I did a ten minute spot at Sam Rhodes Comedy Explosion last week, gig number 98 by my reckoning. The weather was hot and I was on at the end of a long night, but despite that most people stuck around, even though the energy was flagging.
I’d spent most of the night sitting at the front, so a few acts used me as a crash-dummy for their crowd-work bits, and I tried to riff on some of that stuff at the beginning of my set as a kind of improv/callback/crowd-work thing, playing back to the guys who’d called on me earlier. For example, one act asked me to guess her age and was surprised that I got it right, so I made a crack about me spending a lot of time creeping on her Facebook page – and I think it kind of worked because it seemed clear from our interactions on stage that we both knew eachother, and I’m old enough to be her dad, which made it extra awkward.
None of it was particularly strong, but it got a bit of a reaction from the room even though they were understandably half asleep by that point. I think audiences will generally reward you for trying that kind of thing, and it doesn’t need to be killer material, it just shows that you’re present and paying attention to what’s happening in the room.
That all burned up about a minute or so of my time, and then I reeled off most of my current five minute set, with some new extended bits thrown in. They laughed at some of it, but everybody was hot and tired, and my new bits were very rough around the edges, so it was all really just a bit of a dry run and I couldn’t judge how well the new stuff works.
I think I did considerably less than ten minutes, despite running through much more stuff than usual, because there weren’t exactly a lot of laugh breaks. But I finished on a decent laugh, my current closer seems pretty reliable under most circumstances. Either way, Comedy Explosion is always a fun gig, and there were a lot of acts on that I really like: Steph Aritone, Will Hitt, Ginnia Cheng, Jacob Hatton, the legendary John Sharp, and a great act I’ve never seen before, Steve Vertigo. With a line-up like that, who gives a shit how mediocre my own set was.
I’m at a bit of a loose end until the end of August now – I have a couple of weeks holiday coming up so I’ve held back from booking any gigs, apart from the Comedy Virgins summer competition on Monday 5th (I need a bringer if anybody’s free for that – drink and a pizza on offer).
I’m not going to book any gigs until I get back from holiday, because I plan to spend a bit of time getting some more podcasts recorded, even if it means not performing for a bit, and I want to spend a bit of time writing too. I’ve done a couple of 10 minute spots recent and I’ve been woefully unprepared for both – I know I’ve got plenty of material to build up a solid 10, but I haven’t been disciplined enough to work on it.
A friend offered me some floor space in Edinbugh, if I could get myself up there with a sleeping bag, but much as I’d love to go to the Fringe it’s kind of hard to work around family and the day job. Maybe I’ll go next year, but if I’m going to invest time and money in getting there I want to be on top form to make the most of any gigs I do up there, so I’m not ready yet.