a huge disappointment.
I was being told I’d fail before I started and couldn’t come back from that. Good for my overcoming adversity now, but rather the carrot than the stick, for me thanks.
This feeling came with me to parties, to meet new people, to auditions, job interviews and visits me when I try to prepare and learn new material.
Conclusion – things that have worked for me – this might be helpful for Dyspraxic\ADHD\Aspergic comedians.
1. Try out new ideas in casual conversation or even if people ask for a sneak preview of my set. For some comedians, it is the dreaded when someone says ‘oh, you’re a comedian then. Go on, tell us a joke,’ but because they don’t expect you to, I’ve found this a good way to try new ideas before doing them on stage.
2. Try the material in front of a friend. I’ve found my friends, comedians or not, usually make excellent suggestions and so improve my material before I try it on stage.
3. Not to get hung up about the order of the material when I learn it.
4. To write a list of the point of each joke on the back of my hand – this seems to work for me, when I can read my own handwriting. This certainly works better than having the whole delivery written on paper which doesn’t help me.
5. To write the material down from memory before the gig, more than once if possible, and put that piece of paper away.
6. Before leaving for gig, write routine out in full and read it – preferably in front of a mirror – as fast I can. Repeat a few times until it becomes easy to read at least at double talking speed.
7. On journey to gig, rabble through routine quickly in mind, getting to end before starting again. repeat all way to gig.
8. To go on early. If I go on late, I get so many new ideas, the routine gets scrambled in my head and my anticipation level goes too high and I miss the adrenalin rush at its peak to help me focus.
9. To start with material I am comfortable with and if the new routine doesn’t spring to mind, to think – I’ve got something new for my next gig and not do it.
10. a good idea can be scrapped because it wasn’t delivered well. Personally, I need to take the steps above to bring new material into my set.
Stand Up Comedy Collective 