Skip to main content

"Bless him."


The first thing the MC said after I walked off the stage tonight was "Well, he tried".

This made we walk straight out of the building. Saying it was unprofessional and unpleasant. Without wishing to sound like one of those people, in all the years that Glyn and I have run and MC-ed a comedy club, we've never once put an act down, however their set went. It's not an MC's job to pass comment; you pick things up and keep things moving, but that’s it. You’re never negative about what’s onstage around you; after all, they’re as much a part of the show as you.

The irony was it didn't go that badly. It wasn’t my best work, but it wasn't my worst. The audience’s reaction was polite, but there were still some laughs. Even if there hadn't been, the comment was unnecessary. It was patronising while pretending to be supportive, and served to set in stone with the audience that it hadn’t gone well, regardless of what they’d been thinking in the first place. 

I’m quickly learning that a Friday or Saturday night ‘pub comedy night’ crowd is not the one for me. To be honest, I knew this in the first place; I barely fit into a being-out-at-the-weekend scenario in real life, let alone when I’m gigging. There were three stag dos in the audience tonight who - while actually being quite restrained - were never going to be in the mood to listen to gentle stories about my personal ineptitude or my dad’s hernia. I need to be in a space where my performance can feel more like a conversation and less like a brash public announcement; either that, or I need to start doing more cock jokes. I only hope I don’t run out of rooms where I can do it.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...
Read more

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...
Read more

"Speaking Words of Wisdom, Let it Shine."

Tonight saw the second instalment of BBC1’s latest advertise-a-musical-for-months-and-then-cast-it-with-performers-too-inexperienced-to-do-it-a-thon ‘Let it S̶h̶i̶t̶e̶ Shine’ (or as I call it: ‘REAL AUDITIONS ARE NOTHING LIKE THIS’). I didn’t watch it (clearly), but being reminded of how angry seeing just five minutes of it made me last week caused me to mull over what I would call a musical based on the band’s songbook, if I was responsible for it. Here are a my suggestions: IDEAS FOR TITLE OF A TAKE THAT MUSICAL: Barlow! Dirty Fat-Dancing Orange! A Million Love-changes-everything Songs Owen! Howard's End Pray Misérables Mamma Marka! Babe (with a pig as the lead) …BUT MY FAVOURITE HAS TO BE: Jason & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. "It was Orange, Orange, Orange, Orange..." (TAKE) THAT’S ENOUGH OF (TAKE) THAT.
Read more