Roll Up Halifax Preview

The Socks’ preview of Roll Up at Halifax (Fri May 24) was our first show in a month, and the first full hour long test of Roll Up since Glasgow in March. In April we did half an hour of Roll Up material as a warm up for our Superheroes shows, and that seemed to go well. Since then I’ve rewritten the script, added lots of totally new material and lost other stuff. Halifax got the lot and gave it the acid test of audience reaction. There is, let us say, work still do do.

For starters we weren’t getting laughs from the start. This was partly cos there were only 30 people on the crowd and we really needed to warm them up with solid, polished stuff from the start, and were possibly a little wavering to begin with. Once we picked up the energy and pace we won them over, and when the material was good it was perfect. So there were lots of high points and plenty of sustained laughter, but the story structure needs tightening and, most importantly, we still need good new material. Most significantly the show only came in at 50 minutes, so we had to round it off with an encore of Earth Song and Sweary Poppins.

Material lost since Glasgow:

Anne Hathaway Song (didn’t really fit)

Cross Channel Matt Alwright/Vicar/Golf (which was strong but didn’t fit, and had been in a previous show)

Bechdel Test Song (from last year, had been used as filler)

Phantom Of The Opera finale (which had been promising, but I thought we could do better)

Halifax Running Order:

Opening gags (Steroids, Smart, Dumbo, Ocelot) - good

I’m A Sock - during which I realised the audience weren’t warmed up enough

Greatest Showman music - needs to be better, not funny in itself

Gags (Chipperfield, Burlescue, 3 Rings, Coddled) - not strong enough. A string of one-liners is wrong here. It needs to be a strong, building routine

Philip Astley - misheard words quite good, but we need to have had something stronger by now

Astley music - good, messy end (edit music)

Astley horses/BSE - good, could be better

Annie The Elephant - music too slight, needs beefing up. Otherwise good.

Audience improv - first big laughs of the night, we did jumping through a flaming hoop. Luckily this spot has worked well every time, but we can’t rely on it, and we’re over 10 minutes in before we’re getting proper laughs

Juggling routine - good. 

Magic routine - excellent, but of course this is an old classic. 

Nicole Kidman - some laughs, but is she good enough? I’m now wondering why Nicole Kidman?

Performance Artist - we skipped this, didn’t quite feel it was in the wrong place & wanted to keep pace up

Lady In Pants - ok, but music is too slow and gappy

Gypsy Fortune Teller - (brand new) Didn’t work at all (seemed good on paper)

Greggs Song - good. Needs costume and dance routine (still! I’d meant to do that by now!)

Clown - (brand new) Great costume, variable routine. Some good bits, needs rewriting and integrating through rest of show.

Pagliacci Routine - good. We need more routines as good as this please. Rubbish punchline mind, think on’t.

City of Stars - ok, but could we do something better?

Eurovision Brexit Song - very good, though increasingly feels shoehorned in. Whatever, it’s good.

Return of Nicole Kidman (brand new) - good, could be better

Mixed scripts (brand new prop) - Needs making clearer.

Clown, Kidman & gypsy return - dreadful, what was I thinking? (Probably that I’d go back and fix the script, and never did)

Greatest Show finale (all brand new) - some parts of this are very good. The premise needs to be set up more clearly, the Baby Jesus costume didn’t get the laugh I thought it would. Nicole Kidman’s lines could be better.

Trapeze routine - almost there, but not clear enough. Sound FX need editing, script need tightening.

Doctor punchline - good, but audience clearly didn’t think that was the punchline, so need looking at.

And we could use a final song right here, at the end.

So, lots of writing and editing happening this week, ready for Vauxhall on Thursday and Brighton at the weekend. We can do it (stay tuned to see how true that is).

The Scottish Falsetto Socks brand new show ROLL UP! is previewing Nationwide:

May 30 - Vauxhall Comedy Club
June 1 & 2 - Komedia Brighton Fringe
June 8 - Harlequin Theatre Redhill
June 17 - Grassington Festival Yorkshire
June 22 - Strule Arts Omagh
June 27 - Neath Comedy Festival

July 8 - Barnes Fringe

July 12 - Kings Arms Salford, GM Fringe
July 20 - Bedford Fringe
July 28 - Derby Bar One 

July 31st - August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. Book now!