Mostly Out of It.


Today’s Mostly Comedy was strange in that it just sort of happened, despite a slow and disconnected set-up.

Hal Cruttenden and Richard Herring; two comics in love.
Part of the problem for me was I haven’t recovered from the shock of my dad’s sudden illness at the end of last week, which nearly proved fatal, to improve just as suddenly at it had hit (he says in a gross simplification for the sake of a simple paragraph). Now the adrenalin's settled, I'm feeling brain-shot and anxious, which aren’t ideal bedfellows for doing stand-up in a crowded room; consequently, it took a little while to adapt to the noise, which was a little overwhelming for my mind-state.

Despite not feeling my best, I insisted on doing a couple of new bits, if only to start ticking things off the list. It's more for the sake of getting material in my head at first than seeing it if it works, as it’s all more likely to land well when it’s properly learnt.

It was pleasing to see we were pretty much up to capacity by the time the show started, having picked up a few extra sales on the door. We were still a couple of hundred quid down on where we were when the show had sold out initially, which was frustrating, particularly when I suspect we would have sold out again had we had a few extra days.

I hadn’t realised until my wife mentioned it on arrival that the programme James Acaster was filming that meant he had to cancel was ‘Have I Got News For You’, which was shocking; who knew the BBC’s flagship panel show has more pull than the Sun Hotel Ballroom?; you live and learn. Both Richard Herring and our surprise guest Hal Cruttenden were on excellent form, making for a very strong night, that some how managed to come together despite my feeling a little backfooted by it. Of the two bits of material I tried the second piece landed the best; I heard Richard Herring laugh at the most 'industry' gag in it, which was satisfying. Now I just need to set to write another 57 minutes; piece of cake.

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