The show is really finding its feet now and every time my confidence is growing and the performance becoming more assured. I am very pleased with how it is developing. It was another sell out tonight, which just takes all the pressure off. It means I can just concentrate on the show and not get depressed about potential losses or stupid reviews. I hope the sales will continue to be so strong once the 2 for 1 offer is over, but all looking positive. I got a little kick from looking at the sold out board when I arrived to see that it read "Stewart Lee, Richard Herring" - good to see the erstwhile partners are both doing well - though it's especially impressive for Stew as he is in a venue almost twice the size of mine. Though the recognition is coming eight years too late for us as a double act, it's cool that things are still going OK for us. Also nice enough to be secure enough at a Fringe to be able to take pleasure in the success of a friend.
After the show I went out drinking with some old and new friends. In my flat we had discovered a box of cards which was entitled "50 of the world's greatest pick-up lines". Inside each card had a potential icebreaker written on it, presumably for use of an unconfident person who could take them out in their pocket, and use them when they happened to chance across someone they fancied. Chat up lines are bad enough, but if you need to take a crib sheet with you, presumably to look at and learn just before you make your move, rather than holding up and reading out loud.
I thought that they might be fun to take out and use tonight in a post-modern fashion, though ironically suspected that by using them in this way it might well be possible to break the ice and start chatting someone up for real. Though I was too nervous to attempt this with someone I didn't know, so instead just used them to chat up my friends instead. Which was more fun, because then there was no danger of cruel rejection, but also because the standard of the lines was abysmally bad. I decided I had to select them at random and not cherry-pick (though to be honest there seemed to be no cherries in there). I can't imagine any of them actually working, but then can does anyone really like pick-up lines? Aren't they always the first resort of an idiot with nothing to say? Trying to chat someone up with a line that they must know you have prepared in advance and in all likelihood copied from someone else does not seem impressive to me. I guess only if the person already fancied you would it be OK merely to have an excuse to talk to them.
So anyway here are a few of the random lines I tried on people I already knew (both male and female - it's the Edinburgh Fringe and one must experiment)
"Before you run, I'm not a freak..." Imagine using that on a stranger. You'd probably get a face full of pepper spray.
"I've got one hour to live and don't want to die a virgin - help me!" Again it seems too self-effacing. Even jokingly admitting to be a virgin is hardly a great start and the fact that you might well die in the middle of the love-making you are hoping to procure must surely be a turn-off to all but the most hard-hearted of lovers.
"Can I buy you a drink or do you just want the money?" - another terrible one. "I'd just prefer the money is the put down to a pick up, you can't preempt that by just saying it yourself. I would imagine the person would say, "I'll have the money please," forcing you to have to ask them what they would have had, find how much that costs and then get the exact change to give to them. Before leaving.
"Is that a false nose?" - really on the charm offensive here.
"Inheriting eighty million buck doesn't mean much when you have a weak heart..." This one scarcely makes sense and I think is too difficult a gag to get across in a bar to a person who may be drunk. And it's shit anyway.
"grab his/her bottom and say "Excuse me, is this seat taken?" - if you did that then you are more likely to end up in prison than in bed with someone, but if you are playing the ironic version then do make sure you read out all the stage directions. Then it's really funny.
I could go on. And drunkenly last night I did. Though I ended up walking home alone, so even the ironic version is only of limited use.
I had terrific fun though. Aside from that blip on day nought I have high hopes that this might be a Fringe without all the rubbishy bits and blue days. Doubtless this will prove hubristic, but I am delighted to be enjoying my show and enjoying my after show and hanging out with cool and funny people. As long as I don't remember that I am 40 it is all good.
