Today saw another Mostly Comedy pre-sale, with November’s Hitchin show with James Acaster
and Alison Thea-Skot selling out in just thirty-five minutes (with 100 tickets
going in the first ten minutes).
This is particularly remarkable when you consider James made his first appearance at the club almost ten years to the day of November's gig, playing to a fraction of the people he’s now used to, though he was just as memorable back then. He actually criticized his performance that night during an interview for our podcast a few years ago, because he thought he had laid into a heckling audience member a little too over-zealously, but I'd say he judged himself too harshly; he certainly proved he already had the chops to hold his own in a truly individual way; he was special right from the get-go.
(That gig also saw the first outing of the Star Trek Porn Letter, so it was a crucial night for us too).
In a way, the popularity of today’s pre-sale is indicative of how things have changed for the club in the intervening years, both for good and for bad. Back then, people weren’t lured in by big names for the simple reason we didn't have any and yet the club still did very well. These days, it’s hard to get people to book for anything without a big pull, which is frustrating. Trying to sell my solo show in Hitchin next month is a case in point; you’d think you could create a bit of interest about a local comic performing his recent Edinburgh show on his home turf after being included in a handful of best jokes lists, but in truth it’s not that easy; ironically, the gags that made it into the lists were left out of an article the Hitchin Comet ran a few years back for which they'd actually asked us to supply a few jokes for, as they apparently didn’t make the grade; proof that the Telegraph is a lot less picky.
You have to try to approach the whole thing ambivalently. Of course I’m happy that Mostly Comedy's become so successful; I just wish our audience were as open minded as they were at the beginning; if nothing else I'll seek solace from the money.
This is particularly remarkable when you consider James made his first appearance at the club almost ten years to the day of November's gig, playing to a fraction of the people he’s now used to, though he was just as memorable back then. He actually criticized his performance that night during an interview for our podcast a few years ago, because he thought he had laid into a heckling audience member a little too over-zealously, but I'd say he judged himself too harshly; he certainly proved he already had the chops to hold his own in a truly individual way; he was special right from the get-go.
(That gig also saw the first outing of the Star Trek Porn Letter, so it was a crucial night for us too).
In a way, the popularity of today’s pre-sale is indicative of how things have changed for the club in the intervening years, both for good and for bad. Back then, people weren’t lured in by big names for the simple reason we didn't have any and yet the club still did very well. These days, it’s hard to get people to book for anything without a big pull, which is frustrating. Trying to sell my solo show in Hitchin next month is a case in point; you’d think you could create a bit of interest about a local comic performing his recent Edinburgh show on his home turf after being included in a handful of best jokes lists, but in truth it’s not that easy; ironically, the gags that made it into the lists were left out of an article the Hitchin Comet ran a few years back for which they'd actually asked us to supply a few jokes for, as they apparently didn’t make the grade; proof that the Telegraph is a lot less picky.
You have to try to approach the whole thing ambivalently. Of course I’m happy that Mostly Comedy's become so successful; I just wish our audience were as open minded as they were at the beginning; if nothing else I'll seek solace from the money.