Christmas play - performances 3 and 4

I'm knackered, again. This is why I'm not an actor. As I type this, the smoke alarm in the hairdressers attached to my little flat is going off to say it needs new batteries. It's going to be going all night, isn't it? And the hairdressers bit is basically the other side of my bedroom wall. Ah, bollocks, another sleepless night then. It was probably going to be a sleepless night anyway as I'm analysing things far too much. I really enjoyed Friday's Christmas shows - I felt the sudden nature of me being pushed into the role what with Kev stranded in Amsterdam added a sense of excitement to the proceedings. Tonight, with a days rest and a couple hours rehearsal, I just didn't like it at all. I was annoyed at first that hardly any of my long-term friends could be bothered to make any of the performances (and there was 4 to chose from) apart from Rachel, Andy P, Andy H, Amy, Michelle, Julia, Rob, Andy B, Vicky, James, Jack and the lovely Emerald Sky girls, but then again - why should I expect people to come to things all the time - it's time for this to move on from me putting on shows and then friends and family come to watch it, I've been doing that for 5 years. I think that is what is bugging me about the whole thing - it's the third year of the Christmas show, I know it's a tradition, but it's not as fun as it used to be. Yeah - so Paul can write jokes for sweary Santa Claus, he can throw in a loser and let him be unlucky in love and milk the audience sympathy, but it's nothing I haven't done before. Perhaps because I was in it this year I may have seen more flaws in the writing than I knew existed. Or maybe the stress of being an actor has disrupted my enjoyment of the whole thing. Tonight's shows were pleasantly ramshackle, with lots of jokes, and I was really proud of the rest of the cast - Heather, Vaughan, Cara, Steve, Clare (in at the last minute as narrator - a wonderful performance), Aidy - they were on fine form and I think they enjoyed it. The audiences did - lots of compliments, lots of laughter in the right places, everyone came away happy. Apart from me, the man who puts this all together, and is frankly a bit bored of it all now. I need new challenges, I need to push myself - so much of that material that was on display tonight didn't work. Let's be fair - if you smother that dodgy material with jokes you can get away with it. But that won't stop it being not all that good at the end of the day. I was chatting to Heather, and Paul Malpas (a soundman/actor friend who also came to the show tonight) about how to get further, how not to be here, in this venue, this time next year, putting on a show to four charming but half full audiences. I really like CB2, it's a cracking venue run by generous people, so this rant is by no means anything against the space - it's what we did with it. Paul was very generous about my writing, explaining that there are often "slices of comedy genius in your work" and that "tonight had more slices than the other shows I've seen you do this year" but was also very honest about lots of it dragging and/or just not working as well as it could do. Heather's rather intense reply was simply related to the fact that I need to slow down, and focus more on the projects, rather than bash them out and move on to the next one - basically be more serious about individual shows, rather than be serious as a writer. A valid point. I've got nothing to complain about really - we've entertained lots of people over the last 4 shows, many of whom laughed a lot, the actors have worked so hard for it to happen, it'll go down as a success. But come December 2011 I don't want to be writing another blog entry about another show at CB2 which "worked in many ways but..."