I was gigging on a barge in Battersea tonight. It's one of those weird and wonderful venues that are dotted around our capital. I didn't know quite what to expect, but it's actually a rather swanky restaurant/bar half way between Vauxhall and the power station. And it's one of those clubs I love where they put on a variety of different acts. When I arrived Martin White, the accordionist and a quartet (or maybe quintet) of other musicians were entertaining the crowd with sweet and humorous songs. I didn't know how my unmitigated filth would fare in such refined circumstances and the audience was mixed including some fairly elderly people . But I was feeling a lot more relaxed than the last couple of nights and slightly more on top of my material. I followed some spoof magicians, supposedly from Croatia and a raffle, but luckily it all went down pretty well. I didn't have the full hour so did selected highlights of the show, plus a couple of old bits. When I did the gay finger sign bit I heard a disapproving voice say "Pure pornography" which made me laugh. I wasn't able to see the audience due to bright spotlights, but asked who it was who had said that, but no-one owned up. I said I wouldn't chastise them, and that I essentially agreed, but luckily most of the people there didnÂ’t mind the explicit content. It turned out that the disgruntled commentator had been the grandmother of one of the other performers and I was sorry in a way to have had to subject her to my filth, after the other acts had been so charming. Though if she thinks a man touching his own hands together is pornography, then she really mustnÂ’t ever look at the internet. But aside from that it felt good to have got on top of some of the routines. I even did the fight story, which I said I wasn't going to, but the audience were insistent and it went pretty well. I wish I had maybe three more previews to really get things sorted out, but if I work hard once I am up in Edinburgh then I think everything should be OK.
On the way to the gig I had seen a couple of things that made me smile. On Shepherd's Bush station there was a girl dressed in a red basque, looking a little glum. She had bare feet, which seemed odd and perhaps unwise to me, until I noticed that she was carrying a pair of fairly extreme high heeled shoes. She was either on her way somewhere or on her way back and having to cope with the impracticalities of her outfit. A man on the platform kept staring at her bare feet, incredulously.
Later on the tube a woman was carrying a small boy dressed in a Peter Pan outfit, complete with feathered cap and even a wooden sword. He can't have been more than two or three and looked very cute. And unlike
Morris Mitchener he was not pissing himself with fear over the concept of actually being Peter Pan. It was a bit like a tube mufti day, but only two people had heard about it. No wonder the girl was looking grumpy.
There is theatre in the real world as well on barges on the Thames.
