Same Old Material


One thing that comedians often worry about is revisiting old material. Nine times out of ten, an act arriving at Mostly Comedy will ask what our audience turn-around is like – and whether they can get away with performing some of their older, tried-and-tested stuff.

At our club it isn’t normally a problem: we do have a few regulars, but since moving to a bigger venue and securing better-known acts, we’ve noticed that a large proportion of our audience are often new faces; people will travel from further afield to catch the likes of Henning Wehn and Richard Herring at a small club like ours, rather than at a bigger, more expensive venue.

When it comes to performing past jokes, we’re as guilty as the rest: thanks to time constraints (plus the added stress of overseeing the night and finding time to record our podcast around it), myself and Glyn will often resort to older, more familiar material; it gives us one less thing to worry about on an always frenetic evening. Also, when it comes to Mostly Comedy, we’re in a slightly different position to the rest of the line-up; we’re on the bill every month, whereas they turn up every once in a while and can still do their best lines.

Tonight’s gig will be one such occasion – though in my case, I will be revisiting old material in more ways than one.

Tonight, thanks to laundry oversight, I will be wearing exactly the same shirt I wore at last month’s Mostly Comedy.


I’m normally quite good at preventing this; I tend to have a shirt in mind a few days before the gig – and make sure it’s washed and pressed, ready for Thursday. Not this month, though; this month I’ve been very lapse.

Will anyone notice? Hopefully not. Let’s face it: if the audience is paying too much attention to our clothing then we’re definitely doing something wrong.

There is a chance, though, that I’m not giving myself enough credit. Maybe I’m a bit of a trendsetter – and from tomorrow morning, the streets of Hitchin will be awash with pink and blue stripes.

With a bit of luck I can turn North Hertfordshire metrosexual overnight.

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