From One Extreme To Another

Kevin was not as big a hit at a house party last night as he had been in a bar the night before. The style of function was also very different. The Friday night gig had been a corporate, lot's of people letting their hair down in a public place. Last night I did an hour at a guy's 40th in Glenn Iris. We all had a great time but the Vulture was (although very entertaining) the weakest part of the show. As ever though I am probably being too hard on myself. Ventriloquism is quite a tough sell in someone's loungeroom and even though the client Nadine had done a great job at hiring caterers who created an indoor beer garden there is something just a little bit to cozy about a house party to warrant expecting people to buy into puppets without any real warning. It could have been the audience though but they were so great for the rst of it that I think it was just enviromental. There had not been that much drink passed around yet either. Also I think my delivery may have been off once i started to feel the wall growing a little. Domino effect maybe?

By the way,when I say that I don't think vent goes over in a loungroon during an adult show that's not strictly speaking true. Maybe a character who was a little easier to identify with would have been better. Kevin is a' mock horror' sort of deal, which is very funny but in a more public or corporate setting. Even though there are quite a few call backs to an audience member in his routine already I have decided to personalise the routine more and drop more of the guests names into the routine...or even just celebrities names might help to make it more identifiable and or topical. I am doing him again for a Rotary function in town next Friday night and intend on working on some new bits of dialogue this week. The trouble with Rotary is that it is not private neither is it corporate so it's tricky. I think I will still drop some of the guests names in though (if I can remember them in time) and see how I go. It all depends on how well people know each other I guess. The bit that I do with the dummy mask was a storm (last night) as it always is. Like the Vulture, the new spider bit struggled too. After the show it was on to 40mins of walk around. I don't have to tell you that was fine....yep I can do that now...that's just what I DO, what I have done for years and its just fine. based on the responses I get week in and week out my walk around is pretty much perfect. I am very comfoartable doing walk around I always have been. I enjoy it a tremedous amount.

The other extreme was Maddie and Violet's Birthday Party today at the Silly Seahorse in Chelsea Heights. One of my parents presents to them. I, ofcourse, supplied a show during which Kevin went down a storm...as did all of the other puppets. No before you ask I don't do the same routine for kids as I do for adults. There were two other parties on at the same time as us and I just said that everyone could watch my show. We had the whole place screaming and shouting.

I have to go now as I have loads of Barbie dolls to open. Why do they package them so well? The loungroom looks like Santa's grotto.