I’ve done three great gigs since my last post, which has left me feeling pretty good about this ridiculous endeavour.
First up Sam Rhodes gave me a 10 minute spot at his Comedy Explosion night. Those nights are run in the public bar area of the Cornershop Bar in Shoreditch, which means you get an interesting mix of people who are there for the comedy and random drinkers.
As it happened, one of those random drinkers was a guy I know through work, who was there with his girlfriend. They were sat fairly close to the mic, so Sam and some of the other acts did a little gentle crowd work with them, to the point that most people in the place were aware of them.
This gifted me an easy opener – I told the room that I was living every open-mic comedian’s worst nightmare, because somebody from work had randomly stumbled into one of my gigs. It wasn’t particularly strong (never mind that most people from work have already been to one of my gigs anyway) but it was a genuine, and funny enough, coincidence to get a good reaction.
This was a couple of weeks ago now and I can’t remember exactly how I filled the ten minutes, other than running through my best five minutes at a more relaxed pace than usual, with extended versions of some bits, and one or two new lines. I deliberately avoided using my two old standby time-fillers (Racist Baby, and Vasectomy) because I’m kind of done with them for now.
It didn’t feel like a struggle filling the ten minutes, soI think I’ve managed to build a half decent chunk of material over recent months without realising how much new stuff I’ve written. I’ve got another 10 spot there next week, so I’m looking forward to doing a more focused set, rather than just rambling through it.
A nice night all round, and it was great to bump into Akin Omobitan, who I haven’t seen for a while.
Next up was a 5 minute spot at Angel Comedy RAW. It was my third time there and I always look forward to the gig because they always manage to fill the room with a real audience, and that makes getting laughs much easier. I ran through my usual set and it went well enough, with good solid laughs all the way through, but I annoyed myself by flubbing some of my bits so they didn’t have the impact that I know they can when I deliver them well.
I’ve got a tendency to waffle and meander too much, when I know I can deliver the exact same joke in half the time and make it much punchier. I think I just need to spend more time practicing each of the bits from beginning to end, rather than just memorising the punchlines and taking the long-winded route to get to them.
I had that on my mind when I went to the last ever We Are Funny Project gig, because I only had a three minute spot there, so I knew it would be important to be focused. I did my favourite bits from my best five minutes, with one I’ve not tried before, and I really made a conscious effort to be economical with my words, while at the same time talking more clearly and slowly to give the jokes time to land.
It was an absolutely packed night, with lots of genuine audience as well as friends of Alfie from the comedy scene who were just there to watch his swansong. The atmosphere was great, and by the time I went up (fifth of the night, I think) everybody was already well and truly up for it.
Alfie handed me a gift by letting me go up directly after his 12 year old son did a spot – the last time that happened I improvised an opener about the situation which did brilliantly, so this was a good opportunity to use it again in front of a much bigger audience.
That got me off to a strong start, and things just get better – I walked off the stage feeling like I’d done exactly what I wanted, and got the best reaction I could have hoped for. Watching the video back, I think there are probably some areas that could be improved, but I still think it was one of my best gigs.
Sad to see WAFP finish, but it was a great note to end on.
Very nice set, and that seemed to be a very good audience. I’m sorry to hear it’s closing, too, bc that was one of the ones I went to and I enjoyed it.