Our First Weekend Back at Vicar Street

How did we used to do this?

I'm not sure... Did you used to do the Belfast accent there

I think so.. there was something about not trusting a person with no accent...

We really should have written this down.

Maybe we'll remember it as we do it?

That's a.. that's a gamble. 

It feels like our show is one of those ancient legends, passed by word of mouth over generations and changed in the telling irredeemably. Some was recorded, the rest forgotten. We'll call it evolution, because otherwise I'll get too upset at the jokes for which there were no cave drawings. 

We're piecing it together, artefact by artefact, and slowly getting there. While the drawbacks to this are obvious, the benefits may not be. The main one being you end up examining lines and sections of script that have never been challenged since their inception. Stuff that kind of worked, or that we thought was important to the setup, which is in fact neither. You also get a chance to suggest more jokes, riskier jokes and because no one remembers the previous lines anyway, it doesn't feel like you're asking too much.

It's fun. It's really fun. We love creating filmed content, but you just can't beat the buzz of the live environment. This is even before the crowd arrive!

Preparing for these shows is an odd feeling. Everything is familiar but foreign, like your returning to a holiday destination a year later. Your feet move around the place like you know where your going bit your mind is in a constant state of surprise.

We go through the sound check in relative confidence, relative to how much we were screwed just a few days ago. The high point is a new song in the second half, with Foil lamenting his concertina ability. Polished or not, this is going to be a fun show. We can feel it

We iron shirts, go over lines and try to contain ourselves. There's a lot of excitement in the air. Duck can barely sit still. Mick is buzzing too. The team are back!

We've no idea how many people will turn up, these shows were scheduled for April 2020 after all.. I guess at 70 percent but it ends up being around 85. There's a lot of friendly faces there and that really makes a difference. Thanks you guys.

The three shows end up being totally different in wonderful ways. We chop and change sections and jokes, encourage as much improv as possible and slowly remember lines, asides and techniques. As we sit in the back stage area following the three nights there's a real sense of accomplishment. The show still exists and it's still fun to perform. 

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in"

Arms