Comedy Progress (Norm style, but not really)

Martin Besserman, promoter at Monkey Business rang me out of the blue on Thursday and said he'd had a few girl acts drop out of his New Acts Night that evening and would I like to come down? I agreed - wow - a promoter rang me?? This was super cool. Have I hit the big time?

Well, I'd been working at home on Thursday, so I was in that staying in kind of mood, but I tried to shake myself out of it and dragged my sorry arse down to Kentish Town. The venue was really busy and cramped. I arrived late and had just enough time to get a bottle of beer, then I had a bit of trouble squeezing past people to a seat near Peter who had come along to support (thanks Peter - for the support, not for picking the difficult to get to seat) the first section of the show, the acts were really strong. 

I was trying not to smoke on Thursday* and that started to get me a bit angsty after a while, plus I was kind of hemmed in and couldn't get to the bar freely to at least keep my beer levels topped up (aaah... not cool). The first interval came and went and again in the second section, they were all pretty good acts. Martin was putting on about six acts per section and the only shame is he has this habit of letting early acts over run. Not great if he leaves you to go on later in the show... By the second interval, it was getting late. There had already been three girls perform amidst all the other boys and two of those girls had been very strong acts and very polished. 

(Why was I here again?) 

Minimum levels (ok, usual levels) of preparation for me involve running through the seven in my head and recalling where the funnies are. If there are any new bits, I might read them through too. On Thursday, I was sitting there barely able to concentrate on even the most basic stuff in my set, what with the nicotine receptors leading their merry disruptive dance in my head... now I was quite concerned that these other girls were storming it. 

At that second interval, about a quarter to a third of the audience left. It was almost 11 o'clock by that stage. I don't blame them. Some other comedians around me were chatting and started to add up how many acts were left and we estimated five. We weren't getting out of that place until almost midnight!! I briefly considered saying to Martin, take me off the list, but as we all know - a gig is a gig. As it turned out there were more like six or seven acts still left to perform though. 

By the time I got to the stage, at around 11.30 (second to last) I felt tired, pee'd off and apologetic to the audience - who were also tired and all comedy'd out by then. My set was a bit of a shocker, peppered with tripping over words and fluffed punch lines, but some bits still got laughs. At times, I was laughing at myself and my own mistakes and did interact with the audience a bit, which was kinda cool, the audience seemed to react fairly well to me, despite my shambolic performance style. A new line about my Personal Trainer came to me in a flash and that got laughs, so it wasn't all bad, but it didn't end too well...

I totally forgot the funny bit for number 7, so made some embarrassing announcement about the joke being me, which got a huge heart felt - "aaaaah" back from the audience... Thanks - sympathy isn't what I came for - thought I, so I backtracked, told them I couldn't be arsed thinking of the last joke, made my sincere apologies, said my goodbyes and left the stage. ooops!! My mind actually had gone blank. Maybe I would  have given myself time to collect my thoughts, if I hadn't still been embarrassed about how late it was. Who knows. I hope I didn't appear like too much of a dick for not putting in the effort. Late or not, I should have given it my best shot. And - apparently I was wrong. Martin Besserman just likes to have too many acts and I have a long way to go before I've hit the big time!

Norm says he is looking for high energy stillness. I think I found low energy stillness on Thursday. Perhaps if I'd had a red bull beforehand, I'd have been closer to the magic formula. 

Improvisation. Norm (talking about you again - I think I might be obsessed...) Norm is doing improvisation and I'm bounding onto the improv bandwagon head first. I'm signing up for a whole weekend of it, back with my old buddies the Comedy School and it is next weekend. Ha ha. I've heard mixed reviews about the course, but what do reviewers know hey??? I'm hoping I get some material ideas out of fooling around for two days (worth the 75 quid on its own - as anyone waiting for me to write more comedy ideas down would know...) Also if it helps me react and bounce off the audience, my need for material could become a thing of the past. Muah ha ha ha. 

My motives are clearly less honorable than Norman's search for a higher level of  comedy understanding, comedy consciousness and ultimately reaching comedy nirvana. I'm just looking for ways to get round the traditional requirement of comedy being written... I am slightly concerned that it will be quite physical and jolly or that I'm going to have to imagine a chair isn't really a chair. Aaaaaaah shoot me now!! Well, I think it will be useful anyway.

Quincy and Aussie Dave are on the same course, plus I've planned drinks with Debs on Saturday night, so it is like a full blown reunion... if not useful - it should be fun :-)

*smoke update - It is 2 days and 11 hours since my last ciggie. Up until a month or three ago, I wouldn't smoke every day anyway, so a bit disheartening to be counting hours... How distressing - I'm a crazy addict.