Performing Comic-to-Comic.


Tonight I did a very strange gig. A very very strange gig.

When you’re a comic at my level who’s working up new material, it's a struggle to get stage time. This can be frustrating, particularly when you’re also a promoter who spends your whole life (exaggeration) offering other people gigs, yet seldom get your offers reciprocated.

(This sounds sexier than it is.)

As a result, you hunt far and wide for somewhere – anywhere – to try stuff out, in a room that’s at least halfway toward being conducive for comedy. It's a depressing experience, when you realise just how few small-scale venues are actually equipped for this.

It wasn’t that the venue I played tonight was awful – the room was pleasant and the person who ran it meant well – but everything about it was unclear. When I arrived at 6:00pm (admittedly an hour before the show was meant to start), the club was closed with no sign of life. I sought solace in a lovely record shop-cum-café around the corner, before returning to the club at 6:50pm, only ten minutes before I’d been called.
“I’m here for the comedy gig,” I said to the guy behind the bar on arrival.
“You’re early,” he replied.
“What time does it start then?”
“7 for 7:30.”

(So just ten minutes early then.)

In the end, the room was full of other comics, who soldiered on, despite the haphazard nature of the event, and the fact there was only one genuine punter, who kept leaving the room every few minutes. We a;; did our best to get what we needed from it. I met some nice people and saw some good stuff, I just wish it had been in better circumstances. You don’t get this at Mostly Comedy.

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