Progress report: an article about 'WIP' gigs

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Friday 19th June 2015

Si Hawkins explains why he often enjoys work-in-progress stand-up gigs more than the resultant polished tour show...

A few months ago my local venue, the Hertford Theatre, started hosting work-in-progress gigs by some pretty sizeable artists: Kevin Bridges, Jo Brand, and most prominently, Michael McIntyre. A few of my 'fam' are big MicIntyre fans so I logged on and purchased four tickets at the cheap-for-Michael price of about £25 each. It was only when I picked them up that I found out they'd apparently been going online for something like £200. For a warm-up gig. Woah.

Which does raise the question - do people ever really notice the 'WIP' business, or actually care that a show isn't entirely finished, apart from the cheaper price tag? Even the media aren't always entirely clued up. I recall one poor local paper last year reporting that Jack Dee's new tour was called Work In Progress.

I've been thinking about warm-up shows recently, it being Edinburgh preview season, and have come to the conclusion that I often prefer them to the finished article. Obviously that's partly due to being in this line of work, wanting to catch something raw and new before everyone else, but there's something nice about seeing the working, as it were. I'd much rather watch a fresh preview show, faults and all, than an old tour show, so polished that all the edge has worn away. It's the same with club shows: give me a load of acts trying hit-and-miss stuff at a new material night than someone ploughing through their tried and trusted zingers once again.

Take a look on Ticketmaster and you'll notice that McIntyre is doing a further run of warm-up gigs, in Oxford this week then Bristol and Edinburgh in mid-July (if you're thinking of buying via Ticketmaster it's worth checking a site like VoucherBin first, incidentally, they've got some hefty discounts on comedy and theatre tickets) and I'd be interested to see how different that show is from the finished article.

That Hertford set seemed pretty solid, the main difference from a proper show apparently being that he doesn't bother putting his contact lenses in. He may have thrown in a few older gags too, come to think of it, but often the only other way to tell that someone's doing a 'WIP' is that they tell you beforehand... and throughout, if it isn't working. I'm not sure how comics ever decide that a show's finally ready. Deadlines, presumably. I've certainly seen a good few Edinburgh shows that definitely weren't.

Obviously there are degrees of progress. I heard an interesting podcast chat with Mark Watson this week, in which he mentioned 'real' work in progress shows, which should apparently involve just a word or concept which you then try to find the funny in, in front of about 50 people.

That podcast took place the day after he'd done a WIP show that was a bit bigger than intended: a 250-seater. He'd stormed it, by the sound of it, but wasn't sure if that was due to the material, him raising his game, or general goodwill. If you charge less and keep people's expectations low, they're pretty easy to please. Which is nice, but not always helpful when you're trying to work out what works.
Then again, WIPs can be absolute torture, if none of it's working. One of my favourite comics had a regular warm-up run in the west end for a while, so I took along a chap who was new to the country and wanted to see some comedy. My big build-up didn't help. It doesn't matter who the comic is, even someone you thought could read out the phone book and be funny: failed routines can really knacker your confidence.

I think it was Sarah Millican who wisely suggested that even the most popular comics only get a few minutes of goodwill at the start of a gig, a brief honeymoon period before they're expected to hit the gold, hence McIntyre doing all these warm-up shows. He's no fool.

Of course, you could argue that all long-form comedy shows should really have a 'work in progress' tag: or the good ones, at least. I remember interviewing Dara O Briain years ago and us comparing his show to Chinese whispers - it starts off over here, but by the time the tour's finished every routine has mutated out of all recognition. It's all progress.