Feeling a bit more upbeat this week. The other night I did a spot at We Are Funny again, and I was worried about how it would go because, against my better judgement, I’d agreed to take a bunch of colleagues to the gig as they’d been asking about coming to watch me.
I’ve been feeling a bit rusty recently, and you can’t expect much of a turnout to an open-mic night on a warm summer Monday night, so my worry was that I’d end up doing a bad set in a dead room, with a bunch of people from work there to witness the whole train wreck.
As it turned out, the room was packed with a lively audience – really not what you expect at this time of year. The night was kicked off by the fantastic Nick Horseman, and he was followed by a strong line up of acts who kept the energy high, even the one act who was doing her first ever spot.
I was given the first spot of the second half, which is a good place to be when the night is going well – the audience is properly warmed up and feeling good, you don’t have to follow another act, so you can set the tone for the rest of the evening.
I was still a little worried about being rusty, and used the drinks break to hide in a corner and think through my set a few times.
Recently I’ve been sticking with my best five minutes of material, but trying to deliver the material in different ways to see if they work better, and maybe find ways of expanding them by coming at them from a different angle. So it’s not really a problem of remembering the running order of my bits, just what version of the bits I want to do and any extra lines I want to add to them.
By the time I got on stage I was feeling comfortable about it all and I did a by-the-numbers delivery of my strongest five minutes. Everything landed well, the new versions of old bits just felt right, I got solid laughs all the way through and finished on a strong punchline – couldn’t ask for more from a Monday night open-mic. Mostly I was just happy that it was a strong night when I had some people from work along with me.
Sad to think it’ll be my last full set at WAF. I’ll be doing 3 minutes of completely new material (as Alfie requested) on the closing night in a couple of weeks, but after that it’s over.
Next week I’ve got a 10 minute spot at Sam Rhodes Comedy Explosion on Monday, and I’ll be doing 5 minutes at Angel Comedy RAW on Wednesday. I’ve been at RAW twice before and had an amazing time on both nights, so I’m feeling pretty good about going back there. Tomorrow I’m heading to Rising Star as a bringer for a friend, but I’ve not been there for ages so it’s going to be good to check the night out again.