Blog 62
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 10:02AM I feel like I have been neglecting you on this site but for the last few weeks, all my time (and all Linda's time) has been taken up with trying to make these comedy nights at the Soho Theatre really work. Just after Christmas it dawned on me how idiotic it was, my idea that a return to standup after sixteen years would be a fun, easy, breezy thing do (Linda had known this all along.) So since the New Year we have had to work really hard to shape the material we had to a new format and as it turned out a great deal of the material we had wasn't useable at all so I actually had to think about writing some new stuff which wasn't in the plan at all!
On the first night on Tuesday I had also expected the audience to be hysterical and for me be be able to surf on their energy but in fact when I went out they were quite quiet and my first bit really didn't do that well. Luckily Josh Howie did a great job of loosening them up and when I went back on I think I'd got a better idea of what was needed, the second section went very well indeed and interestingly a lot of it, given what we were talking about on the last blog, is about my complicated relationship with Ben. After that Pippa Evans as Loretta Main and Tony Law were marvellous and the evening was a huge sucess but now I feel like I've got a huge amount of work to do before I'll be certain this all works and indeed whether I want to carry on with it afterwards.
BLOG 62a
Alice. Thank you for that. As a performer you often have less idea of what's going on than other people in the audience and as a comic you do tend to fixate on laughs without realising that people can be enjoying the show without necessarily being very voluble about it. As I said since I haven' done it since 1996 I'm also a bit out of practice, really I should be doing little try-outs at comedy clubs but I can't face that so it puts a lot of pressure on these Soho shows.
Reader Comments (20)
sounds like a mixed gig for you ( not that I would be presumptous enough to know what makes you tick and not living in london made it difficult to see the gig ) but is it possible that the audience were quiet as its so long since you did stand up and they didnt want to see thier hero fail
If you need some new material, please let me know your themes; something I have been toying with. I have the same anarchaic melancholy of Mr S Milligan, only I am Mr. S Mulligan.
Needless to say if you did use it there is no charge; I follow my lead from a certain Michael Bakunin...who ask the younger generation?
Steve
I was in the audience on Tues and thoroughly enjoyed it and think that you are analysing yourself and the audience too much. Whats your objective for returning? Because if its not as much for yourself as it is for your audiences I think you'll get exhausted with it pretty quickly. I'm 28 and an avid fan of yours, some of us were there to listen to you as much as to laugh out loud. I think a lot of political comedians today (and they do exist) find this aspect frustrating, as you explained, we're not as in touch with polictis today as we were once were, hence you might have felt we missed one or two punchlines. I try, but the language / phrases used in the media are almost distractions - plus there's the 'culture section' with pretty pictures of shoes and scarfs and not nearly as many 'archaic' or 'crumbly' phrases in the paragraphs. Sometimes I have to look a word up and I've forgotten which paper the article was in. There were around 15 of us aged 20 - 30 in the audience on Tues and if you said something profound as well as funny, I think we wanted to listed (really listen) before laughing...by which point it was a little too late. But we were really enjoying it, I was certainly...all be it a little slowly...I think I've just given the very sweeping generalisation that everyone in my generation is slow...I hope you understand what I mean...keep going please and I'd like to come to the next gig, and the next and the next.
Hi Alexei,
Immense support comes from the Fan page, an awful lot of overseas fans who're desperate to see you live on stage at least once :). I'm planning on coming down for the last date too, money permitting! Listen to Alice, she seems to have a great time.
More support and love for you from The Online Collective than you could chuck a stick at!
xx
I remember in the first series of "Stuff" you made a comment about Left-Wing audiences politically vetting the joke before laughing. Maybe that's what was happening? :)
http://www.chortle.co.uk/comics/a/33874/alexei_sayle/review
@Liam, have to admit that crossed my mind too :)
Just wanted to post this link of a really good review for Soho. See, the audiences and the reviewers have missed you, Alexei!
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/comedy/review-24030782-alexei-sayle-presents-soho-theatre---review.do
xx
@Jay, thanks for the link! That picture is on my desktop now! (scaring my visitors, hah!)
I wish I could have been there...
@Evelyn, it is a good one, isn't it?! It's a shame you can't make the shows :(
@Anthony Miller, another good review, thanks for the link, it slipped my Google alerts catch net. They're stacking up nicely these reviews ;)
...Must wean myself off emoticons :/ :) :D
xx
Now all we need is Eddie Murphy to start gigging again...
Good link Anthony and good link Jay :o) though I'm sad about the demise of the emoticon :o( ...although he himself remains stoic :o
I wonder if it bothered Alexei to be called a 'motormouth'...? (Or if it only bothered the comedy nerds?)
Looking forward to reading more about this adventure!
I agree with Alice, I love a laugh, but I also want to listen. I want to have the confusion and anger i feel to be expressed and verbilised in a far cleverer wittier way... as The Verve sang; "I wanna hear some sounds that recognise the pain in me...'
actually I want somone who is cleverer than me to give me handy soundbites which I can add to my arsenal to help me win arguments against other clever people.
if you also fall over when you doing that, quids in!
loved it at Soho
Hi
I have received this email from one of our enthusiastic members.
If there is any chance that you could make an appearance at the Bearcat Comedy Club, please contact me.
Thank you
James
From: Clare Eden [mailto:clare.eden@talk21.com]
Sent: 01 February 2012 16:19
To: James Punnett
saw Alexei Sayle at Soho last night - so great to see him back on stage and he was absolutely fantastic... please please get him at Bearcat!
Hi Alexei,
Thanks for Tuesday, I got to live the comedy dream by seing you do stand-up, and it was a great set. Crowd loved it and the support was brilliant, especially Kevin Eldon.
Here's hoping for a few more dates in the future?
xx
Hello Mr.Sayle,
Sorry for late posting,no excuse. The Feb 7 show at The Soho was brilliant. The fact you are a double for my mate Moxy the railway ticket inspector has nothing to do with it. Great to see you sticking it in the toffs, working class accesible humour is sadly lacking today. Hope you go back out on tour, but also hope you play smaller venues, such as the Soho. I know you wont earn out of it, but legacys are there to be enjoyed!
Regards,
Ed The Taxi
Hey there Mr. I'm a massive fan from the land down under. Is there any chance that you will grace our shores again soon? Thanks BT
Two boiled eggs.
Gawd, gone a bit quiet...
So I'll give you some updates. Facebook fan page has now been updated to the new timeline feature, so I put a b/w pic of the Comic Strip up as the cover. any ideas on what might be a better picture, or does that one work?
Page Breakdown (number of people visiting, then their country)
479 United Kingdom
371 United States of America
239 Australia
66 Sweden
45 New Zealand
37 Canada
26 Spain
22 Croatia
17 Norway
17 Brazil
12 Netherlands
11 Germany
10 France
9 Belgium
8 India
7 Ireland
6 Finland
6 Italy
6 Turkey
5 Denmark
No regulars from Azerbaijan sadly...
xx
Hi Alexi! Why no Liverpool stand up gig on your mini tour? Hopefully you'll play here next year, if all goes to plan.
Great gig in west brom last night Alexei , the old man has still got it
Hello Alexi,saw your gig in Tunbridge wells last night...fantastic ,made my year...glad you haven't lost that scathing humour...''three c..ts in a boat' will stay with me for a long time..:):):)