Buoyed on by the success
of my debut, I had booked in for 2 more sets. One was the 2012 Raw Comedy Quest
which I’ll write about in the next blog, the other was a Raw Meat Monday in the
later part of March. That was some way out from last set, about 6 weeks. I
learned that the Monday nights fill up fast and you had to be quick if you
wanted to get in again. They also have a free spot every Monday that goes to
the first person to ask for it on the night at the venue. So after last time
keeping it a secret, I decided that I’d just let James my best friend know, and
my girlfriend Kim.
It’s Probably worth
addressing here why I struggle with the thought of inviting friends to watch
me. For me, the thought of some good friends sat in the audience is a hard one
to get past, I’m afraid they’ll not enjoy it and think I wasn’t very
good. I’m not wanting to be loved and lauded by all, but if I were to
have a poor set, I hate the idea of losing face in front of a good friend or
loved one. The second part to it is, I know these people and I know their sense
of humour, and I know some of my stuff they won’t enjoy as much, it sounds
silly but going up there and thinking of a friend sat in the crowd hearing
stuff not to their tastes doesn’t appeal. I’ve since gotten over that
to a degree but it does play on my mind.
So I get to the Fringe bar
for this second set and see Rick from last week there, have a quick word
and set off to see the run list and where Ill be performing. Oh
goody, I’m up first. The good news is, the MC for the night is Gabriel
Page, if you haven’t seen him before, he’s a musical comedian that
sings twisted love songs. Now I’m no fan of musical comedy, most of the time I
think its really clever but the actual material is weak. I’ve seen
Gabe perform a few times including his 2011 festival show and can safely say
his stuff was really funny as well as being clever so I was pretty pleased to
have him MC’ing. About 15 mins to go and hardly anyone has shown up,
it’s cold, windy and drizzly outside so it looks like it’s going to be a
pretty poor crowd in. James shows up and has a chat to me, we make a few jokes
about the abysmal looking turnout, I think it must have been pretty obvious to
him though that I felt a bit uncomfortable and embarrassed by the low numbers.
Kim came in not long after and said hi. At this stage I’m looking
round and notice that, between the performers, the bar staff, the sound guys
and the night organisers, we outnumber the actual punters. I’m feeling really
disappointed by this, feels a bit ridiculous having Kim and James here when it
looks to be a washout. Compounding my worry is the fact I’ve ditched
my previous set to try all new stuff and I haven’t had any experience working a
small crowd. It’s getting to the point where I’m feeling really
apprehensive about the whole thing. James and Kim take a seat (no trouble
securing a spot..) and I sit with them as Gabe takes the stage.
It might sound silly but I
was really impressed with the way Gabe just got on with it, wasn’t affected by
the numbers at all, he owned the stage. He had the swagger of an experienced
comic that had done this all before for crowds of all sizes. Gabes opening
lasted a while and I was silently going over my set in my head. He finished up
to good applause, sounding like there were more people there than there was in
reality.
I took to the stage when
introduced, and once again my nerves disappeared instantly. I began my set and
knew from the start that I wasn’t in for a repeat of my prior effort. I could
hear everything happening in that place, the cash register opening, some bell
going off in the distance, it was getting to me. The other thing I could
hear was Kim's laugh, not because she was being particularly loud but because
there were that few people laughing that I could pick hers out, that really put
me off, again not her fault but still. I was going along getting the odd good
laugh, some chuckles but plenty of silence too. This was my first
experience with something that still throws me a bit, waiting for a laugh and
getting nothing. The other thing I noticed was a guy in the front row, leaning
back on his chair, tapping the table and clearly not enjoying it. I was
racing through my set, desperate to finish and that’s when I really messed up,
I blanked. I was doing a joke about people that go off camping terribly
prepared and get into trouble, the set up went fine, but when I got to the punch
line I just couldn’t remember the next word... I stumbled over the last thing
I'd said over and over again, sounding like a broken record.. "To avoid.. To
avoid... To avoid..."
A voice piped up from the
front row, it was a heckle! Josh Samuels (also on the bill that night) finished
my sentence for me.. "Laughing" he said, the sentence obviously
becoming "to avoid laughing". Well, no one needed any extra help
avoiding laughing now. My first thought was "what a knob heckling
me!" but on reflection it was a blessing. He wasn't being mean
spirited and by saying something he allowed me to stop rambling and actually
move on. I didn’t "school" him like you see good comics do,
but it really saved me from myself. I finished up to smattered applause and
almost ran off stage, Usain Bolt wouldn't have beaten me back to my seat.
I took a seat with James
and Kim but I knew it was poor, it was exactly the thing I feared most with
inviting them. I felt pretty gutted that they had come out to see me, after my
triumphant tales from last time, and that was what they saw. Gabe was doing
another couple of songs but near the start of the second one he blanked, I was
pretty surprised. He just forgot how his song went, but this was a lesson on
how to blank for me, he admitted it, laughed it off, said "Fuck it!"
And moved on. I pocketed that for when it next happened to me. I can't
remember who was up next, I was still digesting my own horror show. I certainly
remember the following performer though.
She was a young girl about
19 or 20 and it was her first ever time up. I was only new myself so I could
sympathise with her as she was plainly nervous. What followed however was an
absolute howler of a performance.
I've seen people die
before but this was something else. I was bad, but this was a train wreck.
She was just warbling on and on, like a truck that had a tire blow out and was
now careening all over the road out of control, unable to stop. Joke after joke
fell totally flat, not even a pity laugh. It was this high pitched rambling
punctuated with big arm movements against a backdrop of silence. I felt for her
but anyone there would tell you that there was a palpable sense of relief in
the air when the set mercifully drew to a close. If it’s possible to be mauled
by silence, we had all just witnessed it. She knew how awful it had gone and
headed straight for the exit, wooshka! Off the stage and out the door! Poor
girl, I'm not sure stand up was for her but it takes guts to get up there and
she definitely deserves credit for getting up there.
Gabe bought some semblance
of normality back to proceedings and bought on ... The guy who was looking
bored in the front row! I couldn't believe it! Turned out he was Ben Stokes, an
English guy that had been doing comedy for a little while. I'll be honest, I
hoped he wasn't going to be funny.. Disappointingly for me he was quite good! I
liked his material and while a few bits fell flat for him, you could tell he
was a funny guy.
Rick was up next, not his
greatest set but overall I thought he was again the best on the night. I was
kind of relieved it was tough going for all, that might sound cruel, but I
didn't want to be the one guy that blew it on an otherwise glittering night of
stars.
Josh Samuels set was
entertaining to say the least, he started well and had all the presence you'd
expect from an experienced performer, he commanded the stage, played off the
tiny audience like a pro and looked for all money like he was going to have a
great set... Unfortunately for Josh, about halfway through, he found one of his
jokes hilarious. He fell into hysterics quickly, then literally collapsed in a
fit of laughter before eventually being forcefully removed from the stage to
head to the green room to compose himself. It was hilariously entertaining but
probably not what he'd envisaged for his set.
The nights closing act was
Hadley Donaldson, I'd never seen Hadley but there was a good buzz around about
him. The 10-minute spot at the end is for the more experienced comedians, Hadley
had been on the scene for just under a year and I was looking forward to seeing
him.
He blanked early on and
never really recovered, he was doing it tough and allowed his internal
monologue to vocalise, at one point saying "I'm just rambling on...".
It was a poor set but I actually liked his ideas and was sure he'd be great on
another night.
The evening came to a
close, it had been a really tough night for all. At one point or another, every
single act had lost train of thought and messed up a bit, some worse than
others. On a personal note I was gutted, embarrassed that I'd gone poorly while
my best friend and my girlfriend looked on. James told me it wasn't as bad as I
thought but I could tell he was sugar coating it, in the coming days he was more
honest which I appreciated, a true friend is going to be straight with you.
On the way out Hadley
stopped me and said he liked my set, which was nice of him, I returned the
compliment but he brushed it off. I knew how he felt, neither of us wanted a
compliment on something we weren't proud of. The lesson I took out of the
evening was that you're going to have tiny crowds sometimes and you've just got
to deal with it. I also learned there's a way to get past a blank, there's
probably not much point trying to save a joke you've messed up so just move on.
I headed home with Kim,
not really saying much. I felt like I'd let her down. I was dreading the raw
meat competition now. It was only in 2 weeks time too. And that's what
I'll blog about next time
Thanks for reading
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