Most of my day job involves watching people acting, making notes, and advising them on where they could improve. This week I gave myself the same treatment, by watching the video back from the 4th of December. Here are my notes...

49 mins long
Saxophone skipped at beginning
Chin - posture
Watch out for covering Bobby Cool's legs
Make sure braces are on properly
Find a better response to the mention of Keith Richards
Look at brain on the word bottle - It's kind of weird having a guy here with a BOTTLE in front of him.'
Adjust hat - piano still going and acted surprised - this worked, keep it.
Asking why - too much emphasis
Don't throw away weather report - keep momentum
Take the light out of the brain slower
Slow down the light drawings
Sort hair out
Have pen in the pocket already - set up for beginning, put it back in right place after opener
Nightmares go away, leave more pause after
Suprise lobotomy worked - person next to whomever is holding the brain - almost pounce on them
Check on the healing process later
Need better underwear - find some new quotations for the undressing part
Shipwreck
Trauma Drinking to Lost in Harbour - look at the transition.
Make new clasp for dress - quicker fastening
Shoulders back more for the ice-pick reveal
Have a sexier look, then smile
Watch out for chin on the shoulder stroke
Bottle
Shoulders back on Tit Tape and a Tiara
Find it in the dark, actually go searching for the lost pastie, until I find in the dark and switch the lights off. Look in Tom's hat.
Can we see the shadow during the lamppost story. Bring a brain light to the desk, and walk back with it to light the lamppost.
Good pacing
Look back at the lamppost during bringing up the lights at the desk
Too much stomping in the heels - practise walking
Too much fiddling with coat
Keep the flourish of the ice-pick, mirroring the lobotomy image from before.
Murder good - DBS
Check on the patient to deflect from the tension build from asking for volunteers
Too long a pause before other side - work on this transition
Disintegration
Stumbling with the skirt works
Start showbiz and apocalypse straight away
Slow hat on ascent
More sharp movement in beginning of late night conversation
Look at pacing
Lower hat on hurt
More prep for 2nd part of lip-synch
Too much swaying during improv
Works putting doctor
Gone tone for 3rd doctor
Consequences, learn lines better
Last bit of speech after CIA learn better
Need a better transition after 3rd doctor
Swig after 1st line of soar dirge
Physical prep before story/myth - draw shapes?
Extraordinary
Turn Pete's bow tie off, during story, some point after twinkling lights
Work on singing
Bobby Cool smokes 1st, can he throw the fag away? Looking up to the sky...
 
Lots to work on here...

I've also been moved to write new material, possibly not for the show, but something in definitely cooking! Here is one:

I'll blame the moon
Right out of the sky for you baby
It's the thorn in our sides
Please call me baby
I'll blame the moon
Stuck up there in the sky
Teetering there on the edge
Of a coloured wind sky
I'll blame the moon
For the severance in my heart
For I can barely walk
Since you have stolen mine heart
 
Xxx



 

After I performed the show last Sunday, a friend who was in the audience asked me if the text would be available, as it was compelling to hear, and would be interesting to read afterwards. He told me about chapbooks and so I made several copies of my own, it includes most of the text from the show, and a limited edition copy will be awarded to anyone who gives a £5 donation or more at my next performance. While stocks last!!

Despite having forgotten an important prop (again), the show went well. I will always ask friends for feedback and suggestions, and I'm grateful for any they are able to give. It was filmed....I can't bring myself to watch it yet, even though it's been nearly a week, but I know I need to in order to get any sort of concrete idea of how to move forward with this performance.

Here are some audience comments;
* There are more ways to perform each piece, you are already experimenting with different tones, but you could push this further.
* Several props are only used once, can more be reintroduced? Loved the black hole dress, can this be used again?
* You are much more relaxed than you were in the preview, you're much easier to watch now!
* The structure is great, it's really well-paced.
* Enjoyed the ship poem, like the fantastical language.
* Good use of voice.
* The letter is a nice addition, is helps to tie a story together.

I'm terrible at describing this show to friends; I normally start off by saying 'It's really weird.' And then 'It's basically an hour of me getting dressed and undressed and saying some things.'

I was thinking about the structure of the show this week, as a few people had mentioned it to me on Sunday, and I remember very early in my process that a loose structure had presented itself to me in the form of various costumes. I knew that I would need to get dressed and undressed several times in order to visually show the structure as I had seen it. I 'tried to represent the different characters that appear time and time again in Tom Waits' songs, and later on as the show developed into being more about the human psyche, it became about the different stages of recovery.
These were: Black Hole, Beatnik, Crow, Red Dress, Jet Trash, Gun Street Girl and Traveller. I've needed to find ways of representing each personified theme, and moving between them throughout the show. They also represent the stages of grief, not always in this order: Denial, Anger, Barginning, Depression and Acceptance. The doctor character was added much later in the process, and is the only character that appears more than once, as a motif - but I hope developing in content as the show continues.

It reminds me of how Camille O'Sullivan transforms herself throughout her stage shows, and the various costumes and characters she inhabits, tying in with the songs she's singing. I didn't realise this until this week, but I've been influenced by the structure of her shows from all those times I went to see her perform in London and Edinburgh, probably from 2009 to 2015. She used to enter the stage very mysteriously, wearing a long black cape, rip off most of her clothes at some point early on, and then later would put on very pale, almost clown-like makeup. By the end of the show she would be stumbling barefoot around the stage with her hair loose. The first time I saw her at the  Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 I was blown away. I probably would have passed the show by had my friend not pointed out to me in the program that she did cover versions of Tom Waits songs. There aren't many good videos of her on youtube, and I think she's really worth seeing live. I think I should go and watch myself on video now, this will be painful...