Entry for July 9, 2007

Another Sketchy! rehearsal as we prepare to take the show to the Fringe. It's a kind of odd process with this show - nothing is ever really finished. Because it's a sketch show, we can drop sketches we don't think work and try out new ones, and there always seems to be ways of finding new laughs in the old sketches.
I think it's a long time that I've learned quite so much in directing a show. Sketches seem to be kind of distilled theatrical moments. They are each little mini-dramas that need all the usual stagey ingredients - character, plot, theatricality, language and so on. But everything needs to be delivered in thirty seconds, and then BLACKOUT BANG and on to the next one.
They are, without doubt, the hardest thing on a stage to get right that I've ever been involved in. And, never having done a sketch show before I'm learning on the hoof. My big mistake on the first run of the show was not concentrating enough on the end of the sketches. I think you neeed to end the pieces clearly, and make it obvious to the audience that it's the end. That, and there can't be any slack in a sketch - everything needs to serve a purpose, and the only purpose is TO GET A LAUGH.
I feel a bit like a buthcher at the moment, trimming the fat off the sketches. Hopefully by the time Edinburgh arrives we'll have a nice lean piece of fillet.