Just Do More, Richards

It's half-term, so a bit of a lie-in yesterday and a chance to catch up on some writing. I've nearly finished my new collection of short stories and I'm rather excited about them...some of them are really short, but there's plenty of them, making them perfect toilet reading, that sort of thing.  Last night, myself and director Jonnie went to an awards bash in Essex. The film was nominated for a few things. I've been lucky enough to win quite a bit over the last few years, but I've never won if I've attended the ceremony, it's almost like I've cursed it.  We were up for best feature film, Annette was up for best supporting actor, and I was up for best actor. I didn't win best actor (I mean, I've got two of those already, a third would be greedy), but we did win best feature film, which we were not expecting.  A long evening of networking followed. Left the house at 4pm, home by 1am. Networking is exhausting, but the awards keep coming in for t...

Picture the scene: you're sat at the back of a venue, it's a comedy gig, it's the last show of the evening, there's a hundred people waiting for the show to start. Your fancy watch buzzes to tell you that your resting heart rate had just crept over 130 bpm and you may need to worry about this. You're about to go and do your 10 minutes onstage. But it's your 44th birthday and you've been out with friends all evening and you've had six pints.  You get called on.  You stagger on. The audience are told by the brilliant MC that it's your birthday and you're drunk, it gets a cheap laugh. You start. You do your usual 'throwing bits of percussion into the audience' routine, but with less tact than normal and it's a miracle that nobody gets hurt when a cowbell flies across the venue. It gets a cheap laugh. Your first 'song' ends, it gets the expected laugh, it's cheap but it ticks comedy boxes. You're so drunk you think you...

I enjoyed last week, in particular last Sunday.  See, it's very rare I get stressed about shows to the point where I lose sleep, but once a year, as if by clockwork, I do: student showcase day. It's a lovely concept; my students going onstage, many of them for the first time, playing with a professional band. They get a life-changing experience, the venue does well out of it (proud parents drink a lot, it seems, so bar trade is pretty good), a charity gets a few quid out of us. Yet, there are so many things that can go wrong with it; in the run-up we had to change bassist, bringing in someone else at a week's notice to learn all 26 songs, students wobble with nerves. I guess my lack of sleep is just because I know that I'm putting a lot of people through a lot of work on the day - the band have to play non-stop for 2 hours, the soundguy has to deal with 26 different drummers all hitting the kit with different velocity, and maybe, just maybe, some students are so nervous...

We awoke with hangovers. Happy, but with hangovers. And a sharp voice from one of our team saying, "we need to be out by 10am." Four people trying to pack away, shower, have breakfast...generally getting in each other's way.  Eventually we left and went our separate ways; Alan went to take photos, Paul went shopping, Esther went to my car to sleep. I just...stressed about my show.  Aware that my solo show was rubbish yesterday, I was fired up today (once the hangover had cleared; nothing that a Ginsters slice and a Red Bull couldn't fix) but I still went into it with a slight weariness, as if I was starting to doubt the show itself despite it being fairly safe earlier in the year. I needn't had worried; I had a small but lovely audience (two mates, a young couple, and a trio who had seen me last year and enjoyed it). They were up for it from the start, which meant I was too and I had a lovely gig; playing with them, doing the show properly, getting distracted and ...

We were all buzzing after the dress rehearsal. Not that it was perfect, no - far from it, but because we felt like a team. Both shows, full of life. The drink afterwards in the bar, Esther meeting the rest of the production team/cast, everyone getting on.  I awoke the next morning happy, but had to teach in two primary schools first. Positive messages sent in the various group chats. No idea why we can't just have one.  Picked up Esther, and then techie Alan, and drove to Brighton. The journey was spirited, full of good tunes, and very little in the way of issues in my 15-year-old car. Writing this nearly a week later... of course there WERE issues; fines for driving in a bus lane, a fine for driving in a taxi only zone, a fine for not paying the Dart charge. But, you know, it felt great at the time.  Settled into our digs with Paul M, and then Alan, Paul and myself found beers in town as Esther slept.  The next morning was the start of show day. After breakfast, we ...

Things have been rather manically busy, to the extent that I didn't know how I got away with that week.  It started with a Bank Holiday, a quick argument with E about the state of the show, an argument that was resolved thanks to a really good rehearsal afterwards and then I went to watch the other show being rehearsed. A long day, of theatrical shows starting to come together just at the right time... Back to work for the rest of the week but after my Tuesday lessons I had a cracking stand-up gig, first one in a while and a headline slot, too, but it went better than I could have planned. Brilliant audience, felt great, On Wednesday after the teaching I ran a corporate drum workshop for a local WI, which was the usual bonkers, noisy fun. I like running drum gameshows, kinda combines all of my skills.  Thursday after the teaching it was our dress rehearsal, which had it's fair share of wobbles but the show is really, really close. Wonderful buzz in the team, for both casts. An...

This time next week we'll be in Brighton with the new shows, we would have done our first day and our moods going into the second batch (we're doing three shows a day) will depend on how the first lot went. From what I gather, 'The Second' is looking great; the guys are rehearsing it a lot and I'll be joining them tomorrow night. The show with Esther feels a bit stop/start; she's off-book/I'm not far off but enough to keep throwing her, brilliant director/a director who lost track of time and forgot to turn up to the last session, lots of rehearsal time/we get distracted by lots of chatting. We've got this afternoon, tomorrow (Bank Holiday Monday) and then the dress rehearsal (in front of a specially invited audience) on Thursday to get this right. Sticking to the 'letting people down' thing, I ended up missing a gig with Claudia yesterday afternoon because my lesson ran late and then the traffic gods (notably, the A10) were against me.  On a dif...

As predicted, May is a busy one and I have to be at my 100% best and most organised to do everything properly, or else it'll just be a busy month of what might have beens.  Band meeting at a lovely Japanese restaurant confirmed my fears that we are now just a 'local' band - the guys aren't up for travelling any more, everyone seems to have, well, grown out of it. Apart from me. I'll naturally find something new when the time allows, I'm not done yet.  Watched the London marathon on TV on Sunday morning. I watched it a bit hungover (we've found a nice pub in the village), eating the remains of last night's pizza. I sat and thought..."maybe I'm at the wrong end of the scale here" and promptly bought some running shoes. My plan, as it has been for a while, is to be the Mr Motivator of drum lessons.  One thing I haven't allowed for this month though is just the sheer amount of rehearsals needed to get this play over the line. 4 hours with E...