Sunday 29 December 2013

Like A Bat Out Of Hell: The First Performance

I believe I may have dropped hints in previous blogs that I would like to have a crack at stand-up comedy; I have the material ready, I have been told I would be good at it, all I would need to do is make a booking with a local comedy club, wait a while, then drop it like its hot.
But no, this is me, and getting out there in the world is not my forte.
But my absolute love of public performance did recently prevail. When the opportunity to take part in our annual Staff Variety Show ("The T Factor") displayed itself, I could not help but sign up to sing.
Eventually, contestant photographs were taken and then up went the publicity posters; flyers of my bearded grin plastered all over the College, with a dramatic MR. JONES emblazoned beneath. With this, students I had never met before approached me wishing me good luck, colleagues passed positive comments galore about the effigy adorning the school walls; this was almost like fame, and the ego was starting to twitch at the thought.
When the date on the posters needed to be changed, they were taken down and replaced, when I realized in this second wave of posters, that my image was this time not as commonplace, I sent a jokey email to the staff member organizing the show. In this email I essentially asked for "more Me posters". As soon as I pressed send, I was horrified to admit to myself that this jokey email was only half joking!
Soon enough, the time came when all the exposure of my name and face needed to be earned. It was time to sing. My song of choice was Bat Out Of Hell by Meatloaf, first of all as it is a very fun song to sing, and secondly, (and most importantly) it is a tune made for a fat man to belt out. Well, fat man? Present! Enjoy the show folks.

The performance itself, was an absolute ball; from the audiences initial frosty welcoming to the rapturous standing ovation closure, the whole experience was a joy. The performance was to a great audience of around 500 people, staff and students, so many of both have since approached me and said how much they loved the performance, and many saying that I should have won! I was extremely pleased with the winner though, and their success meaning that Delilah was the closing tune, generated an all acts sing-a-long that was a perfect conclusion.
So now the world (well, school) knows I can sing, and I can only thank the organisor of this event for giving me this opportunity to get my face around the workplace and for this huge confidence boosting exercise, all for charity too!  For a staff member 98% of the school doesn't know, I would say 4th out of 10 on votes is a great result. And everyone tells me they know me now!
So whether this is the start of something, or just a brilliant one off, I will have to keep you posted. But the response from it all really has been lovely; like in the first Rocky film, he doesn't win, but he did it. And he feels fucking awesome for doing so.

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