The Sublime and the Ridiculous

If I ever needed a reminder of just how up and down this business can be, the first three dates on the tour would have served this purpose perfectly. The Flying Monk in its new incarnation has now three shows under its belt, with a performance at our 'spiritual home' and two shows as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival.

I don't need that reminder by the way, I am all too aware of how different each and every performance can be, both in terms of the dynamics on stage and the response of the audience.

What I had underestimated, perhaps, was the significance of home advantage. The very first showing of The Flying Monk, last year at The Spring, was a euphoric evening of theatrical alchemy, in which 6 underprepared and exhausted actors created magic in front of a nearly full auditorium of incredibly responsive people. I was not expecting a repeat of this, as I think that first show was one of those once in a lifetime experiences. Nonetheless, last Thursday still felt like a very satisfying evening, again with great feedback.

By contrast, Brighton was a different animal, with each performance different from the other, too. Sunday's show was in front of a pretty healthy crowd by Fringe standards, and as a cast I think we were glad that we had rehearsed for this smaller space, as there would have been chaos had we not. Even so, we were all operating on dual-brain mode, by which I mean we were both performing the show and processing the logistics of working in the small space at the same time (this is a bizarre phenomenon that most actors will be familiar with). Anyhow, the performance went pretty well all things considered, but the response from the audience was very different. Essentially they were much quieter, which made me feel that perhaps we weren't connecting with them as we should. Fortunately I could detect the odd chuckle in the right places, and I don't think we were getting negative vibes from them. In fact, the applause at the end was very gratifying and seemed to be driven by sincere appreciation which made me feel that perhaps we needn't have been so concerned.

And finally, our Brighton swan song, in which our cast of six outnumbered the audience 2:1. That is the Fringe that I remember. Although this is somewhat disheartening, I don't think it had an adverse effect on our performance. We all certainly seemed happier in the space, there were fewer tongues tripping on lines and the pace whipped along very nicely. Like the good professionals that we are, we can be secure in the knowledge that we gave those three people our all, when it can be very tempting to to take your foot off the pedal in those circumstances.

Of course, this is a very personal, subjective appraisal of the run so far. I believe we had a critic in for both of the Brighton nights, so I await with no small amount of trepidation their views on the show. I still have faith that we provide a very satisfying evening of theatre, but that faith is very fragile. We'll have to wait and see.