Learning from mistakes - by Fran Hill

I recently saw Ed Sheeran, the singer, being interviewed. He said he'd learned far more from disastrous failures of gigs in his early career than from playing at Wembley Arena to thousands or receiving glittering awards. 

Have a watch, if you can tolerate the swearing and, worse, the fact that he says 'weird' three million times and could do with a thesaurus.   

But he talks about the illusion of fame and celebrity with real sincerity. Much of it will resonate with writers and other people who make themselves vulnerable by putting themselves 'out there'. 

Here is the interview. It's 45 minutes long. Put the kettle on.  

He reminded me. 

Eight years ago, an audience member at a local arts event saw me on stage and approached me after the show. Would I be guest speaker at a regular literary event she ran?  

'You were funny tonight,' she said. 'Will you come and talk about your writing? I'm sure my audience will love you.' 

Uh oh.

I arrived at the venue planning to use extracts from two of my own pieces, a monologue and a poem, intending to demonstrate how I had made them funny. 

First, I read out the monologue and the poem. 

There were several politeness-titters from the audience of 20 or so women, but otherwise, as I read, I realised that an elephant had walked in and plumped itself bang in the middle of the room. 

When I'd finished, a silence didn't just fall. It dropped on the room like a ceiling come loose. 

I had two choices: pretend I hadn't noticed, and battle on, or acknowledge the elephant. 

'This is awkward,' I said. 'I've been booked to talk to you about how I make my writing funny, but I've heard more laughter in a funeral parlour.'

They did laugh at that. 

One brave lady, to whom I will be forever grateful, put up her hand. 'The thing is,' she said. 'I think you were reading, not performing. You weren't seeing us as an audience that needed entertaining.'

Someone added, 'Your scripts are funny. Your delivery wasn't.'

Another said, 'You've been honest, though, in acknowledging what's just happened. That's a plus.'

It didn't feel like one, at that point.

Somehow, we rescued the evening. I passed round my scripts, we explored the comedic devices I'd used, and they had fun trying them out in various exercises. I waved goodbye to the elephant as it lumbered out of the room.

Afterwards, over coffee and chocolate biscuits, they filled in their feedback forms  and I watched them, my heart going BOOM BOOM BOOM. 

I needn't have feared. They'd enjoyed themselves.  

And, strangely, so had I. I'd learned some huge lessons. Reading and performance are different. Audiences are usually on your side, wanting you to succeed. 

And if you acknowledge the elephant in the room, you can get rid of it before it stays to eat all the chocolate biscuits.  

Fran Hill is a writer and English teacher from Warwickshire. Her latest book 'Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean?' is a funny but poignant teacher memoir written in diary form. It was published in May 2020 by SPCK Publishing. You can find out more about Fran's books and her work in general by visiting her website here