Flyering in Earl's Court

Flyering in Earl's Court
Posted by roezone at 10:23 am, September 9th 2010.
I was under the impression that everyone in England was doing impro at the moment, and that everyone had a show to sell. I was even under the impression that most of the UK were in an improvised musical.

After spending the morning flyering for Music Box at Earl's Court station I've decided that this is not the case. It's actually a very unusual thing to do impro, in fact it's a bit weird. Most people don't do it or know about it, contary to popular belief. In fact going to a comedy club is still pretty unusual and a one off event. These are the people I want to get along to shows (along with everyone else).

I also discovered that nobody really wants a flyer with 'Pretend your happy' written on it at 7am outside Earl's Court underground. Can't say I blame them. Although by 8:15am the people of Earl's Court are a cheery bunch, and by 8:45am they can't get enough of them and Music Box flyers were being handed out like hot cakes. By 9:30am it was all over and the people left were either running really late for work or didn't have a job. So I left. I'm going back tomorrow morning and Friday evening too, I'm actually getting to enjoy it.

So overall I realised that performers and 'people that do drama/impro/comedy' are not the mainstream at all and are still a very small minority. It just feels like there are a lot of us because we move in the same circles. But from the outside world we probably look a bit odd, which might actually be helpful anyway. It's funny how little communities like this become self-growing living organisms. It's evident in the difference between asking 'I want to do a one man show where I climb out of a suitcase in the middle of Waterloo and play the gazoo to a techno dance track' to your work colleagues and a bunch of performers. To the first group this is a very stupid thing to do and they might not talk to you again, to the second group this is probably a good idea or at least you'll be told to 'do it and see how it goes', and so these ridiculous things continue to grow, and thank god for ridiculous things because we need more of them.