The Deceased Comedian’s Ball – The Bedford Arms.

 12^th January 2014

 

Before Gig.

This gig is in memory of Ed Balls who used to run the new act night at the Bedford Arms and who sadly died of a brain tumour last year. Ed gave many of us comics our first ever gig and even after, helping us gain a little more experience. I used to regularly turn up to his gig to try out new material.

 

I hadn’t known how big tonight’s gig would be. Whether it would be in the main room? So when I turn up and see the main room is sold out I am pleasantly surprised. I also feel nervous and unprepared – exactly as I always felt at those first gigs I did for Ed. 

 

I am the third act on in the second section. The audience may now start to get a little tired and be losing their focus. The show is already running late so I am aware of keeping it tight (15minutes). 

 

During Gig

The start is hardly textbook I try to chat to the audience but they are not in the mood and so it jars slightly at the start. I switch onto material and am in the grove although I have changed my drinking material stuff all round about and this makes me really think about it a lot more.

 

I have decided to make changes to my Dentist routine as the section about “feeling naughty” has, to my mind been under performing for quite some time, if indeed it ever did perform. I need to have a far better example of naughty behaviour than “getting your receptionist pregnant”. I have an idea that I have to get the dentist pregnant instead of the receptionist. Who cares about the receptionist in this? What has she got to do with anything? The point is the dentist and it has to be more extreme than just pregnancy it has to be more extreme because the whole point is to contrast my behaviour with her idea of naughty which is to eat too much sugar. So something along the lines of getting her pregnant and talking her out of an abortion on the promise of some idyllic future only then to wrangle custody of the child so that I can make it eat sugar and not brush its teeth etc. I have the general idea in my head and it needs to be a rant. It really works and it lifts the gig, perhaps it is that good or perhaps it is the enthusiasm of the new bit triumphing over its actual weaknesses but it excites me. It works and opens a door to further improvement.

 

I also have a new section on American Girlfriend and this works less well but I think this is because I lost the rhythm. Here I am too bogged down in remembering the actual words as opposed to focusing on the sentiment and letting the words find themselves. I am able to get the show back on track with the Stephen Carlin standard “leave you for no one” (2012). 

 

I am now on the “Dumping a Mate” section but something is amiss.

The audience are laughing but not in the right way. They are laughing in the wrong places. Their timing is all out. They sound like they’ve been dubbed on. This is someone else’s audience from another gig laughing at something else material.  They are doing it all wrong.  Trust me, I worked with audiences before and they don’t usually laugh in this way. They go suddenly quiet as though contemplating something new and then they start laughing but in odd places and not in the correct rhythm.

 

“Debbie!” Shouts one woman. The interruption does indeed sound like it is intended for Debbie and not for me but unfortunately the cry of “Debbie” was of sufficient volume to count as a heckle and fall within my purview. “Who is this Debbie? And what has she to do with the gig?” Even as I ask her that I sense that the rest of the audience already know.  I turn to my right and now I see what it is. There is a giant screen behind me projecting “The Deceased Comedian’s Ball.”  But now somebody has obviously interfered with the computer projecting this image because now the instead of “The Deceased Comedian’s Ball.” It is showing the log in screen to Windows Vista with somebody’s log in name “Deborah” and Deborah is currently typing in her password (asterisked out so there is no security breach). Ever feel as though you are the last person in the room to know something? Well I am literally the last person in the room. Sometimes it is useful to use the technique of letting the audience get ahead of you and then playing catch up. I am playing catch up now. There is a good twenty – thirty seconds of me pulling faces while the audience laugh. This buys me eons of thinking time. I opt for pretending the audience along with Bill Gates (of Microsoft) are involved in a giant conspiracy to interrupt my set and stop me delivering “my truth” to the people. It is a rant built out of faux paranoia and faux fury, chastising the audience as though they were a class of errant school children. I want to run with this adlib as long as I can. I think I have already reached my allotted 15 minutes. I wish this had happened earlier. I run with the adlib until it runs out of steam but I know that that is not the end and that something is bound to turn up. So I pretend to wrap up the gig. Saying that I am looking forward to meeting Deborah. “And ask her password” shouts an old man with a moustache and three piece suit. Now phase two of the operation where I deconstruct going out on a date and trying to get back to a woman’s flat on the pretence of finding out her password or alternatively having sex with a woman just to gain access to her password. What is more evil? This second wave of adlibbing comes to and end but still I want to go on but I also know that I am by now over running. So I wrap up the gig by doing it as though it were an advert for Microsoft and this provides an out. I wish I could have done longer, just another five minutes please!

 

After Gig.

An average gig made good by a technical error. As I come off stage I am introduced to the woman who shouted “Debbie”. She apologises immediately for the interruption, oblivious to the fact that it raised everything up. It provided a tremendous opportunity to ad lib something and makes the gig special. I must admit my heart falls at these moments when somebody apologises for an interruption that I was able to make something of. Are you oblivious to my great adlibbing? Fuck off! If you ever heckle me please don’t speak to me afterwards. If I have handled it badly I will not want to speak to you anyway and if I have handled it well don’t undermine my achievements by reasonable behaviour.

 

Also I do wish I had worked in a reference to Ed Balls heckling me from beyond the grave. As though his spirit was interfering with the IT system. I think that would have been a fitting end to my set.

Joke Thieves 3rd December 2013

Joke Thieves 3^rd December 2013 – Downstairs at the King's Head.

When I first heard about the idea behind 'Joke Thieves' I thought it would either be: a horrendous car crash of a gig or a stroke of pure genius. In case you are unfamiliar with the concept of Joke Thieves then let me explain. Joke Thieves is a live comedy format pioneered by Will Mars. In the first part of the show, comedians perform a regular set of their own material. In the second part the comedians swap over and perform each other’s sets and by doing so have free reign to duplicate, spoof, parody, deconstruct or destroy the other comedians set.  Comedians have no advanced warning (i.e. prior to the show) of the material/act they will be asked to replicate. You may have about 10 minutes thinking time but that is about it. Basically it is spontaneous the way all those panel shows pretend to be.

Before Gig
I have previously performed at Joke Thieves on four occasions and every time I have felt pretty relaxed about it. Tonight however I am feeling pretty jumpy. Perhaps it’s because it is a long time since the last one I did? Or maybe because Joke Thieves is now becoming a phenomenon? Even before the show kicks off, there is a real sense of expectation from the audience. It feels as though they have seen this before and know where the level is. I am rather enjoying the nerves; I am feeling like a newbie. Downstairs at the Kingshead is where I performed some of my first ever gigs. Tonight, again, I have that that feeling of excitement/fear/out of my depth-ness. 

During Gig                                                                                                                                                           First off, all the comedians are paraded on stage and paired off by a member of the audience. I am matched with Pierre Novellie. He is a tall man with a beard and a mongrel accent that contains a strong hint of South African but by no means is typical of the usual South African lilt. It is not the most outlandish pairing, he is not exactly an anti-Stephen Carlin. We are both male, neither of us do a character, neither of us possess a frenetic energy. But neither is he similar enough to afford that opportunity to exaggerate tiny differences. I am in a no-mans-land. He is too similar, he is not similar enough. Pierre is up immediately before me. I have to watch his set closely, attempt to remember his material and punch lines, observe his manner, his delivery, his rhythm of speech, try and capture the essence of him in five minutes. I am watching his set. I am paying attention but I am not really paying attention. I am distracted by the fact that I will have to do my own set shortly. I can’t quite focus. I jot down notes but they are the kind of notes that I will look at in a few moments and say “What District 9? What about his Uncle who is a Game Keeper?” Pierre talks about his South African background as a vehicle for moving into observations about London Crime versus South African crime, The Lion King, Margaret Thatcher, the film Blood Diamond. The competing demands of my imminent performance versus my need to watch Pierre’s set is stewing my brain. I am neither preparing nor properly listening to him. Is this what it is like to have kids?

Pierre ends his five minutes of material and now I am due on stage. I haven’t fully decided what material to do even as I take to the stage. I end up doing a teeth heavy set with routines about dentistry and a girlfriend that had teeth that were way too small. Some acts are very strategic and perform material they think other acts will find it difficult to replicate. I don’t do that, either all my material is easy to copy or I am incapable of thinking strategically (tactically?) at all. The set goes well but that is the easy part. Milo McCabe follows me with one of his characters. He is on stage for five minutes and then suddenly I have to go back on with the set of Pierre Novellie. 

For some reason, I think I have ages. In the past there has been an interval before parts one and two and I mistakenly think this applies tonight. I am gripped by a lack of grip quite frankly. It is not until Will Mars reminds me “you’re on next” that I realize I am at DEFCON 1 or whatever the high one is.  I have rudimentary notes of Pierre’s set but I can’t quite decide the angle of attack. Do I try an impression? I decide against attempting the accent. I don’t think I could sustain it for five minutes and besides his accent is too layered and subtle for me to give it any kind of justice. I can’t really remember the set clearly. I am unable to assimilate information. You know when somebody is trying to count and you shout random numbers at them until they loose count. Well I now feel like the person who is trying to count.

I don’t think I have ever done Joke Thieves so unprepared. On all previous occasions, I have had a definite idea of the line I am going to take. Not tonight. 

I start with saying “I am South African” in my usual accent “But I moved to the white enclave of The Isle of Man to avoid accusations of racism” from there on but there is no real plan. I am riding on the goodwill of the audience, possibly a hangover from my previous five minutes on stage. 

At moments I appear as if I don’t know what I am about to say next. This is because I really don’t know what I am about to say next. I find myself, at points, staring at the audience ruminating on what is to follow. This generates laughter, the laughter of expectation. The audience think I know what I am doing. After all only a person who really knows what they are doing would look like they are working it out. Wrong, I really am working it out. I wonder if this is a technique I could use in my set generally? I am making sections of it up as I go along. As I say it, it is as much a surprise to me as the audience. The Joke Thieves audience also get into the spirit of things so I am unsure how much leeway they are giving the performers (possibly a lot?). This performance is more a pastiche than any accurate portrayal or forensic dissection. It seems to work but I am not sure whether I have fluked it or stumbled on a better approach.  

After Gig

I haven’t had as much fun performing a gig in ages. It has highlighted to me how restrictive my regular set can be and the sheer possibilities stand up offers. It is easy to get into a tunnel vision idea of how to perform my material so when I see somebody else perform my set the possibilities open up.  And when I perform their set, there is no historical legacy of the material to me so I am constantly just thinking, “make this funny”. Everything feels really vital and in the moment. What is great about Joke Thieves is that it forces comedians to go for broke and this to be honest happens relatively rarely. Once ensconced in the world of paid weekend work I find myself invariably playing the percentages and rarely taking these kind of outlandish risks. I had less of a game plan at Joke Thieves tonight than on previous occasions and it appeared to work better. I can’t wait to do it again and find out if this is an aberration or not.

My main regret is that I went for a “South Africans are racist angle” This in itself is racist. While this line of attack worked a treat, it seemed to initiate a racist motif that went through the rest of the evening.