How Do You Know If You Suck?

You don't. (I mean you don't know, I don't mean you don't suck. It's possible that you do suck.)

I was having a beer this evening with a friend of mine whom I trained to perform improvisational comedy. He and a bunch of his colleagues performed a kick-ass show at Jongleurs in Battersea a couple of months ago. Tonight, he said, "Well, we all know the second half sucked, and the guys were speculating - how come you made us perform that particular format? How come you made us do a sucky show when there's so much other stuff you could have got us doing instead?"

I was astonished. The second half didn't suck. The throat-mikes gave too much feedback so we had to turn them down, but the performance was superb. It was their first show, although you wouldn't know it. And the performers think they sucked.

I asked him if he had any feedback from the audience - you know, of the "you sucked" variety - and he said, "Oh, no, they all loved it, I still get people coming up to me and congratulating me, they think we're all geniuses and heroes and they can't figure out how we pulled it off."

The agonising truth is that you simply don't know if you suck or not, if your ideas suck or not. You just don't know. So the next time you have an idea about something and want to express it, don't censor yourself. Get the idea out there, and let your audience tell you if it sucks. If it does, change it! What's the problem? And if it doesn't suck, what's the problem?