I’ve announced this on the tinyletter, but not yet on the blog, so: on December 9th I am performing a work-in-progress show, Amateur Escapology.
As someone reminded me, this is actually my second one-person show, since I did a single performance of Vindaloo Stories back in 2017. That was very well-received, but for various reasons I haven’t developed it further (although I will one day). Amateur Escapology is a much more personal show, and one I want to do now.
Preparing a one-person show is weird. How do I justify the time I’m expecting the audience to give up to see it? One of the first things I decided was: no projector. A lot of the spoken word I’ve done has had slides behind it, and it’s easy to get a laugh from the right image, or to use the transitions between slides as a beat. But I wanted to push myself beyond that, to hold the audience’s interest without them. And I also wanted to make sure to produce a performance and story that justified having people in the room. It couldn’t be something that people could have just listened to as a podcast while they prepared dinner. Which means preparing a couple of extra elements that would only work in person – the title of the show gives a clue to what I’m planning.
I’m not sure how it will turn out, although I’m working hard. I’ve almost finished the script, weaving together performance, my own stories and great tales of escape. There are 84 days to go. I’d better finish the script, as I’ll have about 9000 words to commit to memory…
Tickets are £4.50 from eventbrite and the show takes place at the Brunswick in Hove, at 7:30pm on Monday December 9th.