Last night was the first performance of my show, ‘Driving School’, at the Blue Orange Theatre. And I’m pleased, and relieved, to report that it went really well.

I was surrounded by a great team who really bought into the show and gave up their time to make it a success, especially Jonny Greatrex who took on a substantial amount of lines-learning before his own Edinburgh show and his numerous stand-up gigs. Simon Harper did a great turn as ‘pissed-off-man-in-audience-dragged-up-on-stage’ (that’s dragged up as in dragged out of seat – not lipstick and wig… although maybe next time!…) And Andy Gough substituted his usual top-range motor for a cardboard Nissan Micra and pranced around the stage like Bernie Clifton on acid. Jim Kelly proved an able and reliable tech op, and gave us some proper theatre direction too. They were all stars.

I loved being in character, and definitely gave a less inhibited performance because I was not playing myself. Dashing onto the stage and high-fiving the front row was fun, and set the scene nicely for what followed. ‘Bernard Nell’ is a pretty self-assured bloke if a little too ‘up himself’, but it works because he gets nicely undermined at every turn by Jonny. It was this dynamic that Jim helped us with, and I think it’s something worth exploring more in later performances. There’s certainly the makings of a back-story there.

My particular highlight was not a scripted part of the show at all, but the moment when, backstage behind a thin black curtain, a large ladder that was laid on its side, decided to fall over creating health and safety chaos in the dark, mainly for Jonny, all of which could be heard from by the audience, and which in itself got a few laughs.

The end scene, where the audience gets to throw ping-pong balls at some poor sap on stage (Andy!), was spectacularly silly and clearly the audience thought it was a hoot.

And, ah – the rap. I managed to complete two-thirds of it, and was heading nicely towards the end when our only technical fault of the night occurred and the music died completely! I really didn’t anticipate that – I thought that the only reason for me not getting through it would be a memory fail, and so it was a bit disappointing that I was denied the satisfaction of making it through!

So – the show definitely has legs. Some sections need tightening up and need stronger gags, but others worked really well. I thought the opening sections worked particularly well, which is probably not surprising as they received the most attention in rehearsals.

We’re going to talk about repeating the show for the Birmingham comedy festival in October, although I’m probably veering towards  the Christmas period to really get things polished and improved. I’m grateful that everyone pushed me to go for the July show, as I now have a finished product to tinker with, but it’s been a tough couple of months to cope with a full-time stressful job AND the demands of putting on a show.

There is video – although I have no idea which bits got filmed – and so I will post a clip or two when I’ve sorted them out!