Gig 95, a little trip to the comedy balloon with Rich Hodkin and a chance to bang out about 6 or so mins of brand new stuff.
I Have done the Comedy Balloon twice before and both times I found organiser Jason to be very welcoming but some (not all) of the other acts to be arrogant and cliquey. The only other venue I have experienced this was another Manchester venue, that being the Frog and Bucket. I have gigged in the North East, the Midlands, Parts of the North west, Wales and all parts of Yorkshire and not experienced what I have at the Balloon and on one of the 2 occasions I was at the Frog. So would tonight be any better.... well no!! In a word.
The travel down I was telling Rich of my experiences and he stated that he had not had similar ones, now Rich is one of the nicest blokes I have ever met so maybe he was just trying to see the good in people? Not that I am cynical to be fair.
Conversation turned to material, I had been writing a little more again recently. I had also dug out all my notes from new material nights such as CUT UP that I did a new set every time I performed at but never developed the material, even the more personal stuff that I liked. I was recently criticised for always doing the same material something which I would normally ignore however, I agree to an extent. I have not been gigging a year and my current ‘best 10’ I am constantly tweaking. But I need 40 mins of stuff like some of the actual talented writers have. So a brand new 6 mins tonight.
Arrival was worrying as we knew United were at home thanks to the 40’000 cockneys heading into Manchester and even more worrying that the match was on terrestrial TV, the pub was dead.
Fearing the worst there was talk of pulling the gig but just as this was being considered people began filtering in. I won’t mention the names of the other acts with one exception, that being opener Kieran Lawless. He is a great example of the Irish charm and friendly approach and was the most welcoming of the other acts. Now most of the other acts were pleasant enough but this night I will remember for the way a couple of other comedians laughed vindictively at a couple of the other comedians, mistakes, weaker jokes and uncomfortable silences. Why? Why be twatty? There is no harm in being respectful even if you are superior in terms of your ability as an act or don’t like what you are hearing. One person in particular for the 3rd time of meeting them has left me believing this person is a complete tool. I have been on bill that include Pro acts with thousands of gigs, TV credits, Sell out shows to their name and they have been ten times more humble than this fairly decent open spot act that looks down on seemingly everyone bar his handful of mates... they the only people he genuinely laughed at irrespective of how funny there were or were not being. I just don’t understand the need to be a dick, but if being liked is not important to this person then carry on.
So my performance... might as well evaluate that. I was poor, I did not sell it well nor had I rehearsed enough. Being ill did not help but that is not an excuse really. The material got a couple of laughs (possibly some cynical ones from comedy corner) but it really needs tweaking. I will not abandon it as I have done with past trial new bits but I will need to work hard on it. It was 8 mins in total with a wedge of older stuff in there to convince the audience that I can be funny!! Im not sure they are convinced though!
I did make the error of not recording any of my performance but as it was more lead balloon than comedy balloon maybe that was for the best. I know I will need to try the stuff again at least twice more before I can make a real judgement on what is kept.
Rich, had a good gig, He had been in the middle of a good spell before doing portion of quips at Christmas where he struggled so it was good to see him back in form and in particular the new jokes seemingly going down well.
My next couple of gigs canceled due to illness meaning a little trip to Laandan for 5 mins is next providing I recover in time for that.
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