Gig 16: Magical Animals @ Sandbar, Manchester – 10th October 2011

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The last two weeks have seen me perform the following gigs: my first ever gong show, a wrestling double act, straight stand-up and character comedy as Gary Barlow.  To keep the random sequence going, last night I performed at Magical Animals – the spoken word\poetry\comedy night, where I’m categorised as genreless weirdness (perhaps the nicest thing ever said about me).

To be honest, if I’d have had to learn a brand new 10-minute set for the gig, then my brain would have melted. Luckily, being spoken-word, it’s perfectly acceptable to read stuff out and each act only gets 4 minutes, so it’s low pressure. I’d already decided following the last M.A. that this time I’d try reading a couple of my short stories and see what I could make of them.

I didn’t really do any preparation, mainly because I was a bit spent following Saturday’s gig and because I knew I could get away with it (well, I hoped that I could). I only decided for sure which stories I was going to do after I’d got home from work on the evening of the gig (and they were both lifted directly from The World of Sherby57).  I was happy with one of the choices but not entirely sure about the other. Part of me wondered whether this could actually count as a gig at all due to my somewhat lackadaisical approach and my lack of concern about whether or not I would get any laughs.

As it turns out, I totally counted is as a gig and loved the performance.  It felt totally right for me to be doing that type of material. The story that I was least sure about might actually have gone better than the one I was sure about, beforehand. The beauty of this kind of night is being able to try different kinds of things without the pressure of having to get loads of laughs. As it happens, the stories did seem to get enough laughs to justify trying them in a stand up set.  All in all, the gig just reaffirmed my desire to do the kind of material that interests me and makes me laugh, rather than trying to fit in with some standard idea of what stand-up should be.

(Hopefully, that last sentence doesn’t make me sound like a complete wanker).

To top things off, I won the Catholic Ethos (or something) Award. I don’t entirely know what it was for.  Nor did anybody else. The main thing that you should concentrate on is that I won an award, OK?  The night was an electic mix of weirdness and, like a Ken Dodd concert, was a marathon session, lasting from half past eight until quarter to twelve.  It was a great night and I look forward to deciding what nonsense I can spout next month.

Related articles

• Gig 11: Magical Animals @ Sandbar, Manchester – 12th September 2011 (poursomegravyonme.co.uk)