A Bit Of Irish.
The last time I did it on March 17 this year (St Patrick's Night).
Have you ever wondered what it's like to do a one man show?
I call it a one man show but some people want to call it a one person show
and that to me is just silly. If it's a woman it should be called a one woman
show surely.
And don't call me Shirley!
By the way I tried to raise some money one time for a film, from one of the regional arts councils. When I had an interview with one of the officers he gave me a form which said 'name personnel involved in your project for example camera person’ and he also said “you will need to name who is going to be your camera person.”
He was really pushing the word 'person' which has to be one of the most unattractive words ever invented. I asked him what a camera person was and that I didn’t think there was such a position in a professional film crew.
“Well we are an equal opportunities organization” he said.
But I repeated “There is no such position in a professional film crew.”
“We prefer camera person.” he said.
So than I really put the kybosh on my chances of getting any money from them by saying “Which one shall we call the camera person; the Director of Photography, the Camera Operator, the Focus Puller or the Clapper Loader?”
No I didn’t get the money.
But back to the one man show – have you ever wondered what it’s like?
Well for a start it’s a big ego thing and you have to have the audacity to think you can actually do one by really standing in front of an audience and try to command their attention for an hour and a half.
I don’t know why I suddenly started to do a one man show but I suspect it’s one or all of the above.
I was in Los Angeles, I had worked in a play at a theatre (and won an award, I hasten to add) and I was chatting to the director one day about one man shows and what I would do if I ever did one and he said “why don’t you try one here?”
The idea hit me and the following week I went in with my guitar to see the director, he sat at one side of the room and I sat at the other and I sang Finnegan’s Wake accompanying myself on my twelve string guitar.
“That’s great” he said (it wasn’t) “why don’t you get your show together and we’ll present it on Saint Patrick’s Night?"
Well that was in 2001; it went very well and since then I have done it so many times that I have lost count.
I had two bad shows out of all of those: one was when I got a touch of 'cotton wool mouth' when I did it at the same theatre later and another when I did it for the first time in London.
I blame the London one on total jet lag and the fact that I had to change some of the show at the last minute due to copyright problems and didn't get a chance for a run in the theatre beforehand. I learned a lot from that experience and one is never go in unprepared and always have a 'run'.
That doesn't mean I didn't scrape home by the seat of my pants a few times but I have to say - those seat of the pants shows were fun and exciting!!
It seems quite natural to me when I am in the process of rehearsing and rewriting it but in the patches of time when I am not doing it I wonder where I get the audacity from.
I mean I never think too much about it just before I go on to the stage; I never think that I am going out there for an hour and a half and I have to remember an hour and a half’s worth of stuff and all those poems and songs and all those lines.
I go through the first song or poem in my head just before going on but then I kind of 'GO' from one bit to the next editing in my head as I progress.
One of the highlights, I am told, is when I sing The Fields of Athenry because everybody sings along with it. Well the last time I did the show, nearly three months ago, I forgot to sing it. I just skipped passed it and did something else.
The man doing the lighting cues just skipped along with me and half way through another song or a poem I realized I had forgotten it.
My wife has seen the show so many times she must be sick of it but she always enjoys The Fields of Athenry so I had to figure out where I was going to put it. This I did and nobody noticed apart from the man doing the lighting cues; he was last seen trying to put all the papers of the script back together.
When you are in a play and things go wrong – you forget a line for example – somebody will usually help you out but in a one man show you are on your own. If I forgot something no one would know what comes next - not even the man doing the lighting cues.
You are also on your own in the dressing room before the show and that is weird.
Usually in a play you share the dressing room with others and you chat, joke with each other or just ‘be’ in each others company.
When you go out of your dressing room you see other people from the play in all states of undress and you are used to seeing that from both sexes.
I have come off the stage for a 'quick change' on occasions and had a girl strip my clothes off me and help me on with other clothes and dashed back on to the stage; I have even shared dressing room space with girls but when you do a one man show, as I say, you are on your own.
As you are the only person in the play there are not many people backstage to look after you. There is maybe one man walking about letting you know what the time is and then he disappears.
Then it’s back to the silence of sitting in a room full of mirrors.
What I usually do it have a cup of tea at the half – the half is the magic time that you have to be in your dressing room and that is 35 minutes before the show goes up; then you get the quarter, the five and then beginners or in America places.
In Britain you have to be at the side of the stage five minutes (beginners) before the start and you wait there by yourself when you are doing a one man show – it’s five minutes later in America as their shows go up five minutes late.
When I have finished my tea, in the dressing room, I usually have about ten minutes to go so I take off my shirt and put a bit of powder on my fizzog - I do this as it stops me sweating under the lights. That takes about two minutes and when the five is called I get dressed.
Once I put my trousers on I never sit down – I got this tip from reading about Nat ‘King’ Cole who would sit in his dressing room in his shorts for fear of creasing his trousers as there is nothing worse than seeing badly creased trousers on stage.
By the way, apparently Frank Sinatra would have a really big man lift him up and drop him into his trousers – that is according to David Jacobs.
That's why I wish the weather man on BBC TV would press his!!
So there I am all the time by myself in the dressing room till I am called.
The only places where this hasn’t happened is when I have done the show at a college: – no dressing at all, I just stand around till the teacher has quietened down the students; at the Edinburgh Festival where you have to share the dressing room with everybody: the dressing room is open all day and as there are shows all day I may be sharing with 100 other people of both sexes and all ages and at all other times of the year that dressing room would be the cloakroom and my part of the dressing room is a space on the hanger.
By the end of the three week run that place stinks - believe me!
Once I did my show – three times a day – at the Irish Show at Santa Anita Race Track in California and had to get changed in a tent and do the show in another tent; then half way through the show a pipe band would march passed so I had to stop the show and just watch them marching.
Another time I was doing my show in Edinburgh just by the castle and the big guns would go off every evening.
In Bridgenorth in Shropshire I was sitting back stage and heard the music playing which I was supposed to respond to; I had to make a run for the stage and only just made it.
So now I am going to do another one man show - or a one man play this time; the play I did last year is due to play for one night at the Lord Stanley pub in Camden Town;
it’s a kind of show case to see if I can get it on at another theatre here. It’s on July 14th at 8:30 pm. Come along if you’re free!!
And don't call me Shirley!
By the way I tried to raise some money one time for a film, from one of the regional arts councils. When I had an interview with one of the officers he gave me a form which said 'name personnel involved in your project for example camera person’ and he also said “you will need to name who is going to be your camera person.”
He was really pushing the word 'person' which has to be one of the most unattractive words ever invented. I asked him what a camera person was and that I didn’t think there was such a position in a professional film crew.
“Well we are an equal opportunities organization” he said.
But I repeated “There is no such position in a professional film crew.”
“We prefer camera person.” he said.
So than I really put the kybosh on my chances of getting any money from them by saying “Which one shall we call the camera person; the Director of Photography, the Camera Operator, the Focus Puller or the Clapper Loader?”
No I didn’t get the money.
But back to the one man show – have you ever wondered what it’s like?
Well for a start it’s a big ego thing and you have to have the audacity to think you can actually do one by really standing in front of an audience and try to command their attention for an hour and a half.
I don’t know why I suddenly started to do a one man show but I suspect it’s one or all of the above.
I was in Los Angeles, I had worked in a play at a theatre (and won an award, I hasten to add) and I was chatting to the director one day about one man shows and what I would do if I ever did one and he said “why don’t you try one here?”
The idea hit me and the following week I went in with my guitar to see the director, he sat at one side of the room and I sat at the other and I sang Finnegan’s Wake accompanying myself on my twelve string guitar.
“That’s great” he said (it wasn’t) “why don’t you get your show together and we’ll present it on Saint Patrick’s Night?"
Well that was in 2001; it went very well and since then I have done it so many times that I have lost count.
I had two bad shows out of all of those: one was when I got a touch of 'cotton wool mouth' when I did it at the same theatre later and another when I did it for the first time in London.
I blame the London one on total jet lag and the fact that I had to change some of the show at the last minute due to copyright problems and didn't get a chance for a run in the theatre beforehand. I learned a lot from that experience and one is never go in unprepared and always have a 'run'.
That doesn't mean I didn't scrape home by the seat of my pants a few times but I have to say - those seat of the pants shows were fun and exciting!!
It seems quite natural to me when I am in the process of rehearsing and rewriting it but in the patches of time when I am not doing it I wonder where I get the audacity from.
I mean I never think too much about it just before I go on to the stage; I never think that I am going out there for an hour and a half and I have to remember an hour and a half’s worth of stuff and all those poems and songs and all those lines.
I go through the first song or poem in my head just before going on but then I kind of 'GO' from one bit to the next editing in my head as I progress.
One of the highlights, I am told, is when I sing The Fields of Athenry because everybody sings along with it. Well the last time I did the show, nearly three months ago, I forgot to sing it. I just skipped passed it and did something else.
The man doing the lighting cues just skipped along with me and half way through another song or a poem I realized I had forgotten it.
My wife has seen the show so many times she must be sick of it but she always enjoys The Fields of Athenry so I had to figure out where I was going to put it. This I did and nobody noticed apart from the man doing the lighting cues; he was last seen trying to put all the papers of the script back together.
When you are in a play and things go wrong – you forget a line for example – somebody will usually help you out but in a one man show you are on your own. If I forgot something no one would know what comes next - not even the man doing the lighting cues.
You are also on your own in the dressing room before the show and that is weird.
Usually in a play you share the dressing room with others and you chat, joke with each other or just ‘be’ in each others company.
When you go out of your dressing room you see other people from the play in all states of undress and you are used to seeing that from both sexes.
I have come off the stage for a 'quick change' on occasions and had a girl strip my clothes off me and help me on with other clothes and dashed back on to the stage; I have even shared dressing room space with girls but when you do a one man show, as I say, you are on your own.
As you are the only person in the play there are not many people backstage to look after you. There is maybe one man walking about letting you know what the time is and then he disappears.
Then it’s back to the silence of sitting in a room full of mirrors.
What I usually do it have a cup of tea at the half – the half is the magic time that you have to be in your dressing room and that is 35 minutes before the show goes up; then you get the quarter, the five and then beginners or in America places.
In Britain you have to be at the side of the stage five minutes (beginners) before the start and you wait there by yourself when you are doing a one man show – it’s five minutes later in America as their shows go up five minutes late.
When I have finished my tea, in the dressing room, I usually have about ten minutes to go so I take off my shirt and put a bit of powder on my fizzog - I do this as it stops me sweating under the lights. That takes about two minutes and when the five is called I get dressed.
Once I put my trousers on I never sit down – I got this tip from reading about Nat ‘King’ Cole who would sit in his dressing room in his shorts for fear of creasing his trousers as there is nothing worse than seeing badly creased trousers on stage.
By the way, apparently Frank Sinatra would have a really big man lift him up and drop him into his trousers – that is according to David Jacobs.
That's why I wish the weather man on BBC TV would press his!!
So there I am all the time by myself in the dressing room till I am called.
The only places where this hasn’t happened is when I have done the show at a college: – no dressing at all, I just stand around till the teacher has quietened down the students; at the Edinburgh Festival where you have to share the dressing room with everybody: the dressing room is open all day and as there are shows all day I may be sharing with 100 other people of both sexes and all ages and at all other times of the year that dressing room would be the cloakroom and my part of the dressing room is a space on the hanger.
By the end of the three week run that place stinks - believe me!
Once I did my show – three times a day – at the Irish Show at Santa Anita Race Track in California and had to get changed in a tent and do the show in another tent; then half way through the show a pipe band would march passed so I had to stop the show and just watch them marching.
Another time I was doing my show in Edinburgh just by the castle and the big guns would go off every evening.
In Bridgenorth in Shropshire I was sitting back stage and heard the music playing which I was supposed to respond to; I had to make a run for the stage and only just made it.
So now I am going to do another one man show - or a one man play this time; the play I did last year is due to play for one night at the Lord Stanley pub in Camden Town;
it’s a kind of show case to see if I can get it on at another theatre here. It’s on July 14th at 8:30 pm. Come along if you’re free!!
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