When I first got interested in doing stand-up a few years ago, We Are Funny was one of the open mic nights that showed up on my radar. Although it took me a while to get started, they’re still running three nights a week and I was keen to get a spot there to check the place out.
The night is run in the large basement room of Farr’s School of Dancing – not actually a dance school, but a really nice pub in Shoreditch (with £3.30 pints – woohoo!) There’s a proper stage, a decent PA system, and it feels a bit more real than some of the smaller ‘room above a pub’ nights.
I was there on Tuesday night, and although there were a few dropouts the room had 20+ people, which included five GENUINE AUDIENCE MEMBERS, as well as the other acts. The good thing about WAFP is that it’s not a bringer night, but the flipside of that is that you never really know how much of an audience you’re going to perform for.
The night is MC’d by an effervescent Italian called Alex Martini, who does a magnificent job of keeping the comedy train chugging along.
I went up fifth in the first half and did the same five minute set I’ve been working on at the previous gigs. It was tough going because the energy in the room was fairly low at that point and my opener didn’t work quite as well as it did last time. But I ploughed on and managed to warm the audience up a bit, although it felt like I was getting more groans than laughs as I did some of my darker bits.
I didn’t bother with notes, and apart from a brief stumble at the beginning I got through my entire set from memory, with one small exception. As I was getting into bed later that night I realised I’d completely forgotten to deliver the punchline to one of my strongest bits. I did the setup and they were laughing at the general premise, but somehow I just skipped the most important part and went straight onto the next bit.
This is interesting for me because it just shows that material can still sort of work even when you fuck it up, which is a handy life lesson.
The rest of the night was standard open mic fodder, a few great acts, a few that still need work. Professional act, Tom Little, closed the night off by testing out some of his new material – don’t think I’ve ever speak so quickly in my life. Combined with a pretty thick Salford accent it’s amazing anybody can understand a word he says, but somehow it just works.
I had some nice feedback from the other acts, and an especially interesting chat with a guy called Howard Cohen (a much more experienced act) who had some good advice for me – mostly about learning to not give a fuck…
I’ll definitely be back to WAFP as soon as I can – nights where you don’t need a bringer are going to be useful as my friends gradually get bored of my dragging them to gigs. Next week I’ll be back at the Cav on Wednesday for a prebooked spot, and might try to do another night if I can find one.