Brighton Fringe: From Washout to Sell-out

A week is a long time in politics. It’s even longer if you’re a Daddy Long Legs and your average lifespan is 24hrs. But in comedy, a week can be a roller coaster.

After months of writing, re-writing, cutting things out, rehearsing, putting things back in, publicising, fliering, hoping and shitting, all our hard work comes down to two gigs in one fine week in the middle of Brighton Fringe Festival. One fine week prefixed by Chris losing his voice, Pete’s inexplicable nose-bleeds and my unfortunate rash. From our point of view, the first gig was a bit of a washout. Despite hours of fliering and my ridiculous headgear we only got 13 people through the door. And most of those were people we knew. We were initially taken aback by the turnout (and I think this was reflected in our energy at the start of the show) but the material was well received, we got consistent laughter, and the delivery and performance was good. We were just pissed off that no-one was there to see it, although with the show being at 22:00 on a Tuesday we were always going to struggle for numbers (despite being comedy pick of the day in the local newspaper and the fringe email!).

The second show couldn’t have been more different to the first. Demoralised by the first show, we threw caution to the wind and gave up on fliering and rehearsing. Instead we hired our resident heavy, Jon, to force people to come and utilised the power of Facebook to network our way to success. It worked. The second show was a sell-out. More chairs had to be brought into the theatre and the show had to start late as a result. The energy levels were good all the way through, the material consistently went down well and it was much more enjoyable than the first gig. Because of the first gig we went into the second a bit more relaxed and confident which allowed us to play around with the material a bit more and ad-lib some extra material. As the gig went on, however, I think we became a little bit more self-conscious and because of this (and lighting and sound issues) we missed out a couple of sections and lines. This was really annoying as we reference them later in the show and some good material was lost.

Overall, the festival was a great experience. I think our performance was more solid in the first gig – we performed the material well and without (much) mistake but the second gig was much more enjoyable and allowed us to gauge the quality of the material more effectively. The bigger audience also allowed us to establish a better rapport and atmosphere – because of the small audience at the first gig this was very difficult. Most of all, we’ve got a better idea of what works and what doesn’t in the show. We’re playing around with the material a lot more now which means we’re writing new bits and improving sections. The familiarity also means the performance is getting better. But there’s still a long way to go before Edinburgh. The show will be further road tested in Manchester, London and Brighton before then. It’ll be polished, refined and tweaked but rest assured we’ll return infantile, silly and slightly obscene.

Dan

Anonymous Email

Today we received this anonymous email. It amused us. We thought it might amuse you too:

I was appalled when I accidentally logged on to your website

Those two young men in the bath were obviously severely mentally impaired and to film them during their ablutions was little short of abuse! Does their mother know? She must be a caring mum having taught the boys the intricacies of parts washing in such detail but I am damn sure it wasn't her on the other end of the camera!

Do your films have to be so nauseatingly realistic?

I would love to see a film about a kitten or better still, two kittens frolicking gayly with a ball of wool or a cardboard box. By 'frolicking gayly' I do not mean in the sense of feline homosexuality. In any event, pre-pubescent cats would have little or no notion of that sort of thing. I should not have to explain myself, however, given the sort of material Lamda goes in for, maybe I do have to explain myself. So, just kittens alright, gender is unimportant, wool or cardboard box also unimportant although I tend to lean toward wool as they may get frightened in a box (though no doubt you would think that funny).

And another thing............

Dan's a Head Case

We’ve recently been flyering for our Brighton Fringe show. Due to the greed of Brighton & Hove City Council it’s now compulsory to buy a pass to flyer. This means that all the small productions (like ourselves) can’t afford to buy a pass because we’ve already forked out on venue hire, fringe registration, entry into the brochure, costumes, posters and fliers. Conversely, all the big productions and commercial outlets can afford to buy passes. The whole point of the pass system is to reduce litter but, when the biggest culprits have always been big productions and commercial outlets and these can continue to flyer at their will, how the fuck is that fair? It creates a two-tier system. The big shows will get bigger because they can publicise more and the small shows will get swallowed up. It undermines the whole definition of an ‘arts’ and a ‘fringe’ festival.

Anyway, there is a small window of opportunity to flyer for free. This opportunity falls during Fringe City on each Saturday during the festival. With three Saturdays and 2, 500 flyers that’s 833.33333333333333 flyers per day! However, due to the restrictions, every other show in the world is out flyering. Therefore, we needed something different to distinguish us from the crowd. We needed something unique yet attractive. We needed something distinct yet inviting. In short, we needed something that makes me look like a bell-end. And so we came up with this:
I originally had the idea when I was pretending to be a beekeeper by putting my washing basket on my head. The idea soon evolved from a beekeeping costume into a PR machine. It has garnered much interest in our show and one person even called me ‘block head’. I’m not sure if that’s bullying or not. The only drawback to my magnificent headdress (apart from being precarious during even slight winds) is the craterous indentations it leaves on my forehead. This can be painful and has caused my forehead to start peeling. But the positives outweigh the negatives. For anyone interested, I will be holding workshops throughout the 2009 Fringe on how to make these head cases.

Dan