Edinburgh Festival - 10th August 2013

10th August 2013  Pleasance Court Yard 

10th show in the run

Length 55 mins

Before Show

The Pleasance Court Yard is mayhem tonight, there are people everywhere . My show starts late and I don’t know why that is. The House has been open for ages and people are coming. There is clearly some problem. The entrance music loops around three times and still we don’t start. I stand behind the curtain and I here this conversation: 

“Gerry. Sit there. Sit there. Don’t sit fucking there. You’ll get destroyed. Sit down the front and you’ll get fucking destroyed. Are you fucking suicidal?  Well bring it on. No one is going to fuck me up. I’ll fuck them up. Have you got a beer? I need a beer. Hold on. I am sitting there. No you sit there. I am ready for this. Bring it on. I’m going to sit there and you can sit there. Arghhhh!” some thing like that. 

During Show

As I enter there are three men on the front row worthy of note. They all have skin heads although I am not necessarily implying they have far right politics. One has a thousand yard stare as though he has seen too much. He stares into the distance and has his arms folded in a permanent pose that doesn’t alter once throughout the entire gig. One sits with his head in his hands from the off as though he is either a) about to vomit b) has been sitting in a sauna for a long time and is reaching the limits of his endurance c) is traumatised by some as yet unknown event d) realises in advance how little he will enjoy this show. The third guy who feels like the pack leader, has intense blue eyes that seem to promise physical violence. The room is very small we stand about 1 metre apart. He stares at me, I stare at him. I don’t want to stop staring at him because he will have won. So I stare back and he stares back and so on.  As I start the show the rest of the audience seem to sense they are mere by standers in some kind of personal duel. The opening stalls and when they don’t go for the “It’s 1970s” line. I know we are in for a slog of a gig.  

There is an odd atmosphere in the room that I cannot pinpoint the exact nature of it.

During the “Professional Gambler” there is an outbreak of chatting between the staring man and a guy in the row behind. He is with them too. There is at least four of them. 

I sort out the chatting but I basically loose this routine as a result and this annoying because it is a strong part of the show. The next routine hinges on “Professional Gambler” it too so it doesn’t really work either. 

I reset and stand further back on stage. This seems more comfortable. The staring man smiles. But is it a sincere smile? Or the smile of someone who thinks that it is shit? Perhaps he can’t help having the eyes of a wolf?

“Mirapex” they are semi on board with this but they don’t really like the reference to Dyslexia. I now openly berate them for being too socially conservative. I tell them that is the routine I used to judge an audience and they have been found wanting. I tell them they are below average for one of my audiences. This gets laughter but not much. Nevertheless the fight back starts here.  There is something that is compelling about the “Just a number” routine that they don’t really go for but then there is genuine gasps at the end of it. I suppose this is where it gets down and dirty. 

During the “Understanding Addiction” section there is audience interaction around the subject of tablet. I let this run on in an attempt to build rapport but in hindsight it runs on too long and lets the audience too out of their box.  There is a guy who heckles about tablet. He starts amiably enough but he will grow to become a nuisance. 

The Dentist routine is strong but they don’t get “Hairdresser”. I keep thinking I am getting them on side only to realize that I am not. They are annoying socially conservative. Needless to say “Dad Embarrassment” They just don’t go for. 

There are jokes about racism that rely on the assumption that racism is a bad thing and should be avoided. I realize that myself and parts of the audience are not on the same page on this one. 

“Adults are Weak” there is multiple heckles from the Tablet Guy during this section I return to it and finish it but any momentum is shot to pieces. 

“Feel the Fear”  I don’t feel inclined to try the new version of this tonight. As it happens we will never know. It is interrupted by the tablet guy again and this time I abandon this routine. There is heckling during the “Kid” routine just on the approach to a punchline. I try and salvage the situation but inevitably the punchline gets less. I explain that it would get more if there were weren’t heckles on the run up to a punchline. This is where I fall out with the Tablet man. Every heckle is “tablet” or “buy tablet” and I am genuinely contemptuous of this man now. His lack of imagination is getting on my tits. The interruptions I can take but he has all the creativity of a car alarm. 

I bash out “Tipping Point” and “Probability” in an attempt to build momentum to the end but as soon as those routines are done the momentum dissipates at the mention of Nate Silver. The End fails to make the impact I want and I decide to round up all the “characters” and incidents that have featured in the show in an attempt to round things together. I mention that I would like to boot the tablet man “up the arse” this draws a shocked “ohhh” from the audience. It is a figure of speech but even at this stage their respect for me is so tenuous they don’t give me the trust to kick someone up the arse without being metaphorical. 

After Show

Two things didn’t happen that I thought would happen. 

There would be walkouts ( and often you just wish they would go) 

The would be a breakdown of gig with open hostility breaking out: didn’t happen. Was it ever really close to this? Felt like it. 

What does it feel from an audience point of view when it teeters on the precipice? Are they aware just who close it is to crashing and burning? Or do they think you are holding it together? Do they just think there is something unsatisfying but they cannot put a finger on it? Do they just think you are shit? 

I think I gave hecklers too much leeway in an attempt to break the ice and get momentum going but I think it made the show too chaotic and upset the narrative. 

I couldn’t get any traction tonight and I could feel an odd resistance from the audience throughout. Particularly during interaction which would usually break the tension there was a reluctance to go with stuff even when they enjoyed it. Afterwards I find out that there was a party of 16 in (one third of the audience) including the three guys in the front row. I don’t think it was their cup of tea and they intimidated the rest of the audience into ambivalence. Or perhaps the rest of the audience were ambivalent on their won merits? But here is the difference I could have bullied the rest of the audience into liking it I couldn’t bully those 16 guys. I don’t feel I know anything about comedy today.   

Edinburgh Festival - 6th August 2013

6th August 2013  Pleasance Court Yard 

7th show in the run

Length I hour.

Before Gig

 A day of interviews. I am interviewed by Arthur Smith who keeps getting my name wrong. I don’t have time for dinner before gig. I eat a hog roast sandwich. It has too much apple sauce and not enough stuffing. I sit outside rather than sit in dressing room and run through the  changes in show. The dressing room is empty today. It is usually full of props, costumes and personal effects  of all the acts appearing in that venue. Today it is almost empty. Apparently there have been some backstage thefts and no one is now leaving their stuff in the dressing rooms. I like the new uncluttered appearance but feel sorry for the victims of crime. 

During Gig

A full house today. A responsive but not overly energetic audience. They greet my entrance very enthusiastically but my words less so.  I ask who gambles and who doesn’t. There is a bit of interaction at the start but slightly noticeable clunkiness as I go into the material. 

The “Bookies Shop” ,“Professional Gambler” “Risk is Manly Section” This has been reordered and I am now feeling my way this section. Bookies Shop today regained some of the visceral quality it had before. I came up with new punchline on stage for “Professional Gambler” and I can see how to make it better now. This just by moving it in the running order. Don’t know why but change of position has opened up new possibilities. “Professional Gambler”  is the star of the opening 15 minutes of the gig. I have dropped “thats the opposite of what women are looking for in a man” line. 

Possessed by Demons Struggles. 

“Mirapex” works well, although they don’t go for the initial mention of Dyslexia. This routine is a good weather vain for the gig and it is also odd because different audiences go for different bits of this routine but overall it tends to always grab them.

“Vicious Circle of Debt.” I come into this too high energy and wrong tone but I manage to correct it through the routine. The routine is compelling but needs a funnier end. 

“The understanding addiction” material engaging. 

“Dentist” works well. Particularly enjoying describing my Scottish childhood in this bit but strangely “Hairdresser” falls flat today. I think set up was too time consuming or perhaps they just didn’t like it. 

The gig rattles along at a level but they aren’t the biggest laughters. There are pockets of enthusiasm. There are three couples who are most responsive members of the audience all seated near the front. People at the back are quieter. I remember to fake eye contact with the back but i do go to the front people when I need laughter for a specific bit. I know they will deliver. 

Kids with sweets routine works really well for the first time since it was moved to this position in running order. This routine aside. There is a general slumping around the “Scrapyard” “Adults are weak” “Feel the fear section” I start to worry the gig is slipping away from me at this point. 

“Feel the fear” routine feels a bit stranded where it is now and still needs work on the ending.

The room is getting exceedingly hot. The heat seems to creep upon me suddenly about 40 mins in. Sweat starts to run down my face, only now, am I aware that I have been too hot for some minutes. I ask the technician to turn the air conditioning on. I ask the audience are they hot? They seem unsure at first. I think the heat has so addled their brains the don’t notice they are hot. 

“Tipping point.” I now use the Von Stauffenburg example (as discussed in yesterday’s blog) and this routine works better as a result.  I go into “probability” with more of momentum. 

(one road testing of this material is no basis for determining how good it is. It may be offensive to other crowds). 

When I mentioned I have a degree in Engineering and understand probability I am heckled by a man in the front row who it turns out is a Maths undergraduate. His heckle is along the lines that Engineers don’t really understand mathematics, they just think they do. He is playfully throwing down the gauntlet but it is a gauntlet that needs picking up. It is true that I struggle to remember anything beyond school level mathematics these days. It is also true that a maths undergraduate should know more about maths than an Engineer. But I decide to go all in here and take him on. I decide to go head to head with his maths knowledge and prove that I know more than he does. There is a slight risk here because I almost certainly don’t. He could humiliate me. He could expose my tenuous grasp on the subject matter. He could expose the flimsy premiss upon which this section of the show hangs upon.  In a straight line he has me beaten. Fortunately we won’t be going in a straight line. I will see to that. I will choose the ground we fight upon. I will decide the terms of engagement. I will blind side him by pre-prepared punchlines. I will misrepresent his views and bluff my way through this bit by my stagecraft. There are moments during the next few minutes where I feel I may have had a successful career in the law/politics, the chicanery I demonstrate is wasted on light entertainment. It is a travesty of justice and I love every minute of it. I win the argument and “prove” I know what I am talking about. I rattle off pre-prepared mathematical terms I barely know the definition of. Fortunately, my bluff is never called. To be fair it is good humoured, he isn’t trying to fuck me up, but I didn’t know in advance I could win. He may have been one of those good humoured pendants who could have politely chip away at me. The interaction really lifts the gig.  Only now do I feel it lacked something before that moment. I briefly wonder what could have come of the gig, if I’d known earlier that he was a maths undergrad. Pointless Speculation.  

I return to this guy at moments throughout the rest of the gig with some mock one-up-man-ship. I refer to Nate Silver as “one of your lot” - a mathematician. 

I still need to work on the “Nate Silver rant. After the “Nate Silver” section. I go to drink from my water bottle which is sitting on a stool. Now I have the idea to sit down on the stool and after the aggressive rant, I now lament losing the end of my show to an American. It really works. But does it work only for tonight or is this to become a regular thing? Whatever it lends an emotional charge to the show and a certain poignancy it has so far lacked. 

I stumble off the stool as a slightly annoyed drunk saying. “I understand probability, look how many people know of anyone who died in a petrol station fire” This routine suits this tone - a rather desperate clutching of straws by an increasingly deluded man. 

The ending works well. i really hit “this is not gambling” line with the right attitude. The last 15 minutes are a constant build towards the end as though I am assembling a deluded argument - which I am. This is the best ending to the show yet.  

After Gig

Three things came together to really consolidate the ending. Switching on the air con, the audience interaction, and my sitting on the stool gave me the right tone to do the closing material. I am not sure in which combinations these things helped? I wish I could remember exactly what i did right today.

This wasn’t the best gig of the run but it was the most satisfying and it had the best shape and ending to the show thus far. All the more satisfying because I had to work the crowd for most of the show. 

I am noticing a slight sensitivity to mention of race and racism in Edinburgh. Other London based comedians have commented on this phenomenon too. It is as if all white audiences when they fear that anything mentioning race or racism is in itself racist. 

New - 25th Feb 2013 - Angel

Gig Report Thursday 25th April 2013

Angel Comedy Club

Before Gig

Tonight I am headlining the Angel Comedy Festival at the Angel Comedy Club. Headlining comes with certain onerous responsibilities like being funny, ending the night on a high, looking professional etc. The Edinburgh festival is looming (3 months away) and I have to crowbar new material into my set to road test if for Edinburgh. I have written a new piece of material about a pig in a zoo. I have never performed this piece before. I am desperate to try it out. I don’t know if it will work. I feel in my bones that it is funny. I am very excited about the pig material. Me being excited is always a warning sign. Every new bit of material is the best thing I have ever written. Every new bit of material is the best thing I have ever thought. Not only will it be hilarious but it will transform not only my act but the art of comedy itself, things will never be the same again. Two days later the new bit of material is invariably lying discarded never to be repeated again. “How could I even have thought that that was ever funny?” So imagine my trepidation at having a new piece of material on my hands that I believe to be funny. I am seriously worried. If I think its funny, imagine how unfunny it may turn out to be. The pig material is seven minutes long. If I try it and it doesn’t work, it won’t work for a whole seven minutes in a row. That is an eternity in a stand up gig. That is a third of a twenty minute set. After bombing for seven minutes it will be virtually impossible to pull the gig back and I don’t mean just me set. I mean the entire gig. Seven minutes. 

Various assessments of the audience are floating about the acts’ green room. The audience are quiet, they are loud, they are easy, they are hard, they are warming up nicely, they are starting to flag, you should have been here last week, thank God you weren’t here last week. 

During Gig

OK. So I just want to start with a smidgen of old stuff to establish myself, just a whiff of the tried and tested as a yardstick against the new stuff. Just enough to get the audience on side and then as quick as possible straight into the pig section. That then gives me ten minutes at the end to do whatever I want, but i have to try out the pig routine.  This is operation pig. Objective pig. If I try the pig routine in its full seven minute glory then I die (only in real life, not on stage) a happy man. Remember just a smidgen of old stuff at the start  and then into the pig routine. It shouldn’t take more than a minute before going into the new stuff. 

My first impression of the audience is one of pushing a giant boulder up a hill. This audience aren’t giving much. I open with the heroin material and they don’t buy into it, almost to the point where I question if I’ve done something wrong like screwed up the timing? The heroin routine ends to mediocrity. I should be going into the pig section now,  but I abort the pig section. I need more time. I need to get the audience on side. So now a bit more of the old stuff and on to giving up drinking, still the audience hold back. It comes alight in the middle and I think now I’ve got them, but no, the audience fizzle back down again, the drinking stuff ends on a lull.  Not ideal for starting new material. I should be going into the pig section now but again I abort it, I don’t feel I have enough momentum behind me.  My confidence in the new material, shaky at the best of times, is dwindling further and I haven’t even started it yet. Now I am doing yet more tried and tested stuff. 

I feel like a pilot using up yards of precious runway while he tries to do the perfect landing.  

Still more old stuff on alcoholic percentages. This is going better, that boulder is starting to edge up the hill but as I end that bit I still don’t have the audience where I want them. This is a now or never moment. Now is not the right moment to go into the pig section. I don’t have sufficient trust of the audience yet. But due to time constraints, I can no longer delay. There is fleeting pause, just slightly too long, while I decide. Then a moment when I feel like I am drawing myself up to my full height to take on the school bully. I think I do physically stand up a bit. I wonder if the audience catch it? But I have decided to commit to the new stuff. The common sense part of my brain considers this a bad idea. But wasn’t it common sense that got me into this in the first place?

I start the pig routine, I launch into the opening set up. It gets a laugh from the people standing at the back but it is a better reception than I was expecting. And now into section one proper of the pig routine and the laughter is now moving forward from the back of the audience to the front. By the end of act one of the routine the whole audience are on board in a way they never were for the old material. So far so good. Now into Act 2 of the routine. Will they like this? I dip my toe in the water a little bit further but yes they do like this. I am really relaxing into this. Fortunately the audience laughter buys me thinking time for the next part of the routine.  I am feeling my way with this routine. I have a number of bullet points written on my hand but the wording itself is loose. If it appears that I am making it up on the spot that is because I half am. 

The routine involves a Polish woman. There is always a bit of my middle class brain that is thinking, is this racist? Or could it be perceived as being racist? Or will people not laugh because their laughter could be perceived as being racist? The audience are going with it and two Russian women down the front are nodding at every new section of the routine. I don’t know if they are nodding because that is how Russians perceive the Poles? Or because that is how Russians perceive themselves? Mental note to self, ask them after the show why they were nodding. Further note to self, don’t bother, you will look like a nutter.

They go with every bit of this routine better than I could ever have hoped for. 

7 minutes into the Pig routine and I have reached the end of it, only I don’t really have an ending. Only now does this become a problem. I knew I didn’t have an ending when I stepped on stage but I didn’t actually believe I would ever get this far or if I did would be so elated it worked that I wouldn’t care it didn’t have an ending. Now I do care there is no ending. I confess I don’t have an ending to the audience and they forgive me.

Buoyed up by the success of the pig section, I arrogantly plough ahead with some half baked new stuff on the lottery. It works but not as well, giving my set the shape of a hump backed bridge. I should have quit after the pig victory but victors never know when to get off the field. 

After Gig

The pig stuff worked really well. Better than my tried and tested stuff. Does that mean it is better than the tried and tested stuff? Or does it mean that it is worse? Does it means the audience don’t know what they are doing? Was my instinct right about the new stuff or does it mean it was wrong? I don’t know. I will have to do the pig stuff again.