Gig Report

This week's gig was at the Coo Comedy Club in Tufnell Park, and I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable nights I've been to.

The evening was geared towards sketches, music and character comedy, which made for a really varied show. And while the audience might have taken a little while to warm up (so some of the earlier acts didn't quite get the laughs I thought they deserved), once everyone got into it, the atmosphere was fantastic. Not least due to the boundless enthusiasm of the compere, Anthea Neagle. Plus the quality of acts was very high, and I was lucky enough to be going on shortly after Little Dark, a sketch group who absolutely stormed it and brought the energy right up.

Keeping with the character portion of the theme, I had a crisply ironed shirt and my clipboard to appear as Ian from Human Resources. After my less than stellar performance last week, I'd spent Sunday working on the routine, cutting out waffle and trying to add more "punch" to the gags. I'd also got rid of the full script from the clipboard, so I spent much of the interval nervously running through the routine to make sure I'd remember it. I'd also foolishly had a few brainwaves on the way in, determined as I was to make remembering it all as hard as possible for myself.

Luckily, the work and worries paid off big time. Almost everything I'd hoped would get a laugh got one, and a few of the better bits almost got a round of applause (I say almost, it might have been someone laughing just hard enough to accidentally bang their hands together, once). I ended up stepping on a few laughs with afterthoughts, which is pretty bad craft, but someone that I can fix with experience (and not much else). I also went a little too quiet at a few points, and couldn't quite make out what I was saying on the video I took. Having volume levels is good, but I should aim to up everything rather than extending the "dynamic range" (get me using big words!) at the lower end.

All that said, I came out absolutely buzzing, and I'm now eager to try and improve the character even more. Its running at about 6 minutes now, so I need to get brutal about cutting out the duff jokes. I think I know which they are, and annoyingly enough, they're my personal favourites. Still, broad audience appeal and all that.

Roll on my next gig! And be sure to check out Coo Comedy every other Tuesday at the Hideaway, if its anything like this week you're in for a great night!

For a third time in a week I donned my shirt and tie for a bit of character stand up, and had a really fun night, despite my set completely dying.

Strangely, though, watching a recording back, I was reasonably happy with my performance. I didn't stumble over words like I had on Monday, and think I injected a little bit more energy in than previously. I'd snuck a little time to rehearse before I left, which helped immensely.

Despite not really getting many laughs, I seemed to have the audience's attention, and there wasn't any hostility or anything. General feeling was "we like you mate, we're just not finding you particularly funny". So on the plus side, I didn't feel nearly as bad about the spot as I might have.

I'm not going to beat myself up over it, but think I can take the experience as encouragement to improve. I've got another gig as Ian next Tuesday, so I'm going to spend a good chunk of Sunday working through the set, getting rid of the excess words and perhaps ditching a few of the weaker jokes - the set is ever so slightly over 5 minutes now, so I can afford to cut bits.

I think I'm relying on the clipboard too much as well. I've got the entire set written on it, and although I know most of it without referring to the notes, I still need to follow it to turn pages. I do need the clipboard for a couple of things (holding the "race card", and a quick-fire list), but if I'm looking to it on and off for the whole thing it might appear unprepared. So I'm going to get rid of everything I don't need and make sure I know the set inside and out.

I'll get it right one of these days...

Barely two days after my last gig, and I'm dusting off Ian's clipboard again! On Monday night I ventured north to Kensal Green for another gig at the William IV pub, having had so much fun last time I was very keen to return.

The room seemed a little muted compared to last month, with the "real" audience members a bit quiet and self-conscious. Although the acts were keen to show good support for one another. So a friendly atmosphere, if not quite as warm as last time.

I hadn't run through my set since Saturday, which turned out to be something of a mistake, as I ended up stumbling over a few of my words, and nearly missed out a new gag that I really quite like. Listening back to the recording I took, there were quite a few places where I could have been slicker, and my speech seemed almost broken.

Still, again, none of my gags properly died, and I got a bit of a response for everything. Just need to ramp up the energy and the character's smarm to squeeze everything I can out of the material. I really need to find a way of eking energy from myself, rather than getting it all from the audience - if a crowd is small or quiet, I need to be livening them up. This will be trickier with a character like Ian, who doesn't move a lot, but he's not what you'd typically call "low energy" so I just need to pep it up a bit. And rehearse, really gotta get into a good habit of rehearsing.

Ian from Human Resources is back! After being on hiatus for months while I build up a 5 minute set I'm actually happy with, I've re-tooled my character act (ostensibly to make it "funny") and spent Saturday afternoon rehearsing ready for an evening gig at the Round Table near Leicester Square.

And it was something of a bizzare gig to revive a set on. I'd been asked to arrive at about nine, which I thought was a pretty late time to start an evening's comedy. Turning up at about twenty to, I found that the night was in full swing and ended up waiting on the stairs outside with some of the other acts.

I'd not been in this situation before, usually staying in the audience before I go on, to support and enjoy the other acts. So it seemed a little strange to find myself in an odd approximation of a green room; cramped, with no seating and situated next to the Ladies' toilets. I had no idea when I was on, or even which segment of the show we were in (was a break imminent? no idea), so I hung around just in case. Then a strange kind of chinese whispers developed, where descriptions of every little thing that went wrong were passed back through the group huddled by the door, somehow making them seem much worse. The room was cold. Most of the front row didn't speak English. The compere got in an argument with one of the audience and his group of huge mates.

The break came around and a few of us went for a drink downstairs. I was debating not going on, entirely expecting to die. But I figured I would tough it out and perhaps have a good story to tell later. The second half started without us and I found myself rushing upstairs after someone came rushing down to tell me I was being announced.

I blustered into the room, still wearing my coat. Somehow, I managed to convincingly apologise for being late in character, mentioning being at another seminar, etc, which unbelievably got a bit of a laugh and set the scene quite nicely. Not wanting to tempt fate with the audience, I directed my initial insulting of an audience member at the compere - the audience seeming to appreciate the authority figure being taken down a peg. The few laughs I was getting at this point managed to give me confidence to carry on and actually do a passable set.

From what I hear, the room was much nicer in the second half overall. Granted, there were a lot of non-English speakers in the room, but I managed to direct everything over them and target the people behind them, who seemed much more up for it. The changes I'd made to my script seemed to work well, and no gags fell completely flat, although I didn't exactly tear the roof off the place.

Still, not a bad re-introduction for Ian. Guess the biggest lesson here is "just do it". No matter what I'm hearing or however hostile I may think a room could be, I'll never know until I try for myself.

This Wednesday was my final night hosting 5 Minutes of Fame at Rudy's Revenge, and what a night to go out on!

The room was absolutely packed, and the crowd was one of the friendliest I've ever performed to. This was a big help in getting me to relax, and adopt a more conversational style, which worked well for compering the night, and there are elements of this I could inject into my normal sets. However, watching back the video I took, I had a tendency to ramble a little when I hadn't carefully planned what I was going to say. This would screw up the timing of some of my odd little thoughts over the evening. I've been focusing on brevity in my writing a lot, and maybe I need to keep this in mind more when I'm improvising as well.

I'd put together a little "prepared" audience interaction piece, which wasn't brilliant, but was a good start. Definitely something I need to continue with. I had a brief gag about where someone lived (checking they hadn't stolen my wallet) which seemed to work well - although I might need to come up with different gags for different sorts of places. The rest was a little off, but with a bit of time writing, I can probably get a decent minute of banter together. Possibly something to pad out a shorter set. And after a few weeks, it looks like the phrasebook routine will end up being a lot shorter than I originally thought.

Watching my video, I noticed that I still have a habit of glancing down when I'm thinking, and adopting a defensive stance. I really need to cut that out, and be out there the whole time, even when I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing.

All said, it was a great night, and everyone had a good time, acts and audience alike. The quality was really high over the night, including a few folks I hadn't seen before, and look forward to seeing again at other nights. Hats also have to go off to Denis Krasnov for actually telling the Aristocrats in public. Been waiting a year for someone to do that!

My first time compering this year, and its pretty clear I'm a little rusty. After a couple of months working on keeping to tightly scripted material, I was a bit reluctant to really interact with the audience.

I opened with some tried and tested material, which went down really well and got the night off to a nice start. For the first section, I just rattled through the acts without saying much in between. Although when I did say anything I hadn't scripted, I felt massively out of my depth, which hasn't happened to me before. I kept stopping and laughing at how ridiculous what I was saying was. Not good, and a clear indication to the audience that I didn't really know what I was doing.

I tried the phrasebook material I did last week in the opening of the second section. Its getting better, but I really need to tighten up the gags, get rid of excess words, etc. Again, all down to rehearsal. Unfortunately, I think that doing something so new at the opening of a section was a bad move in this case, and it got the section off to a low energy start, which I felt pretty bad about. There were a few places where I could have dropped in a gag in between acts (or said something) to get the energy back up, but I really didn't have any material that was short enough. I keep saying I need to write more short-form material, this is just another reason.

By the third section, a lot of people had had to leave (with sincere apologies from most, so I guess it wasn't because they weren't enjoying the night). But paradoxically, this left the remaining folks determined to have fun, and everyone got a great reception. Including my horrendous attempts at pun callbacks to other people's acts (mental note: don't do that). Special mention has to go to Liam McKay for improvising some great audience interaction after his set's main topics had been covered earlier (even if I'll be detagging the photos should they ever make it to Facebook).

I think the biggest thing I can take from this is that I need to have something of a plan for everything I say beforehand, even if I want it to seem totally spontaneous. Even for audience interaction, which feels like something you need to do a hell of a lot of to get good at. While I want to get some practice with it, I should probably ease myself into it by making a "flowchart" of sorts for conversations (having responses for each possible answer to a question). Engaging in a few improv games would be well worth a try as well.

After a couple of months getting a really solid 5 minutes together, I thought I'd try to get some semi-new material on track.

It was a pretty good night to try stuff out, the crowd were lovely, and whipped into a frenzy of excitement by Renata Muss, our wonderful compere for the evening. On the other hand, I went on first.

I got a nice reception (being friendly with the audience really does help), but nowhere near as good as some other recent gigs. A few of the "good habits" I'd been working on went out the window as I struggled to remember what I was going to say next. This hammers home how important it is to know your material, and how much rehearsal I really need to be doing. And unfortunately, I didn't quite manage to find time to rehearse my new stuff as much as I would have liked.

Now is possibly the time to get tactical and set up something of a "conveyor belt" for material. Have several sets on the go at once: sets I'm performing in public (some polished, some with a view to polishing), sets I'm rehearsing in private and sets I'm still writing. Rather than letting an idea languish in the back drawer until I think I have time to use it. This way I have a clear route to getting ideas out there.

On the plus side, I got some good feedback from other acts on which of my new gags they liked and ones they didn't quite get. Even better, it gave me some inspiration for new gags and improvements on the ones already there. Win!

An interesting gig this Wednesday, wherein I learned something about myself I didn't know before. As it turns out, I'm actually rather uptight.

The room was packed and the audience were lively, if a little laddish; some of the particularly good gags were met with cheers of "go on, my son". This was an atmosphere I wasn't entirely used to, and it made me a little uncomfortable. Maybe its something to do with going to the theatre a lot over the last 7 years, or maybe it goes back further, to school assemblies kept in line by conservative-types with a combination of hard stares and the phrase "we show our appreciation by clapping".

As a result, I felt a bit out of my comfort zone and didn't really give enough to my opening. I felt strangely insecure when faced by a crowd who verbalised their appreciation, perhaps in fear that this might distract from my act. After a few lines, I caught myself not really making much contact with the audience, and the slightly muted reactions to this point really hit home how important it was. I managed to get back in touch a bit, and the latter parts went much better (I even managed to get a callback to the previous act in with just a look at an audience member, which was fun). But suffice to say, it wasn't my best gig of recent weeks.

As it turned out, the audience members I was most worried about turned out to be incredibly friendly guys who were eager to thank the acts at the end of the show. And aside from the impact on my own confidence, they had been good for the atmosphere and energy in the room. The lesson here is one I've heard before, that you should always treat the audience as friends. Every audience will react in their own way, and I shouldn't set myself up to fail by assuming they won't like me from the start.

That, and I need to write some knob gags. 

Hot on the heels of my Laughing Horse heat, was a 5 minute spot at the William IV Comedy Night in Kensal Green. A night I can recommend wholeheartedly to stand ups looking for a friendly open mic.

The room at the William IV had a great atmosphere, with loads of comfy chairs to put the crowd at ease. And although the majority of the audience were acts, there was a sense of cameraderie that made for a really friendly crowd. I was on last, which ordinarily would make it harder to enjoy the rest of the show (worrying too much about my own spot), but being in such a friendly room helped put me at ease.

I toyed around with a new opener, which is still in need of some polish. Luckily, I was able to get some laughs from it mainly through the delivery, which shows all the practise is starting to pay off! And once I'd got going, I can honestly say it was one of the best gigs I've had, even thought the audience was small. There's something about having to wait for a laugh to subside before continuing that makes you feel like a comedy demi-God (like Hercules, but with less of the centaur blood poisoning thing).

Being relaxed certainly helped, and gave me the confidence to try out some ad-libbing. Which a fellow act remarked really helped make the act more friendly and accessible. Definitely something to try more often; I should probably aim to trim my sets a little to allow room for it.

All in all, a great sociable night of comedy. Congrats have to go to Fred Barber and Simon Barker for putting it all together! Certainly a night I'd do again.

After a few weeks of warm-up gigs and polishing my set, last Saturday was my heat of the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year contest, at the Tournament in Earl's Court.

Competition aside, it was a great gig. The room upstairs was packed, probably the biggest crowd I'd performed to.

They might not have been the warmest audience ever (I noticed one or two stern faces in the room), but the numbers more than made up for it and the reaction I got was brilliant. The energy I was getting back seemed to give me a boost and help me put even more into the rest of my set. I even felt confident enough to throw in an extra gag I'd been unsure about. Probably as good an argument as any for putting your best material early on.

Unfortunately, I got some mild heckling towards the middle. Nothing malicious, but it was enough to eat up a few seconds so I ran over, which I really hate doing (really isn't fair on other acts, for a start). Two things I could probably learn from this. Firstly, I shouldn't be afraid of dropping gags off the end if I'm running out of time (still need to learn to be less precious about material). Second, I need to be more concise when ad-libbing, which will probably come with time, but I have to keep it in mind.

In the end, I didn't get through, but then again I wasn't really expecting to. The five folks that got through all did fabulously, particularly Mark Stevenson, who won the night overall and is still better every time I see him.