My first time back on stage doing standup comedy properly in front of an audience was at the Soho theatre in August. I say “properly” because, although I have worked socially distanced rooms that have been utterly lovely, clusters of masked individuals looking like handmaids do not make what we in the industry call “an audience”. People sitting apart don’t respond like people sitting together. You don’t laugh at your favourite sitcom alone on the sofa the way you do at a below-average comic in a comedy club.
The gig was at noon, and I stood backstage thinking it would probably be a bit flat. I’m not funny before lunch. The audience wouldn’t have had a drink – I hoped. But as I stepped out on to the stage and started riffing with them, something glorious happened. They laughed as one. It was like surfing and making love all at once. A remarkable, glorious balancing act. I had forgotten this was possible. It was as if a part of me I thought had died had come back to life. It was then I realised – I had stopped believing in my own talent, but it was just hiding itself away on Zoom.
More recently, I took my goddaughter to a series of low-brow, mid-brow and high-brow West End shows and every cast milked the curtain call as if they were being resurrected live on stage. There wasn’t a fixed grin of “eight shows a week” to be seen. The stage managers were literally bringing the curtain down on excessive breakdancing. The audiences were wild. There’s no business like show business, and pre-pandemic we had forgotten that. We remember now.
It seems to me that critics are also enjoying criticising again. I guess everyone has missed their jobs – but I do hope they find a way to tell their readers there’s joy to be had in any theatre right now. The curtain is rising. We’re grateful to be home.