10 shows down and 13 to go. Audiences have began to pick up, which makes all the difference in the world. We’ve had some nice reviews, all 4 stars apart from Hand+Star which was 3. It would have been 4 but he took against the visuals – we are treating it as an aberration. We have by and large managed not to get sucked in to drunkenness, well once and the next day was my weakest performance. Touch wood, no major hitches so far, nothing an audience would notice and my memory has held up for the whole hour. I may have to get some sort of therapy to have Whistle removed at the end of all this. The article in the TImes Magazine has garnered contact from someone who knew my mum well, someone with a similar experience and an old friend of Dad’s and MIND representative. I don’t know why, but it didn’t occur to me that this sort of contact would come about. It’s been really positive to get these, given my misgiving about doing the feature. We’re having fun, I think, and have been going to shows when we can. One of the best so far, I think being One Fine Day at Zoo Roxy. We did a gloriously silly event with 3 Salt poets and Helena Nelson. Read about it here Helena Nelson’s. I’m in the Hammer and Tongue Slam Final tonight. A bit hypocritical, as I’m not a great liker of Slam. We went to the BBC one yesterday and saw the brilliant Tim Turnbull come second, whilst clearly being best in our mind. Jenny Lindsay won and was very good too, but TIm is in my mind the best person doing spoken word anywhere. We’ve still to see John Osborne, TIm Clare and Luke Wright’s shows, but will. They’re all getting brilliant reviews and audiences. We have seen their Aisle16 RKool show twice at Banshee Labrynth and it is the most free fun you can have with your clothes on. Another gem is The Oh F**k Moment. This is Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe being daring and interesting. Hannah comes at these things in original ways and always worth seeing. Chris Thorpe has a great authority and they set each other off beautifully. I should declare all these people as Norwich friends, but they are all great and check the reviews for validation. We should tip a hat to the East to Edinburgh Scheme that brought us all here, the other stuff in there is great too.
As for my show, my favourite review is The List I think , others that are very nice too are WhatsOnStage and Culture Vulture . I’m hoping a broadsheet will get along very soon. And a non-Whistle review too for Boring The Arse Off Young People to finish on.