First Cambridge previews of the new shows

Having opened in Bristol last week, 6 days later we were back in Cambridge for our first of two nights in our home town. This was a completely different kettle of fish as we had already sold out (and at one stage oversold) before the event, and I personally knew everyone in the audience apart from Marcus' new lady friend. It's slightly daunting doing the play in front of so many friends - seriously, if I was to ever hold a party a majority of these people would be invited, I like them a lot. Had a brief look/discussion about the Oscar script on Monday night with Izzy, and then a speed run-through of most of it with the full team on Thursday night but such is my own lack of confidence/experience I was still really worried about last night during the day. In fact, I sat at my desk in the office, staring at a spreadsheet, swearing to myself about the fact that in a couple hours time I would be on stage, possibly stranded, in front of people I really like, wearing my pyjamas. It's nice to be out of your comfort zone sometimes though, it's what keeps life interesting...

I was too worried about Oscar stuff to really watch 'Probably The Greatest Goal' properly but from what I saw it looked great again - the audience seemed really taken in by it, it's a lot of words for Grace but she's so composed, her/Izzy/Michelle are doing a great job with it.

Oscar started well because it was an audience who found it funny that I was wearing pyjamas and eating Hula Hoops - to be honest, if they're laughing before any lines have been said, you know it's going to be a lively one. But then I messed up the first scene totally (well, I assume it was me because Grace isn't the type to get things wrong, but somewhere along the line we lost some of the dialogue) - nobody seemed to notice off stage (apart from Izzy, who was looking very worried) and my heart was sinking dramatically inside. But we recovered, and then after that it was a very well spirited performance, better than the Bristol one I think - but then again so it should be, if things were getting worse that would be something to worry about! The odd line or two was scuffed, a couple missed, but it flowed well with bags of (at times manic) energy and felt like yet another victory. And the audience does count for a lot - they were amazing to us last night, a couple of them are already discussing coming to see it again on the 27th, that's a huge compliment.

It's far from perfect, but it's looking more and more like a show every time, it's coming to life nicely, and these previews are serving their purpose - lots of useful feedback, we're hitting our stride, and we're entertaining along the way. By Edinburgh, both shows will be beautiful. Izzy, Grace, Michelle and Alan are the best production team ever, and I'll probably be saying this every time I blog about these shows.

In the meantime I am feeling slightly frustrated by lack of time at the moment to write new material, I'm bursting to work on new stuff but in between the previews and the fringe I have the UK tour, and straight after I have Lodestar and then a tour of Poland. There's so much I want to do though - so many projects that need to be out of my head and into the real world. We're two performances in of the new shows and so far seven people have told me that I should be considering a move into stand-up (Oscar Pike verges on that quite often in the performance with the rants to the audience). I'm flattered, but that certainly isn't on my to-do list. No. No...