Blog: Doctor Doom in Watford

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On Saturday afternoon I set off for the Not Very Frozen NORTH, or at least North of That London, to friendly WATFORD for the second date in the Data and Doctor Doom tour.

I was feeling a bit nervouse about it all so had left myself a LOT of time, and thus arrived at the venue a good 90 minutes before I was due on stage. That meant I got to sit in the bar of the lovely Pump House Arts Centre with a calming BEER and listen to the other performances going on around. Behind me, in the room I'd be playing, was a stand-up comedian, while in the larger theatre space an enormous extravaganza of about 800 people sang songs from the shows. It was warm, it was dark (the box office/bar had all the lights off so they could keep doors open without distracting people on the stage) and it felt VERY VERY much like being back at the Fringe. The only thing missing was a man with a BEARD sitting next to me looking up BEER on his phone!

Part of my NERVES was because I was going to have half an hour between the previous show and ME to get everything set up, including the SCREEN and Projector, and in the heat it was QUITE a job to get it all done. Eventually though I had everything rigged with 10 minutes to spare, THUS:



It wasn't quite the glamorous GIGANTOSCREEN of the day before but hopefully it would do the job!

With a little bit of time to spare I ventured back out to the box office to discover that my ticket sales had rocketed from TWO the day before to a mighty SEVEN, which was a big relief! As with the previous performance I got a chance to speak to most of the people who'd come in, including four Cresswells, a v nice chap who was doing his own show later ready to go to Edinburgh for the first time (I gave him the standard wisdom i.e. "take loads of money") and two ladies, one of whom had a UAL bag upon which I REMARKED!

The show itself was SHALL WE SAY not without its deviations from the script, but now I'm actually DOING the show in front of people I'm realising that that's no bad thing at all. I HAD been trying to learn the script properly but I've found that doesn't really fit with the way I do things, so it's very quickly become a BASE from which the rest of it FLOWS, allowing me to make REMARKS as we go along, which is a lot more fun for me and, hopefully, everyone else too!



It all seemed to go pretty well anyway, and after thanking everyone PROFUSELY I then had to rush into the TAKEDOWN of the set to give the next act time to get on. Happily, The Wheels On My Van had advised me to take one of our old SUITCASES to put everything in, rather than trying to cram it all into a backpack like I had before, and this turned out to be a GRATE idea as it meant I could basically SHOVE stuff in there and then sort it out when I got home.

That done there was time for a quick chat with the aforesaid delightful Cresswells before I was off home again. That's TWO of the SIX Summer Tour gigs done already - I'll have to get some more booked or it'll all be over too quickly!

posted 15/7/2025 by MJ Hibbett

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