I Told You This Would Happen - On Tour

Hello.

I'm going to put some thoughts about touring I Told You This Would Happen here because this show is really hard, and also really brilliant to perform.

I can't promise there won't be spoilers. So if you haven't seen the show and plan to, read on at your own risk. If you like knowing what's going to happen before they do, maybe join a group or something, because life happens man.

Thursday 28 May

We opened in Hull last night. Part of the story I'm telling happened in Hull. I realised as the Humber Bridge loomed from behind the bend of the M62 that I hadn't been back since. Good, I decided. I'm back on my own terms. Frankie's Tavern, the docks, the station. Still, good. 

The tech didn't finish until 19:40, I was on at 20:00. Less good. (Nobody's fault, brilliant and patient technicians getting to grips with a technically nuanced show). Lounged at the desk, sharpening my pencils, feeling more in the room than I remember feeling during the previews. Back then, I was deafened by my heart gulping in my ears, tonight I'm enjoying the pre-show music.

Clearance, first move, start talking: to the people in the room Kathryn. There are people here to hear you. I don't want to be here, I don't want to do this (I'm talking though, the words are coming out, in the right order). I feel this to a certain extent with every show, it's a hard story to tell, I have to get to a dark place by the end, and at the beginning that feels like a crazy thing to be volunteering myself for. But it's written in such a way that the play just happens to me, and the more I let it, the better it is. There was a catharsis when I wrote it, and there is in the playing too. 

I make eye contact with a couple in the front row, there's an interesting woman on the end, another older couple further stage right, a man I come to silently refer to as 'the reviewer' for reasons unknown to me, and a sporty looking man in the middle, on his own, possibly straight from the gym, what made him book this? I wonder. He's precisely who I want to have this conversation with tonight. Come on then, you're on.

Off to Halifax this morning. Raging thirst. 

Me: There's a retail park behind this roundabout, I'm just going to pop in there, want anything?

Tech: You really do know Hull then.

Me: Yeah.

In Boots: all Boots shops look the same except when you're a time traveller and it's 2007 and that's not the pharmacist you remember. 

Bought some vocal zones, because I'm here for a show. Still good.

Tech: So was it just coincidence then, that the tour started in Hull?

Me: Yeah. 

I slip Dr John into the cd player. Nicked my boyfriend's car cd case before I left. Feels good to be blasting some good blues as we zip up the flyover, past the Humber churning mud. 
Feels good to be playing music I listen to with someone brilliant. Feels good to be doing this on my own terms, and not on my own.

Halifax is lovely.

Friday 29 May

The get-in in Halifax made me want to take up smoking. The anticipation of performing filled my stomach with acid, at twenty to curtain up I'm having that kind of full body flush usually reserved for being sick. 

The show was fun though. Endless technical hitches gave my relationship with the space a live quality that allowed me to play, and we got some nice laughs.

I learnt I don't need feedback. I asked my producers to send out a feedback form with the programme sheet. What was I thinking?! People can have whatever reaction they want to this show, and frankly it's none of my business. 

Toying with the idea of collating any feedback I get and posting it to Douglas McPherson in a glass box with a big TICK painted on the side of it. 

Dear #tigerdouglas, 
Here is some testimony of what subsidised art means to people in rural communities and anywhere else that isn't ONE POSTCODE IN LONDON (who wouldn't see work like this or anything else without subsidy). 
A bientôt,
Beaumont x

PS. Turns out Capitalism isn't an entirely fair system and money has a funny way of making its way back to the same people. Measuring success on ticket revenue is a bit like the star rating system some of you critic types still go in for - pretty fucking arbitrary and entirely based on the bias of the critic or system.

And just one measure of many.

And I'm getting off topic.

Saturday 30 May

Cleaner show on the tech side of things meant it was easier for last night's audience to join the dots, and they were wonderfully with me through the whole thing. Chipping in with 'yeah's and 'oh no's. Looking forward to tonight, and a whole day in sunny Hexham with no get-in.

Tuesday 2 June

There's a thing that happens about two thirds of the way through the show, after we've had a few laughs, and around about the time of the 'fucking' slide, when people stop looking at me. Maybe it's counter transference on my part, but it feels a bit like I've betrayed them with what our relationship is about. I'm really pleased with this as a dynamic. It enacts the subject matter. 

To the woman who cried. I am sorry, but I hope it helped.

Doncaster tomorrow.