clurb.net

I promised Pee I’d give him an unbiased review of his show, and the bile has now risen to a suitable level. Luckily, the only real involvement I had was putting tacky plastic crap down on a few of the seats five minutes beforehand so I don’t have any real attachments to it.

I was actually the first one in when the doors opened so I didn’t have to queue or anything. And I got a reserved seat which made me feel special and goodly. But I don’t like being sat on the front row, generally, and felt really exposed with all the acres of space in between me and the stage. The whole room felt a bit open and exposed, really, because of the ratio of people to chairs. Given that Jay and Pete had had the whole day to realise that there weren’t really enough people in attendance to fill the space, I would have thought it’d be sensible to not bother with the banked seating at the back and put out a smaller number of chairs on the floor to get it feeling more cosy-like and friendly. (-1) It may have been the fact that I was sat around non-jugglers and Team Randall but I didn’t feel like there was much crowd energy going on. Certainly not helped by the fact that there was no music playing as people took their seats. I’d never actually taken any notice of the fact that people play music before their shows. It just goes to show how natural it is. (-1) Perhaps this was all something that some organised clapping activities could have fixed, but there you go. At any rate, I felt a bit let down that such a fantastic show space didn’t garner a fantastic atmosphere. *Bias Alert* Brocko should take a goodly part of the blame though, given that their ludicrously up-their-own-arse health and safety policies meant we couldn’t do a Durhamesque cabaret-style table layout. *End Bias Alert*

The-Compere-Jay seemed a bit wordy and unprepared to me, and a lot of his lines felt unfinished. (-1) But he got the job done and managed to get acts on and off adequately. (+1) His monologues about the quality of the talent and the wonderful nature of the building started to grate a bit after a while though and smacked quite a bit of preaching to the converted. (-1) He does claw back a point for having a particularly spurty lesticle though. (+1)

Ady did a new ball routine. It was fantastic, and made me ‘ooh’ and giggle in equal measure. His costume, his movement, his use of the music were all bang-on (+1) and my only gripe was how short the routine was. (-1) Did I say my only gripe? Sorry. That whole get-the-audience-clapping-as-soon-as-I-come-on-stage thing? Not working for me. Hasn’t been for quite a while. (-1) At the end of an act, to build up to a big trick, or just if the audience is lovin’ you; fine. But not as soon as you walk on and you haven’t done anything yet. It’s rude. And not a little detrimental to your act. If people are rhythmically clapping all the way through your routine with no good reason to be, they’re not actually applauding all the cool stuff you’re doing and you’re getting no feedback. Surely! *Bias Alert* I wonder whether after all the kafuffle about whether or not he’d be doing rings he’s pleased now that Pee put his foot down a little bit. *End Bias Alert*

It was when Luke Hallgarten came on that I realised how much of the stage was obscured from view because of how tall it was. Even with how far back the front row was I couldn’t see what was going on at floor level. And if you’re setting the mood n’that by having props and stuff on the floor, that’s a problem. (-1) But on the plus side I had a wonderful view of the lighting rig. Luke was good though, and I appreciated the ways he’s altered his routine, and he did have a couple of very jammy saves and fumbles which made me smile, (+1) but I reckon I enjoyed his juggling more at BYJOTY. He didn’t have quite so much energy at Lesticle and despite the stylishness the routine came across as a tad too depressing. (-1)

The Biskup rocked. She’s got a costume and bags more experience of being on stage now, and it really helped. She was even smiley. (+1) I think I may have been the only person in the room who ‘whooped’ at her elbow catches though. They’re the business, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Thanks to Rod for letting me use the line ‘It’s nice to see a ring routine that isn’t depressing.’ But it’s so true. A bit of upbeat music and a skip in your step can do wonders for a routine. Bonus points for not getting eaten by any curtains. (+1)

Tom did the best version of his tennis routine I’ve yet seen. He managed to pull off ‘hilariously funny’ with ‘technical mad skillz’ and did it all with perfect presence and style and a really quite affable manner. Marvellous and superb and again, again, again! (+1)

Rachel did her thing very well. The phrase ’80s soft rock seductress’ sprang to mind at the time. I particularly liked the dynamic striking of poses, the effortless shimmying, and the ability to move like that in the knowledge that your parents are watching. (+1) I’ve become of the opinion that not even Sylvia moves quite as freely and smoothly as Rachel does. She’s really quite good.

I helped read out the raffle tickets. I wanted to do it a lot quicker but Jay kept talking and people weren’t paying attention. You’re all swine. (-1)

The-Compere-Jay’s cigar boxes bit made me laugh (+1) but frankly went on too long. (-1) Whether it was a ploy to drag out what looked on paper to be a slightly short show (*Bias Alert* thanks, headline performer who pulled out at the last minute *End Bias Alert*), I don’t know, but I was losing interest. It’s fair to say that The-Compere-Jay was battling under enormous pressure to not let crap heckles get to him throughout all his spots. He did quite well by all accounts. I don’t really know what the remedy is for crap hecklers who won’t respond to public requests to shut up. Maybe Pee should have bodily removed them.

Apex Acro did they’re ‘Shhh’ thing and were very good, although they could have made life easier for themselves by hanging onto the lighting rig. But some people won’t be told. I also finally realised that their costumes make them look like a couple of the Von Trapp children. (+1) My overriding opinion when they’d done was that they’re actually better than I generally give them credit for.

Jay’s poorly delivered in-jokes went down like a lead balloon. And rightly so. On stage really isn’t the time or place for them, particularly when there’s only a handful of people in the audience who will understand. I cringed mightily and wasn’t impressed. For a start, they’re rarely funny even for the people who understand them and they make everyone else feel alienated. *Bias Alert* Particularly when I’d been saying to various organisey people for a month or so that it wouldn’t work, don’t do it, it wouldn’t work, don’t do it…But what do I know? No one need listen to me. I have no valid opinions. Mumble grumble… *End Bias Alert* (-1)

John Booth was incredimazing. Dropless, professional, slick, and covered with cheesy grins and oozing cockiness. (+1) I was utterly, utterly impressed. It was excellent stuff and there was nothing wrong with it at all. And if anyone thinks differently I’ll cut them. (+1)

I’ve been waiting six months to see Belgium Martin’s routine, and trying to avoid all mention of it so that I didn’t spoil it for myself. And coming to it fresh and expectant I was dead impressed. I made a note of my (semi) inner monologue. It went something like ‘w00t! … coooool … *giggle* … no way! … heeeee … *giggle* … ohhhh … ahh … nooo! … *giggle*… wheeee!’ (+1) Yes, there was a drop and a fumble in there. No, it didn’t spoil it in the least. I’m only sorry that he wasn’t the final act. He certainly deserved to be. (+1)

Matt Pang was a disappointment. I hear that he ran his routine clean in rehearsal. Good for him. He didn’t during the show. He dropped. Repeatedly. (-1) And I have to say his first cigar trick was cool (+1) but after a minute of looking at it sticking out of his gob it started looking silly. (-1) And then a bit gay. My major problem though was the abrupt ending. The routine felt really short and there was no build up to the final trick. Just as I was getting into it and was ready to see some juggling he walked off stage. And everyone said ‘Oh.’ (-1) *Bias Alert* I can understand why Pee made the decision he did between Martin and Matt *End Bias Alert* but it was the wrong one, and it really made a difference to how the show went down, with me at least. (-1)

The-Compere-Jay’s mega sell-spiel at the end didn’t help matters either. After quite a dissapointing final act, the last thing you want to sit through is some bloke telling you why you should have enjoyed your day and how wrong you are if you hadn’t. What’s wrong with just a simple ‘Thanks for coming. We appreciate it.’? Didn’t like. (-1)

For a first attempt at putting a show together though, it didn’t go too badly at all. All bar one or two of the acts were proper top notch on the night and did really well for themselves. The perfectly presentable score is certainly more indicative of how impressive they were (and of how jammy Pee was in managing to book them all) than of how much I wanted it to do well and made allowances n’that.

Lesticle show scores: -1

We’ve been and gone and done it and Lesticle is over. It was all rather good fun but alarmingly tiring what with the full 14 hours of standing n’that. Our only real problem was having all those acres of room and not enough people to fill it. But having said that, we didn’t do too badly. It certainly wasn’t as poorly attended as other first-time conventions I’ve been to. Cough-Salford-cough! The absence of the Bristol contingent was duly noted, however. Lazy swine.

Peaks of the day included marvelling at the first punters turning up a good hour before doors opened, watching The Family Peat take control of the front desk with their unparalleled style and efficiency of manner, gym-ball basketball, Mamphy’s ability to deliver chips, Tom mouthing Lizzy’s lesticle and Olive being a little pro-active star.

But I had a couple of troughs too. DJ ‘Bangin’ Darren and Rebecca failing to arrive until 3.30pm in favour of pissing around on Facebook all day caused not a little bad feeling. Busy-beeing in the food kiosk I managed to scald myself at least five times, clumsy oaf that I am. I also managed a quite spectacular mini-breakdown at around teatime. It had something to do with chips and losing my phone and involved a bit of storming around and feeling hard done by. But it passed once I’d been fed. Sorry ’bout that.

Alby and I did our first workshop together. It went reasonably successfully, although in hindsight I think our scope was rather too large. Given the vastly different skill levels of those who attended we weren’t quite sure how to proceed. We started off with some 3 count with six clubs as a bit of a lefty-righty warm up but then had to move on to 7 clubs and leave a couple of pairs languishing behind. But we got some thankyous at the end of it and later on in the day I saw at least a couple of pairs working on some of the stuff we’d shown them. It’s certainly something I’d like to do again, at any rate.

Clean up at the end of the day was fun and involved lots of nice people sticking around to lend a hand and tell us how wonderful we all were. We had a group ‘Go Lesticle!’ moment which Barnesy opted out of in favour of retaining his dignity. But then he went and sent himself flying arse over tit across the room whilst trying to ride on a collapsable trolley. How we larfed. We also found out that although having a kiosk meant that we had to work our arses off all day in it, we got to take the leftovers home. Nyom. I love that conventiony people don’t like meaty crisps.

And now we’re all tired and sleepy and feeling rather good about ourselves. Hopefully next year there’s be enough people turn up so that the building doesn’t look deserted.