Ok, so, yes its been over 3 months since I updated this blog, and yes, a lot of the initial interest in my ramblings has probably died off long ago, and yeah, I'll probably lose interest yet again but hey... I can only but try!
So my last post I had just made it through the heat and into the semi final. I was pleased with that and as I had said in the build up, my goal was to simply make it out of the heat. I had two weeks to prepare for the semi final and I was reasonably sure that I would do much the same set but I did want to make a few tweaks. I wasn't really certain what the expectation was with a competition, on one hand, maybe you're supposed to do the same set the whole way through, on the other, maybe they want you do do something brand new every time to see if you have more than just 6 good minutes in you. I decided to Email Jerome who was coordinating the competition to ask him what the done thing was. He told me that most people perform the same set so that gave me some confidence I wasnt going to be the only guy there just recycling the same stuff, the judges and audiences would be different each time so I felt that making a couple of minor tweaks was the best option.
The Semi final was going to be at the San Fran Bathhouse, a venue in wellington that was much bigger than the fringe bar and held a variety of gigs, mostly music. Its a pretty cool place and was the venue I had first gone to see comedy at in wellington, about 7 years ago I used to come to the odd raw meat night and saw the likes of Steve Wrigley, Ben Hurley and Cori Gonzalez do some of their earliest stuff. In a bit of an ironic twist, Steve Wrigley was going to be on the 3 person judging panel for the semi final, so I had gone full circle from sitting in the crowd watching him, to the reverse. I thought that was kind of interesting.. even if nobody else did. The San Fran holds around 200 people max I would guess. I had no idea how many to expect in on the night, I thought maybe 50 people would be great. (As it transpired roughly 100-120 people showed up and were a great crowd).
The night drew closer and I had made the small changes I wanted to, I kept reassuring myself that I had achieved my goal of even making it so anything else was a bonus. I knew I would be up against a solid lineup, most of the people who weren't quite up to standard had been knocked out in the heats so everyone from here on in would have something about them. I knew I would be on with the 3 others from my night, Josh Franklin, Kent Lambert and Roni Saul. Id have to say its at this point you start thinking competitively, thinking "am I better than that person?, Did I get a better laugh last time?". The 3 that went through on my heat with me all got great laughs so there was just no separating myself, there was no one I confidently thought I could beat. Its an odd feeling, thinking about comedy in a competitive sense. When you are an audience member you just either like an act or not, you might pick out a favourite at the end of the night or talk about someone doing terribly but you wouldn't sit there and rank 6 or 8 acts against one another, It felt a bit weird to be hoping you did better than the next person, I do comedy because I just want to go out on stage, get laughs and have people enjoy what I did, not to beat anyone else. The other thing with judging comedy is, its so subjective, What you find funny, I may think is awful, What I find hilarious, the entire audience may think is utterly boring. I see comedians all the time now that are totally convinced they have a bit of comedy gold, explaining a joke unable to stop chuckling at how good it is, only to see it fall flatter than a pancake when they deliver it on stage. Now sometimes, the bit may just be bad, not funny, ... but other times, they will tell the same joke, in the same style, and get a huge laugh from it. Subjective. When you're faced with being judged, all you can do is .. exactly what you'd do if you weren't, go out and try make the audience laugh.
I stuck to my pre gig ritual and met James roughly 30 minutes before I had to be at the venue, we had a beer each and chatted away about everything BUT comedy. Exactly what I wanted, to take my mind of it. Eventually though the clock ticked down and I had to head off. Most of the time I tell people I don't really get nervous, what I mean by that is, I don't get so nervous that I can't function or feel sick. I have a lot of nervous energy for about 2 hours prior to performing, and that ebbs and flows until I go on, at which stage all the nerves evaporate.
At the point I'm walking up the San Fran stairs though, I'm feeling it. The place is fairly empty when I get inside and I see Jerome right away who shows me how to get backstage. I'm the first performer there. I mill around or a bit, waiting for the others to turn up. Hilaire shows up with the running order and makes a joke about another performer enjoying a quick spliff outside... At least, I think it was a joke. I look at the running order and see I'm the last act of the first half. That's a good spot I reckon, probably my favourite, the crowd is warmed up and you can unwind in the second half. Gradually people show up, except Roni. Word is that Roni couldn't make the night and swapped to the other semi final and got through. The others that made it through were Holly Gooch, Hadley Donaldson and Ben Stokes.
Justine Smith was the MC and spent quite a bit of time talking to us backstage, she was nice enough, pretty similar to her stage persona- no bullshit, quite vulgar and a definite air of performance about her. At one point I referred to her as a 'Comedienne' as in the female descriptor of comedian... And promptly got my head bitten off for it. It was all in a very friendly way though.
Backstage with me are Rick and Josh from my heat, Jennifer O'Sullivan, Kent also from my heat, Ben Caldwell (also known as Tito), Tom Reed and Shaun Piercy. In honesty, there were people there I thought I could do better than, and people there I thought I would be hard pressed to squeeze by. 2 I had never seen do a set before.
We get underway and it's a total blur, about 2 mins into Justines intro, a dude brings back a load of bottled water and red bulls for us... I couldn't believe it! Free things! So far as I was concerned this was the big leagues now... They'd probably be bringing in the brick of cocaine and half a dozen hookers soon. I was petty amped for performing as you might imagine so all I really remember is chatting with Rick nervously, and Kent once again getting his shirt off and seeming extremely confident. The one other point of note is that Josh Franklin got good laughs but finished up his set weirdly early, before departing the stage he mentioned he had a joke about Snake Skin trousers... He then proceeded to walk off and Steve Wrigley demanded to hear the joke and whipped the crowd up into a frenzy. Josh then came straight back out to do another 2 minutes. Finally I am up, I shake off the nerves and deliver my set. It's so hard to judge how you've done in the heat of the moment. I know I got some laughs, I know that the last joke I ended on went very well, and I could hear Steve Wrigley laughing really loudly from somewhere in the darkness. Justine shakes my hand and I head backstage to guzzle my free water and run over it in my head.
It's the interval and I can hear people out on the floor moving around, I'm the only person back in the green room. So far as I'm feeling now, I'm gone, I've not done enough and I didn't have an amazing set. I start texting people that have come to watch me,
"I'm gone, didn't go great"
"Wasn't my best effort, hope I did ok"
Again I'm getting pretty negative on myself. It wasn't until I watch the video back the day after and realise I did pretty well, got laughs the entire way through.
From this point on I'm trying to rank people. I reckon Josh is through, Rick went ok but I thought he may miss out. Shaun had a good set, I enjoyed it and figured he'd go through. Ben (Tito) was solid, he had ups and downs in his set and I couldn't tell if he'd go through or not. Kent got good laughs again, he was through I was sure, Tom Reed had gone in the first half and I didn't know how he'd gone, Jennifer O'Sullivan was talking backstage about how she had no prepared material... But I caught her rehearsing something in the mirror.. I'm onto you Jen! She also casually mentioned shed known a couple of the judges for years. I didn't really know how to take that, I guess if I'm honest I felt a bit intimidated. She closed the night and had a couple of mind blanks, but didn't have a bad set by anyone's definition.
As the judges tallied up, I went and told Josh he was a sure thing and congratulated him... Which was followed by my rather self indulgent concession speech.
Steve Wrigley took the stage and announced "in no particular order" the performers who had made it to the final. Josh Franklin.. No surprises there, Rick Threlfo.. Pretty sure Rick got through on the strength of his material as it wasn't his best night performance wise. Adam Wright... What.. Wait, WHAT?! I'd made it to the final! Cue a huge cheer and shriek from the table of people there for me. And lastly, Kent Lambert, not surprisingly after a good set.
It's a weird sensation again as coupled with the buzz and euphoria of making it through, there are people sitting around feeling gutted. Poor Ben Caldwell looked distraught, shattered as he held a beer and looked ahead clearly feeling like shit. Tom Reed was disappointed obviously but magnanimous in defeat. A few handshakes amongst the acts and I'm stood talking to Josh Franklin when Steve Wrigley pops backstage to have a word. He shakes my hand and dishes out some pretty high praise to me, telling me I was his favourite act of the night and that he was very impressed. I'm not trying to sound like an arrogant twat, but it was a huge deal for me. Here is a well known NZ comedian, regularly on TV and he's singling me out for praise. I felt pretty pleased with myself as I made my way out to see the people that had come to support me. A few random people came up to me with congratulations and nice comments. I was on cloud 9 and ran into Steve W again on the way out who wished me luck and said I was ready to come up to Auckland. He also told me to remove the mic stand from in front of me, my first bit of advice and I was oh so keen to take it.
It's a strange feeling competing in your adult life, I don't quite know how to describe it but, if you fail, that's it, there's no second chances and it takes a while to feel better. I had been one of the lucky ones tonight but had already started thinking about the final in two weeks time. I didn't know it at the time but I was about to make an absolutely awful decision.
Next Blog topic - the Final.
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