I’ve started creating my next solo show which will be a return, both literally and thematically, to my comedy roots. My working title for the show is Stand-up in a skirt (SUIS), although that may well change before I actually perform the show.
SUIS is the story of the development of my comedy before and since my realization I needed to transition.
The show will be a retrospective of my pre-Julia comedy material with linking updates explaining where it came from and in some cases apologising for it finishing with 3 ½ sets of Julia’s material. This gives me a chance to recycle material, some of which was quite good, showing how the changes in my life affected my comedy presentation.
Although there is an overlap in time, SUIS is a sequel to my first show 50 Years before the frock, which was the true story of my struggle to avoid transitioning and ended the night I walked on stage as myself, Julia, There is very little overlap of material, basically just the first few words of the “Handbag not matching the shoes” gag and mentioning the transition.
Overview
Obviously this is an early stage of the development of the show but my current plan is to structure it like this.
At the start of the show I will be dressed in a shirt and trousers (Women’s wear but ambiguous)
SUIS will begin with why I wanted to do comedy. Followed by my pre-stand-up humourous writing then my deciding to go and do it once at the Classic Comedy Club in 2007, I then perform that set (Luckily the complete script has survived) unfortunately it’s character comedy & that character is DEATH (The Grim Reaper) and describe leaving the Classic happy to have fulfilled that ambition. One possible problem is I make a joke about Amy Winehouse preferring rehab to DEATH (This was 4 years before she died when her Rehab song was current). Not sure if I should remove this or pre-explain it.
Then a 6 year gap before I decided I want to do something else & going back in 2013 with the Hand Sanitizer joke (The original script is lost but I have a revised script, exact age unknown & also have a video of that first show and again when I reprised it as a one-off 2½ years later which was the last time I performed presenting as a male.)
Next I will do 2015. Starting with a stripped down version of my first 2015 script on quitting smoking. It bombed, but I think I can rescue 3 or 4 minutes from it with a little rewording. February – July 2015 was a mess, material of highly uneven quality written at lunchtime to perform that night but I was gigging regularly so there’s quite a bit of material I can extract.
July 2015 I came to understand it was time to transition NOW so at the end of the month I announced I was taking the next month off from comedy and coming back with completely new material and a new stage persona. I had a commitment for a performance in the middle so I reprised Hand Sanitizer, but my heart wasn’t in it.
The Vernal Equinox 2015 I walked on stage as Julia, immediately before doing the first Julia set I will remove the shirt & tear off the trousers (velcro tear-away as in The Full Monty) to reveal a feminine top and skirt. I will apply lipstick. I have a video of this performance but not the script, I will transcribe and perform the set as recorded except for one joke a much better version of which is in my current set. My current set is a direct lineal descendant of that set, but only 1½ jokes have survived.
I will talk about feeling constrained to always perform transgender jokes and getting over that then do the better ones of my computer geek jokes.
Finally I do my current 6 minute set.