There was always going to be an out and out low point of the run of A Mixed Bag and yesterday provided it.
It was raining all day, so we thought we’d get a good number of people in as we generally do when it’s raining. Then an hour before our show was due to start it stopped raining.
We ended up getting 11 people in, which is not the smallest audience we’ve had, but it was tough going. They weren’t an unpleasant crowd and none of them were drunk, but large proportions of both our respective sets were met with blank stares.
But if the audience aren’t laughing regularly then the comedian has to take responsibility. And although there were laughs they were fairly spread out. I extracted the most laughter when I went off-piste and engaged the audience. I normally revel in the small, weird gigs and although I still managed to get a degree of enjoyment from it, it was a hard slog. Despite this, I inexplicably ended up doing my second longest set of the entire run. Paul enjoyed the gig even less than me and did the shortest set either of us has done so far. And just in case we needed confirmation about it being our worst gig of the run, in the collection bucket at the end from 11 people we made £7.22. I couldn’t help but laugh when I was counting our pathetic takings.
In health news, illness is starting to take its hold on myself and Mr Langton. The Edinburgh Lurgie has found me. I think it is my hectic few days has catching up with me at the end of what has been a long month in Scotland.
In other Edinburgh news, saw Tony Law’s show yesterday and he was very good. Tonight I am off to see Stephen Carlin.
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