Saturday 6 September 2008

Please Sir, Can I Have Less?

I'm a big health nut! Because I've been so utterly unhealthy recently, today I made myself a blackberry/orange juice/banana/peanut butter smoothie (yeah, it doesn't really work, I was nearly sick), I then had a really healthy garlic & cherry tomato pasta dish, I walked the dog and I brushed my teeth. I'm a regular fitness fanatical. I'm even going to the gym later. I will have no choice but to drink myself into a lot of comas to help balance out this misguided change in lifestyle.

I am very spritely today because last night I performed my first stand-up gig since returning from Scotland and everyone agreed that I had done a great job of compering. Sadly, I was doing a set but I take their point. I was lucky enough to be working with a very nice bill (practically unheard of in comedy, most clubs have a two cunt minimum) of Rob Heeney, Henning Wehn and The Raymond & Mr. Timpkins Review and the venue itself was incredible. Well, sort of. It's a place just outside of Chatham (that should give you an idea how remote the place is) called Dickensworld named after the writer of classics like Pride & Predjudice and Moby Dick, for all the audience knows. As you walk in you are escorted through a mock Dickensian town, like the one in Far From The Madding Crowd, that has it's own boat ride!! Mirth Control in John O'Groats doesn't have it's own boat ride! After walking through downtown Dickensworld we were then led to the venue itself, a mock up of an old Dickensian Victorian theatre, like the one in The Pelican Brief, that had about 12 people in it. I got worried. I needn't have because we were soon told by the world's cheeriest adult that 250 people had booked and it's a near sell-out. The thing is, even full this weird, weird room looks cavernous but lucky the audience were pretty good, not great, but pretty good. This is due to Rob Heeney's excellent compering work. He turned the room right round from a bunch of scratch card addicts at a chav wedding reception to a room full of people 50% of whom wanted to watch a comedy show. Not an easy thing to do given the circumstances. I was so impressed by Rob's skills that I ran on to the stage and did pretty much exactly the same. In other words, I bottled it. I chickened out. I cunted myself in the cunthead. Henning Wehn wasn't the pussy I was, he was excellent. I'd have stayed to watch the Raymonds (they're easily one of the best acts around, extremely clever and extremely stupid all in one go) but I was embarrassed and immediately jumped into a Hansom Cab, like the one in Are You Dave Gorman?

Still, it was good to get a gig all done and done. I may have fucked it up but I'll be doing my best to not repeat that tonight in Reading. I can't help but think that I've let the blog down by doing my first gig back with a really good line-up. Don't know who's on tonight but if you're missing awful, awful comedy then please check out the link below. A more right-wing, horrible piece of shit I haven't seen since....well, my act last night.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/anamericancarol/

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