Archway - 15/07/09
Jul0
| Who | Arthur Fowlers Allotment |
| When |
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
8:00pm
-
All Ages
|
| Where |
Hideaway Bar (map)
114 Junction Road
Archway n19 5lb |
London - 14/07/09
Jul0
| Who | Comedy Virgins |
| When |
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
8:00pm
-
All Ages
|
| Where |
128 Hartington Road
Stockwell, London SW8 2HJ |
London - 02/07/09
Jul0
| Who | Undercover Clown |
| When |
Thursday, July 2, 2009
8:00pm
-
All Ages
|
| Where |
The Queen’s Head (map)
15 Denman St
Picadilly Circus, London W1D 7HN |
Back to Earth
Jun1
And now he’s grounded.
I did Dale’s night at the queens head - I hadn’t brought anyone so I was entered into the slam - all the acts get 3 minutes and then the winner of the laugh off gets to finish. My new even more offensive than usual opening went down really well - especially as there was an asian comic who’d done the stereotypical accent earlier so I could play on that. For some reason I massively miscalculated the length of my material so I ended up partway through a routine.
Anyway, I and another comic were joint winners so I got to go back up to finish my set. Now, after I’d done my bit I realised that the timing of my set was wrong & I was stressing about what I was going to do if I won. So when they were having the vote I was voting for the other guy. Anyway, I went back on, tried to resurrect the routine I was in the middle of and that didn’t work at all. Switched to something else that didn’t worth either and then I just freaked and walked off without finishing - which I think is the first time I’ve done that.
Dale was very nice after the gig and said he should have realised that I didn’t want to go back on. But darlings, the show must go on.
No but seriously, it was a useful experience and I’ve had enough good gigs to realise that that was a one-off and that I am funny although I still have a long way to go.
Desperately Seeking Salvation
Jun0
teh date: 24.06 (that’s 3 gigs in a row - madness surely)
teh place: Desperately seeking stagetime
New night, run by Anthony and Phil from the course. Was a really excellent night - wonderful cool room opposite Bond Street tube (so piece of piss for me to get home from).
Took me a while to find the place for some unknown reason, so by the time I was there I’d missed out on the guaranteed slots and had to stick my name in for a random draw.
The cream of the london new act circuit were there, all of the more established acts I’ve grovelingly made friends with in the hope that they might aid my career, and the newbie scum who I look down upon and despise.
I ended up breaking my no-drinking before I’ve been on rule again, but I was feeling quite tired and I thought I needed a pint in a sort of kill or cure type scenario. It worked.
Didn’t want to do my standard 5 as most (but not all) of the audience were fellow acts, and at least 50% of them had seen my act before. So I ended up doing probably the most offensive set I’ve even seen - exactly the sort of thing that I said I wasn’t going to do when I started this comedy lark. It involved a spacker voice (I can say that, you can’t - diplomatic immunity once again) and a reworking of a very old ice cream joke that my dad used to tell me. The payoff line was about how black and asian comics often play with the audience’s expectations by putting on a stereotypical voice (I was thinking of Omid Djalili when I wrote it).
The worst thing about it - well I say the worst thing, it was all pretty horrible - but a particularly bad thing about it was that when I was doing the spacker voice, people who knew me were laughing along but people who’d never seen me before were looking at them giving them daggers for mocking the poor disabled lad who had the courage to get on stage.
I am going to hell for that one.
But at least I got a laugh.
Sunny Stoke Newington
Jun2
teh date: 23.06 (that’s a day after the last one - I’m getting serious about this shit, fo’real)
teh place: Party Piece
Really starting to get worried now about how consistently well this is going. I know I’m due for a fall and I think the better this keeps on going the worse the damage to my ego will be. However, in the meantime it’s nice to knock them dead every night.
Once again at PP I had a weird feeling about the gig. The first bit had some really big names (relatively speaking) but some of them seemed to treat it as less of a gig and more of just a chat. It was bizarre.
Nice to see David, Nelson and Sarah again. Sarah’s completely changed her stuff since the last time I saw her, which is a shame in some ways because I liked her self-harm material. But the new stuff is very good, although as I pointed out, exceptionally lazy in that it just consists of extracts from this ridiculous psychic Hello-type magazine.
I’m just jealous I didn’t think of the idea, and wasted my time writing cocking Eurovision jokes that didn’t age well.
Tom was very happy with me because I’d brought audience once again. He promised me a drink which I failed to collect in the end. Went on and killed them all, switched my set back to an earlier style - brought back the IT jokes which went down surprisingly well, although I thought the peer-to-peer once should have got a better laugh. Stupid audience not familiar with network topologies.
Got the tube back with Mark Restuccia (proper comic - he features on chortle and everything) who was extremely complimentary about my set. Yay me!
Stockwell once again
Jun0
(apologies - I’ve not been updating these regularly so now I’m going to write a bunch of reviews at once)
Teh date: 22nd June
Teh place: Cavendish Arms, Stockwell (again)
Another fine gig at stockwell - I know I keep going on about it but I really do love the Cavendish.
It was a bit of a reunion for the people I did the course with - about 3 of us were on - Stevie G opened again and once again failed to get into the clap-off. But, he’s so good he doesn’t need the likes of the petty Cavendish Arms’ audience to approve of him.
And, in fact, the fact that I did get into the clap-off should be taken as a condemnation of my work.
By which standards, I have a very long long way to go.
Could potentially have won the clap-off but (joking apart) - I don’t really like that kind of competitiveness in the new act scene. And I’m most definitely not saying that because I failed at the Laughing Horse New Act competition at the first round. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Apparently my stabbing motion looks more like a wanking one. I should probably clear it up with David that I’m implying he’s a murderer rather than a wanker.
Marylebone, London - 24/06/09
Jun0
| Who | Desperately Seeking Stagetime |
| When |
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
8:00pm
-
All Ages
|
| Where |
The Coach Makers (map)
88 Marylebone Lane
Marylebone, London W1U 2BZ |
Stoke Newington - 23/06/09
Jun0
| Who | Party Piece |
| When |
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
8:00pm
-
All Ages
|
| Where |
Pangea Project (map)
72 Stamford Hill
Stoke Newington N16 6xs |
Wimbledon Park
Jun0
Good gig.
Jesus it’s hard thinking up new stuff to write about this. I suppose it’s testing my abilities as a writer to think up new angles (ha ha) on old, tired stuff.
So yes, (psych myself up, ready for showtime), gig last night’s was good. Once again unexpected friends turned up, not the biggest crowd in the world but they were very friendly.
I think I’m growing in confidence in every gig I do. I still think I don’t react enough to what’s going on around me, I’m still predicting how certain gags will go.