(Update Dec 2010: the following is an account – written May 2010 – of the writing/development of my solo show of comedy songs, Big Noise. It’s now available on iTunes – more info here. But it’s also about how it came about in the first place, including my very first foray into musical comedy all those years ago as one of the Nualas.)
I’m dossing. Right now, writing this, I’m actually taking a break. I have the sore eyes and hunched shoulders of someone on a deadline. Tomorrow, I show someone all my songs. Not bits of them: the whole songs. I couldn’t be more terrified.
I was a comedy fan for 5 years before I did any. Oh, I did the odd Improv workshop and did the door at the Comedy Cellar a few times and got to know everyone, but I was way too intimidated to try it myself. Then it happened by accident. In April of 1995, I bumped into Anne Gildea and Sue Collins at a party, we started messing with a guitar and decided to meet the next week to write some songs. We did, we wrote 3 comedy songs, and we did them in the Comedy Cellar, and somebody gave us money to go to Edinburgh and the whole thing snowballed and The Nualas was born.
I was the guitar-playing one in the middle. But here’s the thing: I can’t really play the guitar. Despite hours of finger-and-brain-blistering practice, I was always nervous beyond measure and unable to fully focus on singing and being funny: I was constantly wondering where my fingers were. They were never, ever in the right place. We also got a lot of attention really fast – too fast for me – and that led to my wondering where my fingers were on live TV. The pressure was enormous and I couldn’t keep up. I had just got myself a career as a voice artist and was still hoping against hope that I might land an agent for acting work, so, one year on, I bowed out. As Anne says, there followed an “Spinal Tap exploding drummer” scenario with the rotating middle Nuala: despite frequent personnel changes, the idea was strong and they forged ahead doing great work for many more years.
But I had decided I didn’t love comedy enough to give up everything else for it. So, for many years, I did voiceovers and acting jobs and didn’t even go to comedy gigs – heretofore my favourite thing. And I didn’t regret it. But comedy had other plans: “Just when I thought I was out…” the Dublin Comedy Improv brought me back in. I filled in for one show (everyone else they could possibly have called was in Edinburgh) and I ended up staying. For Jaysus years. And doing shows all over the world and meeting the most amazing performers and getting to work with them. I was seeing comedy again and – although still quite cynical and jaded by anyone who was over-enthused by it – enjoying it.
People kept saying I should do my own songs. “You sing!” they said. “You do comedy! You should do musical comedy!” Well, I don’t like should. And – here’s an admission – I don’t like musical comedy. Sorry. For every genius act like Flight of the Conchords and Boothby Graffoe, there are 10 chicks in sparkly dresses singing about thrush to the tune of a current chart-topping hit. Or using lazy rhymes to put across a weak joke, in the knowledge that people will clap anyway as soon as they stop playing.
When we wrote for The Nualas, we worked and reworked every idea until it was properly funny, and had a build like every comedy routine should. If it didn’t work, after several goes, we chucked it. We didn’t do sexual stuff very often – we thought it got a cheap laugh and that we should work harder to earn that laugh. That’s why, when I see anything less than that level of hard graft on show, it’s not just that I don’t find it funny; I feel deflated. I see a wasted opportunity and someone who’s ruining it for the good ones. Bastards.
So, instead of doing what everyone expected (and what I possibly should have done), I set out to prove I could get the laughs without the songs. I did stand-up for 8 years. I got good at it, but I didn’t absolutely love it. Something was missing. There was a spark, a mischief, from the musical stuff and the Improv that I’ve done that I wasn’t getting across “just talking”. Logic and I don’t go together very well, which is one of the reasons why I’ll never be a topical comic (besides, at the moment, I just find the news plain ol’ depressing).
But this year, I’m doing it. I’m going back to my roots – about time, seeing as the ones on my head are starting to glint silver. Yes, 14 years after The Nualas, I’m doing an Edinburgh solo show of songs. Just songs. A little bit of material in between, but largely songs. It’s going to be called Big Noise, and the amazing, Perrier award-winning (with Rich Hall as Otis Lee Crenshaw) Damian Coldwell will be putting my ideas to backing tracks. Score! I only have to play the guitar once or twice. Phew.
I’m meeting Damian tomorrow to sing them all for him and assure him that they’ll work. I really think hope they will: I’m exhausted and not there yet, but I’ve loved working on them. Better late than never, eh?
London Comedy Improv, Wednesday May 12, Phoenix Cavendish Sq., London. 8pm. Not all songs, but you should still be there.
