Gig 109: Comedy Night @ The Beech Inn, Chorlton – 14th May 2013

May 17, 2013 1 Comment

This month’s Beech Inn gig was, coincidentally, on my second anniversary of performing comedy (see here for details). Last year’s anniversary gig was cancelled (NOT Gig 58), so what would happen this time?

Well it would happen, that’s what would happen.

It wasn’t entirely clear that this would be the case when I arrived at the venue. It’s traditional for the audience to show up late, but by the scheduled start time there were only 6 or 7 punters present. It was by far the least attended of the Beech comedy nights, but we decided to plough on anyway.

One of the acts had dropped out the day before, so the format would be me doing my regular bits – Joke Book, The Donnie Hotlips Story: Chapter 6 and Monthly Report about April – followed by an act. Then there’d be a break, another two acts, a final break and then the headliner.

The opening section was tough. It’s difficult when there is a small audience, especially if they’re quiet, but I also wasn’t very good. Previously when we’ve only had three acts for the opening sections, I’ve done my monthly report in the second section, but this time I did all my nonsense before bringing on the first act. It was too much too soon.

Last week at Gig 108, I struggled with my joke book, because the context is everything with such deliberately shonky jokes. I seem to generate a steady stream of these crap gags, and it’s useful to be able to try them out every month, but the regularity seems to have robbed the section of its.  I think the problem is that, although I know it’s better to stick with audience chat early on, having some “jokes” to fall back on is too comfortable a safety net.  The bad jokes could still work, but only after I’ve dragged the audience onto my wavelength.  The main lesson I learned in my first few attempts at MCing was that it was a mistake to crowbar too much material in, especially at the start of the night.  This gig was a timely reminder of this fact.

Luckily, during the first break a number of extra audience members appeared.  Because I’d burned through all my material in the first section, I had to rely on audience interaction and acting daft, and this made things go noticeably better.  I don’t know how well it went from this point, but I no longer felt horrible about it, so that was a win.

The lesson learned from the evening was this: don’t forget the lessons that you’ve already learned.

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My Dream Gig

March 29, 2013 Leave a comment

It’s Christmas morning.  I’ve received an e-mail asking me to perform at a gig in Birmingham on that very day.  There’s a decision to be made.  Am I going to sacrifice a festive Yuletide celebration with my family for an unpaid 10-minute spot at an unspecified location?

Of course I am; this is my dream gig.  And by ‘dream gig’ I clearly mean ‘a gig I did in a dream last night’.

So, I arrived at the venue, which was initially some kind of social club, with plenty of time to spare and, simultaneously, after the first act had started.  I didn’t know the running order, but I hoped to be on in the second half of the show, as I didn’t actually have anything prepared.  As luck would have it, I was on third and so wouldn’t have the interval to cobble a set together.  With just seconds to spare, I seemed to recall possibly having a ‘ Christmas quiz’ saved as a Word document somewhere.  This lead to the unprecedented step of taking an iPad on stage with me.

The audience was exclusively middle-aged women.  Middle-aged women who had clearly never been to watch live comedy before.  My ideal audience.  In an instant, I knew how to open: the classic ‘making a machine gun noise’.  Incredibly, this fell rather flat.  I managed to salvage the moment by saying something sarcastic (I can’t remember what) that made fun of the thing that failed in a way that made it look like it was intentionally supposed to fail.

Seizing the moment, I decided to go with some ‘real world’ material; if these gags had made living, breathing humans laugh then it surely couldn’t fail on these imaginary harridans.  Sadly, I struggled to decide between “revolutionary era France  and “this dodgy looking bloke came up to me…” and in my hesitance, I noted that the audience were complaining “not this again”.  I panicked.  I couldn’t work out how on earth they’d heard the jokes before (although, with hindsight, it’s clear that they were all actually part of my subconscious) but following a bit of basic audience interaction (can’t remember what) I determined that they’d actually been talking about something else.

Having been distracted from delivering a ‘real world’ gag, I was determined to give it another try.  This time I went with ‘stretched cat’.  Although I completely mangled the set-up, I did, at least, manage to say the punchline.  This was a true achievement for such a challenging set.

From this point on, things become something of a blur.  You’ll forgive my lack of recall when I tell you that it was at this point I discovered that the venue was not only “some kind of social club” but also was the middle of a field…on a Summer’s day! Incredible!

I decided to end my set by diving over the audience and landing on the stage in an expertly controlled forward-roll.  It wasn’t particularly funny, but it was, at least, spectacular.  I checked my watch; I had been on stage for 16 minutes.  Sure, I had badly overrun, but I think I can be forgiven in such extraordinary circumstances.

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Gig 102: Comedy Night @ The Beech Inn, Chorlton – 12th March 2013

March 16, 2013 Leave a comment

The Bob Blackman Appreciation SocietyI know I mention the following every month, so I’m just going to deal with it as quickly as possible:

Before the gig, I prepared a few bits of new material.  These were some new jokes, my monthly report (read it here) and the latest chapter of The Donnie Hotlips story (a fictitious biography of one of the night’s regulars – read it here).

OK, now I can get on with the actual write up.

The biggest drama that Tuesday night faced was that Andy, who provides the microphone and amp for the show, hadn’t shown up by the scheduled start time.  He got there 20 minutes late, and so we started 20 minutes late.  Yeah, I know, it doesn’t really qualify as a drama, so I’m not going to act like it was one (yes, I’m talking to you, Dave Turquoise).  It may not have been dramatic, but it did affect the way I started the gig.  As we were already running late, and because we had to fit in 4 acts as well as my monthly report, I put in lots of energy and urgency to make sure the audience were warmed up as soon as possible.

At this point in a post, I’d usually drone on about what happened to me and what I did or didn’t learn from the experience.  You can breathe a sigh of relief as I’m not going to do that.  Sometimes, it’s just a good gig and you have to enjoy it on that level.  All the acts were really strong this month, and the night seemed to keep building as it went on.  The night was topped off by headline act The Bob Blackman Appreciation Society (Johnny Sorrow and Richard Swan), who were amazing.  I couldn’t possibly describe their act, so I just suggest that you go and see them if you get the chance to.

Nights like this are what being involved in comedy is all about.

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Gig 101: SOS Comedy @ 3MT, Manchester – 2nd March 2013

March 4, 2013 2 Comments

According to George Orwell, my 101st gig would be the worst gig in the world.  Well, guess what? It wasn’t the worst gig in the world, not by a long chalk. Screw you, Orwell.

The plan for this month’s SOS Comedy was this:  I had the idea for a new Gold and Brass sketch immediately after the last show (Gig  96), so that proved relatively easy to write,  and Lee Fenwick had written another sketch in which I was going to play one of the characters.  I had a couple of train journeys to Edinburgh (Gig 100) in which to learn both scripts, so everything was sorted.

I found out on Friday afternoon that, due to unforeseen circumstances, we wouldn’t be able to do the sketches.  I had to think of something else to do, and in the absence of a completely new, hilarious character act, I knew I’d have to go with something largely pre-existing.  I quickly settled on a version of the Simeon Gold’s solo act (last seen in Gig 71).  Simeon is a slightly different character when done solo, so I wanted to make him more like the Gold and Brass version (although, I don’t think I could describe what the difference is).  I also wanted to come up with a new introduction to address his membership of G&B’s theatre group.

On Saturday morning, I was struck by the idea of Terry Dowling doing a bunch of my more recent ‘joke book’ jokes (similar to Terry’s original incarnation as Den Kodd).  I quickly compiled a list of jokes, identified as keywords, and that was pretty much it.  I did a couple of run throughs just to make sure I could tell the joke from a keyword only, and planned to just take the list on stage with me.  As Terry is an awful comedian, it seemed to fit in that he would have to refer to his notes.  I decided to open with a version of “Revolutionary Era France” (a stupid shaggy dog story).  The way I usually tell this bit is too intelligent for Tez, so I had to tweak it to match his particular style.

For Simeon, I settled upon 3 tried and tested plays:  Spies Like Us, Bertie’s Speech and One Day in Liverpool.  I also threw in Walls Have Ears, which previously has only appeared at Gig 97.  On that occasion, I just read it out from paper and it wasn’t in character, so I felt I was at least treading some new ground with the act.

I still felt a bit under-prepared upon arrival at the venue.  It wasn’t so much that I thought I’d forget anything, but rather that I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do.  Thankfully, both acts went well.  Simeon appeared in the first half and I performed it more fluidly than I thought I would.  Terry was on in the second half and because he’s supposed to be rubbish, there was plenty of scope for messing around and using the moments where I genuinely cocked up.

Overall it was a really useful gig.  It was good to know that I was able to pull together two acts at short notice, and that they actually worked.

P.s.

I’ve probably got a few more things to say, but I’m not going to.  I’m having one of those moments where I feel really self-conscious about how annoying  and awful these blog posts are.  Ironically, the fact that I’m bailing on it rather than fleshing it out actually makes it a worse read.  Oh, the irony.

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Gig 100: Laughing Horse New Act of the Year Quarter Final @ The Beehive Inn, Edinburgh – 28th February 2013

March 2, 2013 1 Comment

28th February 14:08 – On the train

Is there a more fitting way to commemorate my 100th gig by travelling to Edinburgh to perform? Erm, I don’t know.  100 is only deemed a number of note because we happen to have ten fingers.  If you take that into account then you realise that it has no more significance than any other number. As such, it’s probably not appropriate to commemorate it in any manner.  So there.

With the humbuggery out of the way, I’ll tell you about my upcoming gig.  You may remember that I progressed in the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition in Gig 94, so it is for the quarter final that I am heading North.

Most of the quarter finals are down in that London, but I’ve got friends (Tim and Ellie) in Edinburgh so it seemed an ideal opportunity to combine the gig with a visit.  Luckily, I was able to swap my original offer of a London date for this and that’s why I find myself sat on a train.

I’ve decided to go pretty much with the same set as I’d used in the heats, so I spent the early part of this journey pulling the bits together and having a run through (in my head).  I think it makes sense to go with familiar material when you’ve a) only got 5 minutes and b) you’re being judged.

Yes, I am travelling to Scotland to do 5 minutes.  Yes, I know it seems mental, but this is the world of stand up comedy and it’s perfectly normal. Don’t worry.

Anyway, it’s a beautiful day, so I’m going to enjoy the view, listen to a few podcasts, and, oh yeah, probably run through my material again.

2nd March 10:26 –  On my sofa

So, let’s get it out of the way: I didn’t go through to the next round.

I was met at the station by Tim at half past four.  I had to be at the venue at 7:45, so we had plenty of time to drop my bag back at his place, get some tea and catch up.  The plan went somewhat awry. By the time we’d stopped for a coffee, taken a leisurely stroll to the flat and had a cup of tea (we’re not barbarians), we hadn’t really left enough time to get over to the other side of town and to stop for food.  Worry not, food fans, all was not lost.  The venue sold food, so, you know, we ate there.  Yeah, I know.  Not the greatest anecdote, but it is true.  We didn’t have long to eat, though, so my superhumanly fast consumption of ham, egg and chips did mean that I’d have to endure some pretty impressive indigestion.  Lovely.

The gig was held in the classic “room above a pub”, which held about 50, but with an actual audience of about 12.  It was strange to compare it to my heat in Bury which had been a surprisingly large venue, which was full with an audience of over a hundred.  It felt slightly anti-climatic, but I was still looking forward to performing (despite the indigestion).  There were 11 acts on the bill (out of a scheduled 14), so the night was split into 3 sections. I was on third in the middle bit.

The set I had settled on was:

“This shifty looking bloke came up to me…”
Joke Book
Moves Like…
Arnie from Wigan
One Day in Liverpool

In the heat I’d also used “Telephone Books”, but I cut this for time.  I guess I must have overran by quite a bit in Bury.  One of the main features of this performance was just how aware of the time I was, and how this affected me.  My opening bit worked as planned :  it starts out being a bit ambiguous as to where it’s going, which helps heighten the audience’s reaction when I reach the punchline.

I usually segue into “Joke Book” by using the device of playing up the audience’s uncertainty of the opening section.  I’ve become less comfortable with this approach because as I’ve learned to deliver the material better, it works with the audience better and so I’m increasingly working off an audience reaction that isn’t there.  I think this is the first time where I’ve felt overly conscious of it, and so my transition into telling the jokes didn’t feel real.

From this moment on, I always felt a fraction off.  Some of the bits of material didn’t quite get the same reaction that they usually would and it felt like a constant battle to keep on top of it.  What made this more difficult was the pressure of keeping to 5 minutes.  It’s generally good practice to make your spots the length that they’re supposed to be, but this is even more true in a competition where you can have points deducted or even be disqualified if you overrun.  Because I knew I was already cramming my material into my allotted time, I didn’t feel like I could let my act properly breathe, as I usually would, to get things back on track.

This isn’t to say that I went down badly with the audience, and I did get laughs in most of the right places.  There were a couple of points that didn’t get the laugh they usually do, but I was able to pull this back with an additional line.  However, if I compare myself to Bury, which was the same set under similar circumstances, I know that I wasn’t as good.

The votes were counted and four acts went through to the semi finals.  As you know, I wasn’t one of them.  Deep down I wasn’t really bothered, but as the names were read out, I felt an unexpected pang of disappointment.  I suppose it’s only natural.  It’s really hard to judge how it went.  I felt like I got lots of laughs, which was confirmed by Tim and Ellie (who I am assuming weren’t just humouring me), but I clearly wasn’t liked that much by the audience.  If I had been on top of my game it’s possible that the outcome would have been different, but we’ll, obviously, never know.

Anyway, I had a lovely time in Edinburgh. It was great to see my friends and throw a gig into it for good measure.  As I came off stage, I felt really aware of where I hadn’t been great and where it could have been improved.  Hopefully this is a sign of me developing as a comic and something I can use to improve.

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Gig 97: Magical Animals @ Sandbar, Manchester – 11th February 2013

February 14, 2013 5 Comments

Monday saw the return of Magical Animals following a month’s break.  As it’s a regular gig, I like to use it to try out new bits – especially stuff that wouldn’t be considered traditional stand up.  I usually have something lined up,  but this time I didn’t   On Sunday afternoon, I sat down to do a bit of writing and remembered that I had some unused bits and pieces that I’d prepared for November’s Bad Language (Gig 88).  After looking through the document, I decided to try out two unused short plays: Walls Have Ears and Tony and Kim Have An Argument.  I also thought I’d give a run out to Javier Have a Problem, which I’d previously tried at December’s Spotlight (Gig 92).

I was happy with Walls Have Ears, but a bit unsure about Tony and Kim.  There’s something that I like about it, but it doesn’t actually contain anything resembling a joke.  Javier worked quite well at Spotlight, but I’d realised that the middle paragraph (of three) was pretty redundant.  After reviewing it, I rewrote the offending paragraph to tighten it up.

As I’d be reading, I didn’t do a timed run through of the material, so on the day of the gig I started to wonder about which order to perform them in.  Ideally, I wanted to do Tony and Kim first, as it was the weakest piece (I hoped that by performing it in front of an audience it might help me work out what it was about it that I like).  However, I wasn’t sure of the timing of the three bits, and there was a chance that I’d only have time to fit two of them into my four minute spot.

I was still somewhat undecided even after I’d arrived at the venue.  My mind was made up after I thought of a new bit while I was sat waiting to go on.  The spontaneous chunk of tomfoolery was:

“Have you ever noticed how the pope goes shopping in HMV Jessops Comet…for horsemeat? What’s all that about?” (Trust me, it’s all in the delivery).

I really wanted to give this a try as time was literally of the essence with such hard hitting topical material.  I decided to drop Tony and Kim and then if I had any time left I’d just fill with one or two new jokes that I’d written.

And that’s pretty much it.  I did those things. They went pretty well.  I went home.

OK, I will make a couple of notes.  The “topical” opening went well, but really was all to do with the delivery.  I did tell you to trust me on this.  I’m also pretty sure that I’ll try Walls Have Ears again.  I do love acting out a stupid “play”.  The biggest thing I took away from the night is that I really should have dropped the second paragraph of the Javier story.  Despite a re-write, it remained totally redundant.  I’ll have to give it another run out in its new, shorter form.

Right, that’s it. Thanks for listening. xx

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Gig 96: SOS Comedy @ 3MT, Manchester – 2nd February 2013

February 8, 2013 1 Comment

TerryThe previous (and début) SOS Comedy (Gig 89) saw a reboot of stupid theatre duo Gold & Brass (myself and Lee Fenwick).  The intention was always to follow it up with another G&B sketch this month, and after having the idea of what it was going to be about, it was relatively easy to write.

This left the question of what, if anything, I would do as a solo piece.  It’s been a while since I’ve written any new character material, so I didn’t have anything obvious to try.  I did quite fancy doing something else with Terry Dowling – a character I really love performing as – but, again, I didn’t have anything lined up.  Then I remembered my Roy Walker story.

This bit of material started out life as an idea for a one-liner based on Roy Walker and his catchphrases.  The problem I had was that in order to make the punchline work, I ended up with 90 seconds of set up.  At this point, the joke would usually be thrown in the bin, but I’m unusual so it wasn’t.  There was something about having a really boring, wordy set up capped off by a pretty lame punchline that I found really funny.   I also have a habit of starting my sets with bits that don’t seem like they’re going anywhere, and this fitted that bill perfectly.

I tried it out first at Gig 27, where I was able to get some kind of positive reaction (according to my somewhat vague post).   The joke’s next appearance was at Gig 35, where it didn’t really work.   From re-reading the post for that gig, it seems I was too distracted by  some of the audience being too young to get the reference, whilst worrying that some aggressive looking men were about to start heckling, for it to ever have worked.  I guess this experience soured me to the material for a while, and, although I really liked it, I didn’t know what to do with it.  The problem with doing an intentionally unfunny piece of material is that people might think that you’re just unfunny.

Six months passed and I’d largely forgotten about Roy and his fictional failed marriage.  Whilst lying in the bath, wondering what I could do at an upcoming Magical Animals,  I was struck with an idea:  if the set up felt drawn out over 90 seconds, how would it feel if it lasted 4 minutes?  The conceit I came up with was that I would start by mentioning that I’d been reading RW’s autobiography and then inadvertently start telling the story, before realising that I was running out of time and start hurriedly trying to complete the story (whilst getting frustrated at not being able to perform my “real” material).  By elongating the story it meant that I could add more stupid bits in, but the comedy would be mainly derived from my increasingly desperate attempts to finish.

And this is what I did at Gig 65, which thankfully went really well.  The next challenge would be to make it last for 10 minutes.  Which I did 10 days later at Gig 67, which again went really well.  In fact, it was one of my favourite ever gigs.  It probably wasn’t the best audience reaction I’ve ever received, but to have made the material work at all made it feel like a real achievement.   I couldn’t wait to try it again, and only had a couple of weeks before I unleashed it to utter indifference at Gig 69.

I guess I knew that the routine would fail eventually, but it was still disappointing.   Frustratingly, I was the architect of my own downfall.  The set is all about the audience and their reaction to me becoming embroiled in retelling Roy’s life story.  In Gigs 65 & 67, it felt as though the audience had bought into it quite early, so I was able to develop the story and work off their reactions.  On this occasion, the opening part of the set was met with silence.  At this point I should have broken away from what I was saying at directly addressed the audience’s indifference.  Instead, I ploughed on with the story.   Although I may not have fully have won the audience over by breaking away, this would have been in line with the intent of the material.  The approach that I took meant that I ended up just telling a boring story.

Gig 69 was on the 1st August last year.  Another 6 month gap.   I hadn’t intended to leave it for so long, but I guess I was looking for the right opportunity to resurrect it and when nothing suitable came along, I guess I forgot about it.  Anyway, you won’t be surprised to learn that I decided to do it as Terry.  I have a real sense of freedom when I perform as Terry; I seem to know what he would say in any given situation.  He’s also supposed to be someone who is trying to perform comedy without any talent or ability (or even a real concept of what comedy is).  This seemed to suit the material and the idea of him getting further and further away from performing his intended set, as the story progresses.

As I’ve not got the story written down I was relying on being able to remember it.  Thankfully it all came flooding back by just having a run through (although there may be bits I’ve forgotten that I’ve forgotten).  After that I did my usual trick of practising while driving, which I made sure I did with Terry’s teeth in (I can’t do his voice properly without them).  For the Gold & Brass sketch, we met up on the afternoon of the gig to rehearse.  It only took a couple of run throughs and we had it sorted.

Wow, this post is really dragging, isn’t it?  I don’t know why I felt the need to write the life history of the Roy Walker material, but it’s done now.  Don’t worry, I’ll try and move things along.  And, yes, I do realise the irony of me writing this bit and actually making the post even more drawn out.

Terry was on in the first half of the show.   The audience’s reaction to it seemed to fit into three categories   those who thought it was really funny, those who didn’t find it at all funny and those who were utterly baffled.  I was pleased with my performance of it, and there seemed to be enough people who liked it, but because there was a mixed reaction it’s difficult to gauge exactly how it went.

Gold & Brass was in the second half of the show.  I’m always a little nervous about forgetting my lines for these sketches, but, barring a slight cock-up at the end, it went pretty well.  I think it went down OK with the audience, but I get so wrapped up in acting it out that, again, it’s hard to know exactly how it went.

It felt like a slightly strange gig in that I really enjoyed both performances and they seemed to get decent reactions, but I came away with a slight feeling of it not having gone well.  I don’t really know why that was, but it’s a disconcerting feeling.  Maybe the reason that I feel that it didn’t go well was that it didn’t go well.  In which case, the idea that the individual bits received decent reactions might be entirely bogus.  In which case, it’s possible that on any occasion that I feel that I’ve had a decent reaction I might not have done.  In which case, does this mean that I’m one of those acts that’s deluded about how well they’ve done? I think being deluded about how well I’ve done is perhaps my biggest worry.  I’d rather be crap than deluded.  It would also be nice not to be so paranoid about this things.  Such is life.

Regardless of all my navel gazing, I came away from the night still with the ambition of stretching my Roy Walker bit out for a full 20 minute spot.  Maybe one day…

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Gig 93: Comedy Night @ The Beech Inn, Chorlton – 15th January 2013

January 19, 2013 1 Comment

Finally, my first gig of the year.

It had been three and a half weeks since my previous spot (Gig 92) and I was more than ready to get back on the metaphorical comedy horse.  In fairness, I had needed a rest, not from performing but from a busy schedule in general.  The only downside of taking a break is that it’s too easy to become lethargic, and I certainly had gotten très lethargic.  If anything was going to shake me back into action, it would be MCing at The Beech.

I don’t generally suffer from nerves before gigs, but I’m still plagued with trepidation in the build up to  compering a show.  With a normal spot, you get up, do your stuff and then that’s it.  If it goes badly then you know exactly how long you’ve got to go before you can skulk off home with your tail between your legs.  If things go badly as an MC then you know you have to get straight back on stage as soon as the next act has finished.  Ultimately it’s your responsibility to make sure that the night runs smoothly, and that the audience is in the right frame of mind to welcome the comics on stage.  Oh, and you have to make the majority of it up off the top of your head, whilst constantly keeping on top of what’s happening in the room.

I make it sound like a nightmare, but it’s actually really enjoyable, largely because, so far, my worries have been all academic.  Although there have been a few sections that haven’t been amazing, they haven’t been so bad that I wasn’t able to rescue it.

My preparation for these nights has boiled down to 4 areas:

1) A chapter of “The Donnie Hotlips Story” – a fictionalised biography of one of the Beech’s regulars (read this month’s, here)

2) My monthly report – me reading this is usually the first “act” in the second section of the night (read this month’s, here)

3) Some “joke book” jokes – just something I can fall back on. I’d only written 1 new one this month, so used a few old ones.

4) Contingency questions – stupid emergency questions if audience interaction isn’t going well. I didn’t use them last month, but thought it was worth having them (as it turned out, I didn’t use them this month, either).

And that was that.

I had to pick up three friends on the way to the gig – who were coming along to watch –  and I didn’t really speak on the drive over as I was pre-occupied with nerves.  I felt a bit better once we were at the Beech, probably because I had to concentrate on getting things ready to go.  There was already a decent sized audience when we arrived, and there were a few regular faces, so this helped get me in the right frame of mind.

And after that build up, all I can really say is that it seemed to go pretty well.  I made a point of remembering to mention the ground rules and format of the evening, because I forgot to last month.  Erm, yeah.  That’s definitely all I have to tell you. It was a lot of fun and the audience seemed to have a good time.

It’s quite difficult to really know how I’m getting on with MCing.  Although it generally feels like it’s going well from the perspective of being funny, I’m not sure how well I’m doing in my primary duties of keeping the night ticking over and making sure that the audience are primed for the actual acts.  Hopefully I’ll get a better grasp of this as time goes on.

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Gig 92: Spotlight @ The Storey, Lancaster – 21st December 2012

January 3, 2013 2 Comments

Christmas comedy audiences are renowned for being pissed up dickheads, so if you’re going to perform on ‘Mad Friday’ you might as well do it in front of a non-comedy audience.  Thankfully my final gig of the year was at Lancaster’s Spotlight.

As I’m not sure how to describe Spotlight, I’ll use the description from its web-site: “a live-writing venue in Lancaster dedicated to bringing new and different writing, performers, readers and musicians to the stage”. What I am sure of is how much I enjoy performing there.  My previous three appearances (Gig 20, Gig 28 and Gig 64) had been among my favourite gigs.  Because it isn’t a comedy night, I always feel less pressure when performing there (whether there is actually less pressure or whether it’s just a psychological illusion is up for debate), and it also gives me the freedom to read out stories, poems or whatever, and really be myself.

As I had a busy week in the lead up to the gig, my preparation was fairly quickly.  I looked through my diary posts from previous appearances and worked out what material I’d used, and then cobbled together a set list from new stuff.  This was:

Revolutionary Era France
Christmas Crackers – My usual ‘joke book’ bit, but pretending to be festively themed.
Stand Up Comedy Poem
Moves Like…
Javier Have a Problem – This was an unused short story from Gig 88.  It is a rewritten version of this.
Telephone Books
US Style Stand Up
Nick and Mary: A Christmas Story – A tweaked version of the story last used at Gig 90.
Supermarket Poem

The plan for the evening was going to be to leave work early, head straight up towards Lancaster and have some tea, and then get to Spotlight in plenty of time.  The main fly in the plan’s ointment was that I started feeling ropey (with a side order of the squits), so I didn’t have any tea and I felt like going straight to bed rather than going out. Oh well, the show must go on, as some idiot once said.

So, anyway, this post has taken me nearly two weeks to write as it is, so I’ll cut a long story short: it went really well.  The one brand new bit of material was the Javier story.  It was 3 paragraphs long and the middle paragraph – which was marginally the longest – was completely redundant.  I should have cut it beforehand, but I made a joke of it being unnecessary, which in a way added to the act.

Ugh, I’m sick of this post now.   I’m sure if I had written this closer to the event then I would have had some kind of profound thought to leave you with, but I don’t.   I just hope I can perform again here soon.

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Gig 90: Magical Animals @ Sandbar, Manchester – 10th December 2012

December 14, 2012 1 Comment

I’d used the previous couple of Magical Animals (Gig 80 and Gig 83) as warm ups for MCing at The Beech Inn (Gig 81 and Gig 84), trying out new material I’d written.  However, as I’d felt too over-prepared for Gig 84, I decided not to use this M.A. as rehearsal time, and find some material  especially for it.

As it’s nearly Christmas (yes, really), I decided to resurrect my one and only festive story, previously performed at last December’s Word Up (Gig 24).  According to the diary entry for that performance (which is appallingly written, by the way), and from my actual human memory, the ‘Father Christmas’s home life’ based tale had gone down well.  So, I thought I’d trot it out to see if it would work again.

The story started life as Just One Beer, but I’d changed it quite a bit for Word Up, adding a narrative section at the beginning to set up the dialogue.  As I’d not looked at it for a year, I thought it might be sensible to do another draft.  My technique for this was to read it out loud and change lines so they felt more natural.  I also beefed up a section about how the two characters looked alike as I didn’t think it was quite working.  I wasn’t entirely sure how long the story would take to perform, so I had a handful of new “joke book” jokes, which I’d use to pad out my 4 minutes if I had to.

On the evening of the gig, I went to my parents’ for tea.  During a conversation about converting inches into centimetres (because they’re buying new Venetian blinds, if you must know), my mum made the following “joke”: ‘I’m quite good with metric, even though I was brought up on imperial.  And I don’t mean mint.’  See, what’s she’s done there is equate imperial measurements with mint imperials.  It’s very clever, Stewart Lee style meta-comedy.  OK.  Fair enough.  It’s not.  It’s not Stewart Lee style meta-comedy, at all.  It’s actually a bit of nonsensical wordplay that isn’t really funny.  But she did offer it to me to use at Magical Animals.  Yeah right, mum.  Get real.

Anyway, I arrived at Magical Animals and as I was waiting to go on, I thought about starting with a stupid joke that I’ve been wanting to try for a while.  It seemed as good a time as any to give it a try.  Except, I kept thinking about the mint imperial joke.  Sure, it wasn’t funny, but isn’t that exactly why it’s funny?  Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I decided that I was definitely going to do it.

Did it work?  Well, no, not really.  Not in the technical sense of having made the audience laugh.  However, I thought it was funny, and that’s the most important thing, right? No, of course not.  Oh well.  [ASIDE: I think that unfunny things are really funny, and love comedy that is intentionally not working, so it was nice to try this out, and was a bit of fun.]

I then went into the Christmas story, which didn’t really work as well as I had hoped.  The bit that I’d expanded about Nick and Mary being physically similar felt completely out of place and was way too flabby (pun intended).  I’ve experienced this phenomenon before; a bit of material seems OK when you rehearse it, but when you try it in front of an audience it not only doesn’t work, but it’s abundantly clear to you why it doesn’t.  I hope to use the story in my last gig before Christmas, so another re-write will be in order.

I’d pretty much used all my time up by the close of the story, so I told one joke and that was it.

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