Gig 73: Fresh Faces at the Free Fringe @ The Southsider, Edinburgh – 15th August 2012

August 28, 2012 1 Comment

You may be thinking, taking into account how long it’s taken me to write this, that I’ve lost all enthusiasm for writing up what I got up to in Edinburgh.  And you’d be right.  I’ve lost all enthusiasm for it.   It doesn’t really help that the Fringe has now finished, but I’m going to grimly plough on.  Enjoy.

Since this gig was nearly 2 weeks ago and I didn’t make any detailed notes, I’m not entirely sure what happened.  The most notable aspect to the day was having a dinner that consisted of two massive bits of chocolate cake and loads of coffee.  This might have had an effect on my performance but, fortunately, the inevitable crash came around 2 minutes after completing the gig.

The venue was the classic ‘back room in a pub’, but it was closed off and just the right size for the gig.  By the time we started, the room was pretty full – so much so that the acts had to wait outside.  Having a decent sized audience was a bonus, but this was soon negated when I was asked to go on first.  Those of you who read my blog regularly will know that I haven’t had a lot of success in opening recently, but will also know that I just get on with it when asked.  So I just got on with it.

Thankfully, it went really well.  I know that’s a bit of a boring story, but it’s true.  My set was:

1. “This really shifty bloke came up to me…” – quickly followed by…
2. “These are definitely jokes…”
3. Telephone books.
4. “You don’t like…”
5. Arnie from Wigan.

The main thing to note is that I made sure I stuck to my 5 minutes, even though I would have loved to/probably have gotten away with doing longer.  I think it’s good karma to stick to your allotted time.

That’s it.  I don’t have anything else to say.  The gig went well. Go me.

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Gig 63: Comedy Night @ The Beech Inn, Chorlton – 12th June 2012

June 13, 2012 1 Comment

Some of you may remember that a few weeks ago, one of my gigs got cancelled due to lack of audience (NOT Gig 59), and subsequently all comedy gigs were abandoned at that venue.  Well, local impressario, Sir David Turquoise, is not a man to be deterred by such setbacks and last night’s gig was the first in the night’s new home at The Beech Inn in Chorlton.

The original gig was going to be my first performing a 15-minute spot, so it was great to be asked to do the replacement gig to give me chance to finally break that particular duck.  Luckily, this already meant that I had a set list that I could use, all with existing material, so it would take relatively little practice to get prepared which was useful when I had done two gigs of completely new material in the previous few days (Gig 61 and Gig 62).  Somewhat surprisingly, this was going to be my first straight stand up gig for just over a month (Gig 55), but I’ve been performing pretty regularly, so I didn’t feel too worried about being rusty.  For a free night, the line up was amazingly strong: Rob Hallam, Eddie Hoo and Seymour Mace headlining.  I guess I could have found this a bit intimidating, but I was more focused on seeing if I could pull off a 15-minute spot.  My set list was:

“This really shifty bloke came up to me…” followed by joke book variant: “these are definitely jokes” – This is a combination I first tried at Gig 53, where it felt like it really worked.   The joke book bit really benefits from this particular conceit as it allows me to do really strong asides, which get better laughs than the actual jokes.  I went with 8 jokes – I usually do 5 – basically in an attempt to use up a bit more time (I wasn’t sure I would have 15 minutes when I first put the set together).  I should probably have stuck with 5 jokes.

Stretched Cat – It felt a bit weird not doing this as my opener, but I was able to tie it into the first two bits in a way that I liked.

Arnie

“Can’t fight the Moonlight”

Personal Bit + Personal Bit 2 – As I mentioned in my NOT Gig 59, I’d tweaked this section quite a bit as it’s been an inconsistent performer.  Unfortunately, there was a particularly chatty audience member on the front row and she spoiled one of the early (and usually most successful) punchlines.   I struggled a bit to think how to continue, and I eventually said outright that she’d ruined the joke, and then kind of moved over it.  She continued to pipe up throughout this section and it put my timing off.  I’ve not really had to deal with anyone being so disruptive before, and I tried to handle it by not having a go at her, as it’s not my style and really wouldn’t help me in getting back onto my material.  I think I perhaps just about got away with dealing with it, but it certainly affected the rest of my performance.  It also meant that I still don’t have a handle on this bit of material and still think it needs re-writing.

Telephone Books – I checked my watch after this bit (yes, I’d remembered to start it…but only after I had already got on stage), and had already done 12-13 minutes.  I decided to go with…

Jacob’s Cob – I like reading these sort of stories out, to give a different feel to the set, but it didn’t really work tonight.  With hindsight, the performance of them really has to be spot on to get the laughs, and I think the earlier encounter had thrown me off just enough that I didn’t emphasise in the right places, and didn’t do enough asides.  By the time I had finished it, I was 15 minutes in, meaning that I had to skip some bits.

Fergie Swap + “So she lost her job…” + Political Poem + Peter Andre – All skipped for time.

One Day in Liverpool – Even though I was over my time, I didn’t want to end on the slight damp squib of the story, so went with the short play.  It seemed to work, except that the girl on the front row again messed up my punchline at the very end, leaving me with a slightly odd feeling at the conclusion.

In the end, I did 18 minutes, and it generally went OK.  I got some good feedback afterwards, so at least I wasn’t completely out of my depth.  It felt like a big deal to finally do a longer set, and hopefully I’ll get chance to do it again soon.

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Gig 55: Comedy Cellar @ Verve Bar, Leeds – 8th May 2012

May 9, 2012 2 Comments

Front-side shot of an first generation Proton ...

The “amazing” Proton Savvy (not mine)

Pre-gig (12:30 on the day of the gig):

Usually when I write a ‘pre-gig’ section it’s because I’m not sure how I feel about the upcoming show or I’m not sure how it’s going to go.  Today’s ‘pre-gig’ tranche is concerning something all together more practical.

The engine warning light on my car has been intermittently going on and off over the last week or so, eventually getting to a point where it was more on than off.  I phoned the garage on Friday, and, because of the bank holiday, they could only fit me in today.  Only I couldn’t take it in today, as I’m attending a seminar in Manchester (it’s hosted by Microsoft, before anybody asks if it’s about anything interesting).  Since I’m performing in Leeds later, it didn’t really make sense to go home after the seminar, so there’s no way I could take my car in.  Yesterday, the engine warning light decided to be more off than on, so I thought I’d get away with it.

This morning, I set off bright and early (for me) on course for Deansgate Hilton (ooooh, fancy) when I noticed that my car wasn’t really doing anything when I put my foot on the accelerator.  I drive a Proton Savvy (yes, it’s real – google it) and its not exactly got a lot of grunt, but this was worryingly poor.  I could barely make it around a roundabout in my attempt to get back home.

I made it back to mine and started to panic.  I supposed I could walk to the train station and get to Manchester late, but then that would mean me missing out on the gig. (Technically I could get the train to Leeds, but it would mean getting home at 6am the next day, or something equally ridiculous).  Given what was happening, the sensible option would be to cancel the gig and sort my car out, and I’m a sensible kind of guy.

Here’s the relevant part: I decided to give my car another go.  It seemed to be driving normally.  I found myself driving on the expressway on the way to the M62.  I guess I really wanted to make it to the gig.

Only time (and subsequent blog post) will tell how stupid of a decision this turned out to be.  I just hope that my ‘post-gig’ write up concentrates on intentional on stage comedy, rather than unintentional breakdown recovery service-based comedy.

Post-gig:

So, my car managed to get me to Leeds and back, but that didn’t stop it being a slightly strange day.

Firstly, I was feeling monumentally tired, which in hindsight, was probably me feeling a bit under the weather rather than just being tired. Also, I was sat in a Microsoft seminar all day that was so mind-numbingly dull that even the concept of comedy seemed like a distant dream.

After the seminar I met up with my friend Vic, made an impromptu appearance on the radio and went for a ridiculously rushed tea at Frankie and Benny’s. This resulted in me leaving Manchester around 15 minutes later than I intended to.  My sat nav said that I was due to arrive in Leeds at 20:10 and I was supposed to be at the venue at 20:00. I spent the drive to Yorkshire feeling unduly stressed at the thought of being a bit late.  I think the fact that I wasn’t feeling great exacerbated how much this was bothering me, and it resulted in me not really being in the mood to have a last minute practice whilst driving.

I knew that all things being well, I would be at the venue for quarter past 8 and that would be fine. Only things didn’t go well. I took the wrong turning at one point (and anyone who has driven around Leeds city centre will know how easy that is to do – even with a sat nav).  Now, the Google Navigation app on my phone used to be great, but since the latest update it steadfastly refuses to re-route if you go wrong.  And even if you go out of the app and start the route from scratch, it still doesn’t work (it doesn’t make any sense).  I knew that this was a possibilty, and had already downloaded another app onto my iPhone – it’s a work phone, I’m not having an affair – Skobbler’s Sat Nav 2.  This is a free app and so seems singularly incapable of recognising dead-ends, one-way systems and pedestrianised zones, thus rendering it utterly useless in Leeds city centre.  After a few frustrated laps, ending up where I started off, I gave the Google option another try.  This failed again and I spent a frantic few minutes driving aimlessly, and seemingly on my way out of the city.  By utter chance, the map was still on the screen and I spotted the destination come into view as a point on the map, and I was able to work out the vague direction I needed to go.  Once I got back on what the phone considered to be the correct route, it started to tell me which way to go.

I parked my car and rushed across the street to the venue, getting there at half past 8 – the time the show was supposed to start.  Luckily, it seemed as though quite a few of the other acts were just turning up, so I wasn’t noticably late.  I was, however, too hot, flustered, a bit deaf (I assumed this was related to the high bit of the motorway) and desperate for my bed.  I asked if it was OK if I went on in the first section – so I could sneak off in the interval – and I was asked if I minded going on first. Being the first act is often the hardest – as the audience isn’t fully warmed up – and I’ve never done it before, so I said yes.  The room was nice and intimate, with a friendly atmosphere, however, most of the other people in attendance were other acts.  This was also the night that I’d decided to try and be a bit looser with my set.  I had the first 5 bits planned, and the last, but in-between I was just going to see how I felt on the night.  In practice, this only meant picking 3 bits at my discretion, but at least it was a move in the direction of being a bit freer with my material.

What I did was:

“Stretched Cat”
The “lawyer-advised” Joke Book variant
“This really shifty bloke came up to me…”
Arnie
”Can’t fight the Moonlight” – I don’t usually do this bit after “Arnie”, but I like the way that I can transition between them (although I haven’t got that transition quite right yet).
Telephone Books – This was the last thing I had definitely planned.
Dennis Hollyoaks – I’m still not sure about whether this is worth sticking with or not. I think I should probablytry a different story and see how it feels. I’m not entirely sure how I got so attached to this one.
Fergie Swap
“So she lost her job…”
One Day in Liverpool

I don’t think it went particularly well, but it can be hard to tell when your audience are mainly other comics.  Picking the extra bits of material went fine, however, it did feel like a really weird performance overall.   I wasn’t nervous and I approached the material as I normally would – taking my time and trying to maximise the awkward moments.  I was in the moment and referenced my “stressful” journey as a way of segueing into some of the bits.  I generally felt like I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t feel quite right.  I felt like I was a fraction off my game and it didn’t quite come together.  This is probably the first time where the thing affecting me wasn’t nerves, so it was a really interesting learning experience.

I left the venue just after 9:30, which meant I’d had pretty much a 3 hour round trip to be there for an hour.  That’s what being a fledgling comic is all about.

 

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Gig 53: Beat The Frog @ Frog & Bucket, Preston – 2nd May 2012

May 2, 2012 3 Comments

Pre-gig:

I thought I’d write down a few thoughts prior to the gig, as how it goes could change my feelings toward it quite dramatically.   The last time I competed at Beat the Frog (Gig 38) was quite a strange experience.  I had been dreading doing it beforehand, I enjoyed it when I was up there, some people loved it, but I still got gonged off.  I didn’t quite know what to make of it in my original diary post, and I still don’t.  At the time, it seemed like quite a positive experience, and I didn’t really mind getting gonged off.  Enough people seemed to really enjoy what I did for it to feel good.  Also, I’m deluded enough to be able to turn my not lasting the five minutes into me being some kind of comedy maverick outsider figure (I know I’m not).

That was nearly 2 months and 15 gigs ago.  In that time, I’ve gone back to a feeling of dread toward the gong format.  Last time I wrote:

It was perhaps the first gig I’ve done where I hadn’t had any enthusiasm for it beforehand.

It’s safe to say the feeling has returned for a second time.

So, anyway, I need to try and stay positive and give it a good go.  I’m sure I’ll be fine once I’m there, and defeinitely will be by the time I hit the stage.  I don’t hold out a huge amount of hope that I’ll ever win BTF – in Preston or Manchester – but I think getting to the point where I could last the 5 minutes more times than not would be a very useful skill to have.  We’ll have to wait and see whether that’s at all possible.

I’m using existing material for tonight, but I’ve tried to move it around a bit – trying a new opening bit, having stuff in a different order to normal – to at least try and keep it a bit fresher for me.  I also my learn something from the re-jig…assuming that I’m up there long enough to get that far!

Post-gig:

It’s safe to say that last night I went through a range of emotions.  After I’d finished my “pre-gig” write up yesterday, I had an e-mail from a friend describing a dispiriting experience he’d recently had at Beat the Frog in Manchester.  It didn’t really help in my lack of enthusiasm.  After work I stopped of at my parents’ and they could imediately sense my apathy.  They suggested that if I wasn’t up for it that I should just not go.  This, clearly, wasn’t an option.  I did my duty and set off for Preston.

Now, the thing to note about BTF is that, regardless of your feelings toward the gong format, it’s a long night.  The acts have to be at the venue for half past seven and the show doesn’t end until eleven o’clock.  Suffice to say that this duration gave me scope for a variety of mental states.  On arrival, I just assumed I’d be getting gonged off, so I just wanted to get it over and done with.  Once the show had started, I went through a phase of complete calm, where it was almost like I wasn’t actually at a comedy gig (this was exacerbated by the acts being in a curtained off area, watching the show on a telly).  I then went through a suprisingly nervous period in the build up to me going on.  In hindsight, this shouldn’t be so surprising.  In a gong show, you’re being directly judged and it’s only natural to want to do well – even if you might have reservations about it all. I’d also never lasted the full five minutes here, so I was just expecting that I wouldn’t again.

This does sound like I had a self-defeating attitude, that would become a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. I think it’s important to note that this only really applies in the build up to a gig.  Once I’m on stage (and I’m sure this is the same for a lot of acts), I feel like I’m in my natural environment and I’m doing the thing that I want to be doing.  There’s no way that I’d be letting my doubts stop me from performing properly.

By the time I was stood ready to go on stage – as I predicted- I was looking forward to getting up there and seeing what I could make out of my slightly re-jigged material.  To cut a long story slightly shorter, I managed to last the full five minutes.  I did have one card held up for about half the time, but I got really into my performance and enjoyed myself.

For the records, my set was:

“This really shifty bloke came up to me…” – I decided to try a different opener, for a change, and went with this.  I dressed it up with the “phew, I just made it” conceit that I used (with a different joke) in Gig 49.

New joke book variant: “these are definitely jokes” – I wanted to go with a joke book section, but the “lawyer-advised” thing didn’t really fit with the different opening joke.  Because I flagged the opener as an obvious, ridiculous tall tale, I pretended that sections of the audience didn’t understand that it was a joke.  I then told them that I was going to read them some jokes – stressing that they were definitely jokes – so they could get up to speed with the rest of the audience.  This allowed me to do a different type of aside than I usually do with these jokes.  These gags are intentionally corny, so they’re all about the asides.

One Day in Liverpool – I was unsure whether I could get away with this at a gong show, but I really wanted to try it.  So I did.

Peter Andre – This is just a nice throwaway line for linking between bits.

“And then I…” – When I was waiting to go on, I started to have major doubts about this because it’s basically a cheap laugh (I say something a bit crude).  I did it anyway, because it was a cheap laugh.  It needs to get re-written if I’m going to keep it.

Arnie – and that was all I had time for.  I must have really taken my time with the stuff I had because I thought I’d need more (which I had planned).

So, I’d lasted the five minutes, but I didn’t win.  Thankfully, there was a worthy winner – which isn’t always the case – in Chris McIlroy.  And I’m not just saying that because he said that he sometimes reads my blog; he had the audience in thh palm of his hand for the five minutes and got, by far, the loudest cheer in the clap-off.  I was really pleased with how I did, and I’ve actually got a really good reaction the last two times I’ve done this gig (despite me getting gonged last time).  Considering that at one point I thought I’d never get anybody at that gig to even laugh at me, let alone last the 5 minutes, then that’s something.  Has it changed how I feel about the format?  I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Now the question is this: was all my huffing and puffing and apathy because I don’t like the gong format because of “artistic integrity” or because I didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t doing very well at them.  There’s a theory that in order to progress as a comic you should be able to “beat the frog” consistently, even if you don’t actually win.  I think there’s a lot of sense in this; even if you’re never going to be the audience’s favourite act, you should probably have the basic skills to make them listen to you for five minutes, regardless of your style of comedy.  I think there’s a probably an element of both propositions being true, but it’s really difficult to work out how much of each it is.  At least I’ve got this particular monkey off my back, and I can feel more comfortable in messing about and trying something new if I do it again.

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Gig 45: Gatehouse Comedy-Club @ The Queens, Tyldesley – 3rd April 2012

April 4, 2012 1 Comment

The build up to this gig was slightly unusual in that I’m off work this week and had spent most of the day in Leeds (following a special assignment on BBC Radio Leeds – more on that later in the week), so only got home around teatime.  When I got home, I found I had an e-mail from the Gatehouse’s organiser, Kenny, saying that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the venue had to be changed at the last minute.  This didn’t seem to bode well.

I felt slightly lethargic after spending the day either walking about or in a car, but I managed to coax myself into a but of last minute prep.  Luckily, I had the material (mostly) down pat, and was really just double checking my timing.  With that out of the way, I had a bowl of soup (too much information?) and made my way over to Tyldesley, not knowing quite what to expect.

Luckily, the new venue – The Queens – seemed well up for having a comedy night, and there was an actual, real-life audience, despite the last minute change of locale.  Hats off to Kenny for managing to pull that off!  The format of the night was to have a paid opener – a break – 3 open spots – a break – finished by a headliner.  I was the first on in the open spot section.  My set for the evening was largely inspired by my recent gong show efforts:

1. “Stretched cat” – quickly followed by…

2. The “lawyer-advised” Joke Book variant (see Gig 38 for details) –  I thought it would be interesting to give this a try in a non-gong environment.   As a bit of a change, I played up my reluctance to do them\my “dislike” for the jokes themselves.  I’m not sure this really played into my hands.

3.  ”Can’t fight the Moonlight” – now a regular bit.

4.  Peter Andre – I’ve stuck with this as it’s quick and people seem to like it.

5.  Arnie –   The Arnie bit seems to have finally lost the  “controversial incomplete joke” bit, although I wouldn’t rule out a comeback at some point.

6. “So she lost her job…”  - has crept in to being a regular bit.

This is the end of my recent gong-show set, and it had gone down OK to this point.  Some bits got really big laughs, other bits less so.  I was pleased with how I stuck with it through the bits that didn’t go down so well, and didn’t get into that panic mode of rushing through the material.  That way disaster lies.

The next bit I had planned – we’ll call it “telephone books” – was a completely new bit, and I didn’t think that the audience would go for it, so I went directly into…

7. Dennis Hollyoaks and the Crystal Onion – I’ve been planning on throwing some short stories back into my sets, as I like the different energy you get from them.  Dennis Hollyoaks was something that I tried at the last Magical Animals (Gig 40) and I thought I’d resurrect it.  It didn’t get any reaction whatsoever.  Frankly, given that I dropped the “telephone books” bit, there’s no way I should have even contemplated doing this story.  Perhaps if I hadn’t dropped the immediately preceding bit I would have had the wherewithal to not to do it.  I certainly hope I would have.  It was quite obvious from the first couple of lines that it had been a mistake, but I was committed then.  I made a conscious decision not to bail out and to take my time with the delivery.  If I had just rushed through it then I think it would have done more damage to the remainder of my set.

8. Personal Bit – Despite it previously being a regular in my sets, this is the first time I’ve done it since it got a rather lukewarm reaction at Gig 35 back in the middle of February.  I have mixed feelings about the whole section.  It’s the only bit of material I have that hangs together as a 3-minute chunk, but the reactions to it seem to vary wildly.  I’m still not sure why this is.  I think some parts of it are probably worded a bit clumsily, and could do with a re-write.   Sometimes I think I should just drop it, but then there have been times when it really flies.   Overall, it didn’t go down amazingly well, with some bits feeling depressingly like I was just talking at the audience.  I think my performance in this bit was looser than I would have liked, but I mainly kept it together.

The saviour of this section was one particular punchline that went down really well.  It was a bit that went down so badly in Gig 30 that it actually made me forget what came next.  It made me forget what came next for a full minute.  Yeah, that’s bad.  Anyway, the punchline totally relies on the performance of the set up, and I think I really nailed it last night, so that was really satisfying.

And that was that.  It was a fun night in difficult circumstances.  What more could you ask for?

Don’t answer that.

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Gig 38: Beat The Frog @ Frog & Bucket, Preston – 7th March 2012

March 12, 2012 8 Comments

The last time I performed at Preston’s Beat The Frog (Gig 31) – just over a month ago –  I had been left clueless (and a little despondent) at how I would approach it next time.  I didn’t feel that I had the skill or the material to win the audience over with my current straight set.  I conceived of four possible options:

1) Do it in character.

2) Don’t prepare any material and just see what happened.

3) Try and write a set of material that I thought they might like.

4) Just try my usual stuff again.

Interestingly, I didn’t have “don’t do it” as an option.  Although I had questioned whether this particular night would be of any use to my development, I still hadn’t decided and thought the best way to find out would be to do it anyway.  Of the options I did consider:

1) I would have quite liked to have tried Den Kodd (Gig 33 & Gig 36), but as there’s not really a back stage area, I wasn’t sure of the logistics of doing my “Den Kodd” hair and inserting his teeth without anybody noticing, and I didn’t want to lose the impact of his initial appearance.

2) Although I would like to try this at some point as an experiment, it felt too much like giving up, under the circumstances.

3) They say that you should just write stuff that you think is personally funny, but I did think of trying a different style as an experiment.  I ran through some ideas of more observational stuff, and which bits of my existing material I might be able to convert.  I soon gave up when I realised that everything just ended up in my usual style anyway.

4) Realistically, it was always going to be option 4, wasn’t it?

Basically, I looked through my material and tried to pick bits that weren’t too obtuse, leaving out bits that were, and making sure I framed it all by explicitly making clear that my act was like this on purpose.  It had only been three weeks since my last straight stand up gig, but it felt like forever, and my material felt quite alien to me.  As I tried to pick a set, I felt as if I had no material, and it was a horrible feeling, but I managed to concoct something that I was willing to try, even if I didn’t hold out much hope for success.

I didn’t feel great in the lead up to the night.  It was perhaps the first gig I’ve done where I hadn’t had any enthusiasm for it beforehand.  To make matters worse, my previous gig (Gig 37) hadn’t gone great and on the day of BTF I was hit with a wave of epic tiredness that made me just want to go home to bed.  I knew I couldn’t do that, though, and got myself up to Preston.

The venue wasn’t as busy as last time – although still with a very healthy crowd in attendance – and I felt like I might have a better reception from those who were there.   This was based purely on gut instinct from scanning a room, so I don’t know how valid an opinion it actually was.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, I did have a better reception.  They didn’t say how long I lasted, but it must have been over 4 minutes.  Going off my timed run throughs, it could have been very close to five minutes.  Close, but no cigar… although that’s not quite the full story.   My set list for the night was:

1. “Stretched cat” – this is becoming a standard opener for me.  It works as a joke, but also indicates the kind of material I’m going to do.

2. The “lawyer-advised” Joke Book variant.  I’ve used the “joke book” in many forms.  Essentially I’ve got a book full of lame jokes and I use the book as a device to get them over.  On this occasion, I decided to address the fact that some people might not ‘get’ the opening joke – although I’m sure the vast majority did – specifically that it was supposed to appear to be going wrong and that I might do something else similar.  By addressing this early on, I was hoping to give the audience confidence that any apparent mistakes were actually part of the act.  I then suggested that my lawyer advised me to read out some pre-preapared jokes as a way of assuaging any fears they had about my competence.  By doing this, I was able to use some easily recognisable jokes, but in a slightly unusual way.

3.  ”Can’t fight the Moonlight” – now a regular bit.

4.  Peter Andre – This was a brand new bit, which was just a throwaway one-liner that I thought of in work.  It’s not spectacular, but I liked that it was very short and completely unrelated to anything else.   Importantly, it got a laugh.

5.  Arnie.  This is the first time I’ve done the Arnie bit without immediately going into the “controversial incomplete joke” bit.  I thought this would be a bridge too far and would almost certainly have gotten me gonged off.

6. “So she lost her job…”  - another bit I’ve done a few times before.  It seemed to go down OK.

7.  One Day in Liverpool.  This is the point that I got gonged off.  I was going to go into my short play, and to do that I had get the microphone back in the stand.  I’ve noticed with BTF that if a card or two are up and there’s anything approaching a pause\hesitation then the remaining cards shoot up, so I knew that this could be a key moment, especially as two cards were already up.  I probably faffed about too much at this point – partly because when I’d done timed run throughs, it had been about 6 minutes to get to that point, so I hadn’t expected to have to do it – and the final card unsurprisingly was held up.

So, I was frogged off and I was, quite literally, a loser.  Yet, it really didn’t feel like that.  There were people who were in fits of laughter, and quite a few people came up to me afterwards to say how much they had loved it.  Overall the reaction had seemed pretty good, despite the inevitable bunch of people who weren’t into it.  It felt like a win.

I don’t entirely know what to make of it all.  I’m still not entirely convinced about doing gong shows, but it at least showed that there is something for me to get out of them.  Who would have thought it?

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Gig 30: Buzzin’ @ De Bees Music Bar, Winsford – 29th January 2012

January 30, 2012 8 Comments

I’ve had a string of really successful gigs recently, so I knew that I was well overdue to die on my arse. And, boy, did I ever die on my arse last night. Obviously, this isn’t the greatest thing to happen, but it should, at least, make for a slightly more interesting blog post.

Preparation for the gig was fairly relaxed as I was largely performing tried and tested material, which I know like the back of my hand (or so I thought). There were a few tweaks to a couple of bits, but overall I was pretty confident with the set list, which was:

1. “I’m sat at a desk..” Previously only performed at Gig 25.
2. My “this really shifty looking bloke came up to me and pointed at my wrist…” bit (previously know as “the joke that unjusticely got me gonged off at Beat The Frog” (Gig 12))
3. The “Can’t Fight The Moonlight” bit.
4. The “Arnie\Controversial-Incomplete Joke” bits that have been in pretty much all my straight stand up sets.  There was a bit of a change to the ending of the “incomplete” part, inspired by last week’s tweaked version for Beat The Frog (Gig 29).
5. New joke “So she lost her job…” Although this was new I’d tried it out on a couple of people and felt confident that it would get some kind of laugh.
6.. My “Personal” bit, plus a bit of “Personal Bit 2″ from Gig 27.  On doing a timed run through, I needed a couple of extra minutes and decided that the first part of “Personal Bit 2″ would fit nicely.  There are a few points in it where there are quite natural breaks, so I could always drop bits depending on how time was running.
7. Short play “One Day in Liverpool.”  This has worked really well in Gig 26 and Gig 28, so I thought I’d give it a whirl in a straight set.  It seemed a nice way to finish.

I got a bit nervous on the afternoon of the gig – I think because it was a gig I’d never done before and there was the element of the unknown. I’d calmed down by the time it came to perform, though, and was really looking forward to it.  There wasn’t a huge audience, but the first three bits went down OK – not great – but I felt it was fine given the audience size.  I then got to the Arnie stuff, which isn’t my cleverest but of material, but generally gets a decent laugh, and it got no reaction whatsoever.  It was certainly disconcerting.  Although it’s amazing your stuff goes down a storm, it’s still perfectly fine when you get muted laughter, but nothing at all is a nightmare.  It makes you realise how much the material relies on some response from the crowd and that without it your rhythm and timing become completely shot.

I ploughed on with the tweaked “incomplete joke”, but I really didn’t get any reaction from this point onwards.  The nadir of the set came early on into the “personal bit”.  As I was starting off, someone on the front row’s phone fell out of his pocket and onto the floor.  I instictively felt like I should reference it, which I did, but it threw my timing and, combined with the blank faces, I think I made a bit of a hash of the subsequent bit.  Directly following on from this is a part where I start explaining my feelings on something and this builds up into something of a rant, but, by this stage, I was sufficiently put off that it didn’t really flow as it should.  The punchline to that rant, is actually the start of the next bit and that also got no reaction.  It was at this point that I forgot what to say next.

Now, I’ve done this section on stage a number of times and probably at least a hundred times in practice.  I could probably do it in my sleep, but on this occasion it completely disappeared.  The fact that I conscious of how well I knew the bit, somehow made things worse, and less likely that I would remember. I was genuinely panicking but then I kept repeating the line to stall and because it was the thing to do that made me laugh most.  It perhaps wasn’t the best way to react but I kind of liked the honesty and lack of slickness of it.  My mind was also reeling at this point; I couldn’t decide whether to ditch the thread and try and just do something else or whether to try and stick with it.  The decision was made more difficult because the personal bit all flows, so it’s not like I could skip to a later section of it and it still make sense. In hindsight, I should have perhaps just said that I knew it wasn’t working and then dived into my joke book (which I had in my pocket as a security blanket).  But, I didn’t.  Eventually the line came back to me, but the performance was all very half-hearted from then on.  ”Luckily”, I had used so much time up in forgetting that I didn’t have time to try any of “personal bit 2″.  I ended with the play (to little reaction) and was pleased to get off.

When I died in my first handful of gigs, it was soul-destroying. Now that I have slightly more experience and have done a number of successful gigs, it’s still horrible but I’m able to deal with it relatively easily. I think it does dent the confidence a bit, but it’s also a really good leaning experience. It also highlights how much I still have to learn, particularly in how to deal better with cocking up and having different material to fall back on.  The question that always strikes me in this situation is how can material that has worked so well on other occasions fail so badly? (truly baffling)

It struck me last night that the audience members will have left the gig thinking that I’m awful, and they probably would not be able to believe that the same material has worked really well in front of other audiences.  It’s all a very strange business.

Filed under Comics, Gig Diary Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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