Gig 46: Can’t Sing, Can’t Dance, Don’t Care Open Mic @ The Gillygate, York – 4th April 2012

April 7, 2012 1 Comment

Sunday: Chortlon! Monday: Leeds! Tuesday: Tyldesley!  Where would Wednesday take me on my exotic tour of the North?  It would take me to York.  The clue was in the title of the post, wasn’t it?  If it came as a surprise, then you’re really not paying attention.

As I’ve been off work all this week, I was able to combine this gig with a stop over for the night, mooching around fudge shops and a trip to Betty’s Tea Rooms.  The combination of spending most of the afternoon on a slow moving motorway (caused by snow…stupid country) followed by traipsing around shops meant that I was knackered by early evening and without much time to prepare.  Luckily, I was going to be performing the exact same set as the night before (Gig 45), so I didn’t really need to do much prep.

The venue was the classic “small room in the back of an old man’s pub” and felt just about right for my mood.  There were six acts performing on the night and I was on last.  As already mentioned, I did exactly the same set as the night before.  The only notable difference was that I managed to get my “telephone books” bit in, that I’d wimped out of the previous day.  Thankfully it got a laugh, but it was interesting that the laugh only came because I left a long enough pause after delivering it.  The Pause is a weapon that I’m learning to deploy more and more effectively as my confidence and delivery improve.  I think it’s probably a natural instinct, when you first start performing, to rush onto the next bit of material if an immediate laugh doesn’t come.  Having the instinct and nerve to wait for it to come is something I think you can only get with practice.

I also managed to wring out more laughs from my Dennis Hollyoaks story.  Partly this was due to me having more confidence that the audience might get it, but I think it was largely because I threw in more asides as I read it out.  My “personal bit” still appears to be a conundrum, but I think I need to sit down and try a re-write of the whole segment before I can really pass judgement.

Overall, it was neither the best or worst gig that I’ve ever done, but it went well enough for me to not feel depressed, and I felt like I learned something from the experience.  If you want to request a spot at this gig, click here.

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

March 21, 2012 1 Comment

Gong, hanging in a frame, part of the Gamelan ...

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.

 

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Gig 41: Tales of Whatever @ The Castle Hotel, Manchester – 14th March 2012

March 15, 2012 2 Comments

About a month ago, somebody on Facebook mentioned that they were going to be performing at a storytelling evening called Tales of Whatever. I immediately knew that I had to perform there, even before I knew what it actually was.  A quick google search, and subsequent read of their web-site, I discovered the following description:

WE INVITE REAL PEOPLE TO TELL REAL STORIES – ONES THAT ARE:

• TRUE (THEY’RE PROBABLY ABOUT YOU)
• LIVE (JUST YOUR VOICE AND A MIC)
• NOTES-FREE (‘UM’ ISN’T A DIRTY WORD)
• NOT COMEDY (BUT FUNNY IS WELCOME)
• NOT A LECTURE (DITCH THE POWERPOINT)
• 10 MINUTES (ISH…NEED HELP? ASK AWAY!)

This only made me want to have a go even more, so I e-mailed Mark, the event’s organiser, and booked a spot. The format appealed to me for two main reasons: a) I like to try a range of performance styles in order to exercise different creative muscles, and b) I don’t have any material that’s personal\story-based, so it would be a nice way of trying to develop that.  Now, by nature, I’m not an anecdotalist, but I did have a story that went down well at Let’s See What Happens (Gig 22) – you can watch a video of it, here – about the worst internet date I ever went on, and I decided to give that another go.

The LSWH version was completely improvised and lasted around 6 minutes.  I remembered that I had written up an account of the date years ago, so I knew I could check that for any additional details, and thought of a few extra things to set up the story.  I felt sure that I could fill 10 minutes quite easily.  My preparation was little more than reading through the document I had, and thinking about it.  As this was a story and not a tight comedy routine, I didn’t have specific jokes that I had to hit – although I did have certain parts that I thought would get laughs.   This meant that it would be much looser than my normal material, and the possibilities for improvising new bits were good.

On the day of the gig, I was just really excited at the prospect.  I think the lack of pressure to be funny and the onus on telling a story, rather than regurgitating set lines, was liberating.  I only had a slight wobble of nerves when I assumed that my enthusiasm for the night was tempting fate and that would doom it to failure, but this was short-lived.  I tried to have a practice run on the drive over to Manchester and was a bit concerned that I didn’t get anywhere close to finishing, despite the trip taking far longer than 10 minutes.  I’ve noticed that running through material when driving does take longer than on stage – I think there’s a lot of natural stopping-and-starting due to paying attention – but it seemed to be seriously overrunning.

My story lasted 19 minutes.  Eeek.  Luckily, it didn’t matter too much as there were only 4 storytellers performing and the audience seemed to enjoy it.  There were plenty of laughs throughout, and, by the nature of it, bits without laughs.   Overall, it was a very rewarding experience.  It was the longest piece that I’ve ever performed, and I felt confident and comfortable doing it – if anything I had to truncate some bits when I realised how badly I overrunning.  I think there’s probably a ten-minute stand up routine buried in the story, so I hope to listen to it back and see what can be made of it.

It was an extremely enjoyable night as a performer and as spectator.  If you’ve got a story to share, why not give it a go?

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

March 12, 2012 7 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 35: Open for Laughs @ Bar 1:22, Huddersfield – 16th February 2012

February 19, 2012 2 Comments

Open for Laughs was my fourth gig in 8 days, and, stupidly, the fourth different routine. As I’d already performed at this gig in October (Gig 18) and January (Gig 25), doing similar sets at both, it seemed like a good opportunity to give an airing to the new material from Gig 27. I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to prepare, and I was increasingly knackered as the week went on, but I felt I knew the material well enough to not cock up, but with enough of an element of doubt for something interesting to happen.

My opener was going to be my Roy Walker joke, previously described as “a long (90 seconds-ish) jokeless, serious story capped off with a fairly lame punchline.” This description doesn’t exactly sell it, but I definitely know what I wanted to achieve with it and how it might be funny. Starting with such an inherently risky bit, however, did mean that I was going to have to play it just right or I’d just look like I was just terrible. My main concern was if a high percentage of the audience were too young to know who Roy was, then it would just be a long, unfunny story and it would be almost impossible to make work. My plan was to poll the audience at the beginning and if the consensus didn’t know who he was then I’d sulkily go into my joke book as an alternative.

As the show started the MC (Lovely Lee Moore) talked to a table of 4 seventeen year-old lads sat at the front. They didn’t know who Roy Castle was – despite him coming from Huddersfield – so I didn’t hold out much hope for their knowledge of Mr Walker. I was third on the bill, so I had a little time to decide what to do. The majority of the audience probably would have known enough about RW to give the bit a go, but because the lads’ youth (and lack of 80s pop culture knowledge) had already been discussed, I felt like I would have to address it. I concocted a plan where I would spend so long talking about the fact that they wouldn’t get it, that I wouldn’t have time to actually do it and faux-exasperatedly be forced into to an abridged version. And making a big deal out of how the abridged version would make even less sense than in full. I didn’t know whether it would be funny, but I was excited to see how it would pan out.

Just before I went on, three guys arrived and sat at the back. They gave a somewhat prickly response when Lee spoke to them, and they gave off the vibe of being unimpressed by what was going on. I thought there was a chance they would heckle (they didn’t), and I was a little distracted with what approach I would take should they interrupt. I don’t really know how much of an effect this distraction had on my performance, but I was conscious enough of it to mention it, so I think it must have done something.

I kicked off by explaining what I had planned to do, but that the youngsters were making me think twice about it. I sneaked in a Roy Castle reference which got a laugh – but obviously not by the teenagers – and I felt in control of this bit. I wasn’t necessarily getting loads of laughs, but I was taking it in the direction I wanted to. I then
complained that I’d have to do the abridged version of the bit and was too bumbling in trying to work out which bits I needed to tell and which to drop. In many ways, bumbling could really have worked here, but just not the way that I did it – this is something I can’t really quantify. Although a few people laughed at the rather lame pay-off to the story, I think perhaps I hadn’t made it clear enough that it was being done on purpose. I do like to do bits which intentionally have a component of incompetence, but I’ve found that I really have to underline the intention in order to keep the audience on-side.

After Roy Walker, I launched into “personal bit”, followed by the new “personal bit 2″. Although there were decent laughs peppered throughout the rest of the set, I never really felt like the audience were with me. It was a startling contrast to when I had done “personal bit” only a week earlier at Gig 32 – and indeed to the previous times I’d performed it at Open for Laughs. This means I now really don’t know which bits really work out of either of the two personal sections. Is the material weak but I can sometimes make it work through performance? Is the material fine, but sometimes I blow it by how the rest of the performance goes? Is it just one of those things that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, depending on the audience? I really don’t know.

In hindsight, I should probably have done the Roy Walker bit as originally intended, and then made the deal out of how the lads wouldn’t have got it after I had finished. I think this would have declared my intent more strongly.  I think I need to ensure that if I’m going to persist with material that could easily be interpreted as unintentionally shoddy (and I am), that I make sure the audience know that I know what I’m doing – even if they don’t actually like it. There’s just so much to learn to get this right.

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Gig 33: SAS Comedy @ Lass O’ Gowrie, Manchester – 11th February 2012

February 13, 2012 5 Comments

I say it every time, and I sound like a broken record, but I bloody love SAS Comedy.  This month I was performing as Den Kodd.

The genesis of the character started in November last year when I received an email from the lethal duo of Victoria and Uncle Dave saying that I’d been they’d booked me for a gig in February, which was great news.  However, further on in the message was the line “You are Den Dodd and you will be supported by the Daddy Men.”  At first, I freaked out at the prospect of performing a character that I didn’t actually do and had no material for.  But it seemed like a really good gig to be involved with, so I resolved that I’d be able to come up with something.

My basic plan fell into place pretty quickly. I’d essentially be a reluctant Ken Dodd tribute act called Den Kodd.  I’d use the gags from my joke book and fill out the set with asides about how much Den didn’t like comedy and didn’t understand it.  The gig was planned for the day after SAS, so I planned to do a test run there (assuming I would be allowed to!).

In January I found out that I wouldn’t be doing the original gig, but was still wanted to do the character at SAS.  I also knew that I’d need to buy some fake teeth if I was going to fully evoke the essence of Dodd, so, you know, I bought some.  The second I popped the peggies in my gob, I instantly transformed into a somewhat sleazy, scouse bloke whose main goal in life was to unnerve my girlfriend.  This character was soon to take on a life of his own as Terry, “star” of a couple of YouTube videos that I’ve posted (see here and here).  It soon became clear that I wouldn’t be performing as Den Kodd; I’d be performing as Terry who would be performing as Den Kodd.

I had a gig on Thursday (Gig 32) and a busy week generally, so I didn’t feel like I’d had enough time to prepare.  I slightly freaked out on Wednesday night because I felt I had too much to do, but once Thursday was out of the way I managed to relax enough and was pretty confident on what I’d be doing.  I was going to use 18 jokes from the “Joke Book”, many of which I had used at Gig 1, also at SAS.  Although I knew the jokes, there was no way I was going to be able to remember an order, so I jotted down a word for each and had them on a small slip of paper to jog my memory.  As Den was intended to be a bit shambolic, it felt like an appropriate compromise.  I only really had a couple of run throughs, but felt pretty confident in improvising as Terry and had an idea of things I might say.

I was a little nervous on the way over to Manchester, but I totally relaxed as the show started and was just really looking forward to giving it a go.  The hair\teeth combination I had going on meant that people were laughing before I started, and luckily it continued throughout.  The jokes worked well; the character of Den Kodd was almost made for them.  I was also inhabited by the spirit of Terry and his endless quest to shut up his (imaginary) noisy neighbours.  Lots of the ad-libs worked really well, especially when I corrected my pronunciation of book (from buck to the traditionally scouse “buke”).   All in all, it couldn’t have gone much better.  And, yes, I know I wrote the same about last month’s SAS Comedy (Gig 26).

The last two gigs have certainly wiped out the memory of the previous two stinkers (Gig 30 & Gig 31).  It’s also made me think more about the type of comedy that I want to do, as I mentioned in the write up of Gig 31.  Perhaps I should try a bit of character comedy at my next assault on Beat the Frog…

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Gig 32: Radio Fallout Comedy Night @ The Railway Venue, Bromley Cross, Bolton – 9th February 2012

February 10, 2012 4 Comments

Some of you (and by “some of you” I mean “me”) may remember my infamous Gig 8a; a night with so few audience members that it didn’t count as an actual gig.  Last night looked like it was heading the same way. At 8:15 – the scheduled start time – there were two people in attendance. The comics all braced themselves for the prospect of performing for each other; something none of us really wanted to do. Then, due to the good grace of some crazy comedy god, it turned into a lovely gig of the loveliest proportions. It appears miracles can (and do) happen.

My preparation this week was relatively lax. I’d decided to go pretty much with the same set that died on its, and my, arse in Winsford (Gig 30); the only change was that I’d open with “stretched cat” instead of “I’m sat at a desk…” My reasons for sticking to it was partly because I had a busy week lined up (and so couldn’t face sorting something new), and partly to try and prove to myself that it did work as a set. I only had time to do a few run-throughs while driving about, so hadn’t timed myself. I knew this might be a slight issue as my re-jigged “incomplete joke” had lengthened quite a bit. This made me think about keeping an eye on my watch – something I don’t usually do – and assessing the points in the set where I could potentially drop bits. This is a skill I definitely need to learn – the more you improvise and mess around, the more your timing goes – so it was a good place to start as any.

The other thing I wanted to concentrate on, with regards to performance, was to make sure that I took my time and that I really sold it. I don’t know how much the failure at Gig 30 was down to me getting rattled and then rushing and not committing to the material.

So, it was showtime and there were two fellas in the audience. Two of the comics had travelled all the way from Newcastle and so were understandably dismayed with the prospect of effectively playing to the other acts. It wasn’t something that I was particularly thrilled with either. It seemed like a no-win situation given that my last couple of gigs hadn’t gone well, but the organisers had been good enough to give me a gig and, like the others, I was committed to giving it my best anyway.

The decision was made to delay the start – as seems traditional at comedy nights – and eventually a few more people trickled in. It got to a point where there were about 10 audience members, which is pretty much the minimum for giving it a go. I was a little concerned at this point as these 10 people seemed to cover every possible demographic and I wasn’t sure quite sure how it would play. Then, from seemingly nowhere, there were about 30 people in attendance, and with the venue being perfect for comedy – raised stage, low ceiling and the audience all tucked in tight – it looked like we had a gig after all.

The show was effectively split into 4 sections: two acts in the first three followed by the headliner. I was on second in the third section and by that point it was clear that the audience were really warm and very receptive to different styles of comedy. So I did my stuff and it went really well (sure, this sentence is a bit of an anti-climax, but screw you). I really took my time with it and made sure I didn’t talk over the laughs (yes, I got enough laughs for that to be an issue). As a result, I totally over-ran and had to end up ditched the part of “personal bit 2″ I was going to do, and “One Day in Liverpool).  But, I felt I was it control of droppping the material, so that was a win.

An excellent night was capped off by headliner Lewis Charlesworth, who literally blew the roof off the place (not literally). And so we all went home happy.

Ah, isn’t it great when you’re not rubbish?

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Gig 31: Beat The Frog @ Frog & Bucket, Preston – 1st February 2012

February 3, 2012 6 Comments

So it was time again for Beat The Frog – the superior frog-based, comedy gong-show.  Last week I successfully lasted the full 5 minutes at the Manchester BTF (Gig 29), but this was my first return to Preston BTF since September last year (Gig 12).  If you want to know the format of the night then follow either of those links.

I had decided to do pretty much the same material that I performed in Manchester, but with a few minor tweaks; I removed a joke that was based on a 1980′s reference and added in a stupid impression (more on that later).  I had the running order sorted and it was all material I was familar with, so I felt confident that I knew what I was doing, even though I wasn’t confident of beating the Frog.

The venue was already bustling when I arrived and on an initial scan of the audience I thought there was a good chance that my stuff wasn’t going to play particularly well.  The vibe was one of people out for a general night out with a bit of free entertainment thrown in, rather than one who had specifically sought out comedy for the love of it.  I’m not currently at a level where I can convince this sort of crowd that my penchant for jokes that appear to be bad and\or that fail is done on purpose rather than through ineptitude.  My instincts seemed to be proved correct based on the reaction to the first few comics on (who were non-gong), and which of their material the audience went for (and, more pertinently, which bits they didn’t).

Although I thought my chances of success were slim, I didn’t let it deter me and just went for it as I normally would. I started my set with some of the usuals: “stretched cat”, “this really shifty looking bloke came up to me” and “can’t fight the moonlight”. There was a mixed reaction – as is often the case – with some people were going for it, some sitting blankly and with a few people “ribbiting” in an attempt to get me gonged\frogged off.  The next bit I decided to do was something I hadn’t tried since Gig 2, where it didn’t really work, but  it was something I thought I might be able to sell better now. This is the bit that got me gonged off.  As I’m unlikely to perform it again, I’ll reproduce it in it’s entirity to allow discussion:

(Normal voice) I’m going to have to lighten the mood now, so I’m going to do some impressions. Everybody loves impressions. I’ll be honest, I’m not an expert, but I’m going to give it a go. Who is this?

(Bruce Forsyth voice) You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. (pause). You’re a big man, but you’re out of shape…but didn’t he do well? (pause). My name…is Michael Caine….alright, my love?

(Normal voice) It was Michael Caine. As I say, I’m not an expert…

And that was that (they didn’t say how long I lasted but I would guess between 2 and 3 minutes).  Now, you know the bit doesn’t really work when your girlfriend asks you “what the fuck was that bit about?” So, you know, I’m happy that the audience made the right decision. To clarify the intention of the “joke”: I thought it would be funny if I did an impression which was supposed to be one person but just had the voice of someone else.  It made me laugh, anyway.

I don’t blame the audience at all for my demise, I just wasn’t giving them what they wanted. The questions that arise from this are: a) am I able to give them what they want, and b) do I actually want to give them what they want?  Undoubtedly I have a long way to go in my development as a performer and my material can get much stronger, but barring a drastic change in direction, will doing this kind of gig help or hinder my development?

I’m next booked in for Preston BTF on March 7th.  I’ve no idea how I’m going to approach it, but it should, at least, be interesting.

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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.

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Gig 29: Beat The Frog @ Frog & Bucket, Manchester – 23rd January 2012

January 24, 2012 3 Comments

PRE-GIG:  I thought I’d write a few thoughts prior to this gig since I’m not sure how I feel about it and my opinion is likely to change drastically depending on now it goes.

The last time that I tried a gong show was at Beat The Frog in Preston, way back at the end of September (Gig 12). It didn’t go well; out of 8 acts, 6 lasted the full five minutes, one lasted 3:40 and I lasted 2:09. In retrospect, there were lots of reasons why I didn’t do well: it was only my twelfth gig, I hadn’t done a straight stand up gig for two months and I was completely taken aback by the size of the venue and the brightness of the lights on stage. Oh, and I performed 3 jokes about Dragons’ Den where the joke was that the jokes weren’t very funny.  Not the wisest choice of material under the circumstances.

So, I’ve decided to give it another go, and, even ignoring now badly it went last time, I’m more than a little concerned about it. The conflict with the gong show is that you want to always want to stick to your ‘artistic vision’ (just to make me sound like a complete wanker), but there’s the pressure of having to change it in order to meet the instant approval required.  It’s only natural that you really want to last the distance, so what do you do?

I’ve decided to try and stick to my own style, but have cut out anything too obtuse, especially at the beginning of the set. It will be interesting to see if my increase in experience and confidence as a performer will bear fruit or whether the pressure will get to me.

I genuinely have no idea how I’ll do, so I guess there’s only one way to find out.

POST-GIG:  Let’s cut to the chase, I ‘beat the frog’ and lasted the full five minutes, I got one card (out of 3) held up and I didn’t win the contest.  I’m more than happy with how it turned out.

My set list was essentially the same as Gig 25, only I changed the opening joke for my “stretched cat” one.  I managed to get as far as “Scooby Doo” before my time was up.  While I was undoubtedly nervous, I was also looking forward to giving it a go, and the difference in confidence and stage presence to my previous attempt was like night and day.  The opening joke went down well – I was getting laughs just from how I approached the set-up and was confident enough to take my time with it – and most of the stuff went down well from there.  I was even able to throw in a few of the elusive ad-libs that I’ve been searching for.

The point where I got a card against me was at the “Controversial-Incomplete Joke”.  I’ve done this bit since Gig 2 and I’m very fond of it, even if it doesn’t get that much of a laugh (seeing that sentence written down, does make me wonder why I’ve stuck with it for so long).  I set the “joke” up by saying that it is controversial, but incomplete and I fully deliver on that promise (well, the incomplete part, at least).  I think it’s really funny to leave it unresolved (that’s the actual joke, in my mind), but I was aware enough to know that I should have a way of addressing it for a gong show.  I did this by then pointing out that I knew it wasn’t funny (that bit was ad-libbed) and then telling them the way that several people had suggested I could resolve it (this bit was planned) – 3 separate people have genuinely suggested the same tag line to me – and this got a big laugh.  Although, I’d prefer to leave it unresolved, this experience has made me think about how it could be tweaked, so that I can keep it.

Although it would have been nice to win (since it secures you an 8-minute non-gong spot), I’m really pleased to have done the full five minutes.  At least I know now that I can do it, so that if I try something in the future that gets me gonged off then I won’t feel so bad about it.

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