We are nearly at the end of the second week of our comedy festival show, Greatness Thrust Upon Them. It is so much fun. So worth all the angst and horror of writing in a tiny office for months on end. Maybe. The cast is brilliant, the show is heaps of fun, and the audiences have been excellent.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the capacity of each audience to have a personality of its own. It's a fact. Each audience feels different, laughs in different places, understands and favours certain elements (plot, character, jokes, serious bits) and as a result each audience sees a slightly different show each night.

Who leads these audiences? Who is the mood-setter? How does group psychology work in a situation like that?

Of course, a lot of it is circular. The actors are slightly different, the pacing is slightly different, the weather is colder, or hotter, or the traffic was bad, or good, or they've just come from work, or they haven't eaten, or they have.

And there are always the pedants. There are the people who notice the newspaper the guy is reading is outdated, there are people who suggest the main character wouldn't say a certain thing because it conflicts with an earlier statement about bananas/life/chess/umbrellas.

The study of audience. Audienceology. I'm into it.