Gig 42: Fed to the Lions @ The Laugh Inn, Chester – 20th March 2012

Last night’s gig was Fed to the Lions at the Laugh Inn in Chester.  It was exciting to try out a new venue – and it’s a great environment for comedy – but I was also somewhat trepidatious at the thought of doing another gong show.  My last attempt at one – Gig 38 (Beat The Frog in Preston) – left me with mixed feelings; I was gonged off, but it felt like it went really well.  This confusion is symptomatic of my thoughts on gong shows at the moment.  I still don’t know how I feel about them.  The biggest problem is that I spend more time worrying about how not to get gonged off than I do about trying to be funny.  On the surface, this would suggest that gong shows are counterproductive to my development, but if I can work out how to deal with that then it can only stand me in good stead.

I decided to go with the same set that I used at Gig 38, but with the “this really shifty looking bloke came up to me” bit stuck back in (I’d dropped it for BTF because I’d done it there a couple of times before).   I didn’t really need too much preparation as I’m pretty much on top of the material now.  I did do a few run-throughs to get the order locked in, but I didn’t want too much to try and keep it all fresh.

The night has only been running for 3 weeks, so the audience wasn’t massive, but there was a decent mix of people and no any hopelessly pissed up contingent.  I was on 6th of 8 acts and I managed to last the full 5 minutes.   I felt it went pretty well, but, in fairness, the audience were pretty lenient (6 out of the 8 lasted the distance).   I didn’t manage to win the clap off, but there was one table who were clapping particularly enthusiatically for me.  This pocket of appreciation seems to be the norm for me, but in many ways it’s better to be loved by a minority than tolerated by a majority.

Hopefully they’ll be able to build the audience up as it has the makings of a cracking night.