Well it's my 2 year gigaversary today (weds 5th so technically as this is posted it will have been yesterday) I have had a count up and my official gig tally is 364 (a few less than I thought I'm glad I'm not an accountant)
It's been an interesting 2nd year with so much going on both in my comedy life and my personal life it's made it feel like I have been doing comedy much longer (although at times look like I have been doing it for only a few weeks)
I think I will focus this blog post on my self review of year 2. Year 2 started off with a real sense of optimism that was perhaps a little deluded. I was feeling very confident in what I was doing which when I look back was silly. One year in I thought I knew how to handle most gigs.... I was wrong.
I look now at 2 key gigs in the last year, 1 a corporate type of gig that I simply did not have the skills for & therefore died on my hole and the other a gong show I opted to do in Chester in order to play around with my persona and style, yes I also died on my hole and was gonged off only the 3rd time with the others being very early on in my gig life.
I learnt so much from analysing why I died and what I was doing wrong and it saddens me that the things I figured out still haven't all fallen into place in my set, I still haven't put all the lessons into practice and as I write this now I know that my set is missing a few things. One of these things is a big opener, I'm still trying to use improv or a weak opener ever since Damion Larkin gave me invaluable advice on my original opener (I.e it's shit get rid!). Another thing that's missing is some technical work, call backs or rule of 3 or some comedy devices would really help me along if I took more time to work out how to place them in neatly. I won't rush, I'm not doing the big clubs at the moment so I have been working on my 30 min set as well as my hour show and then identifying actually how much of my stuff is utter shite (more than I care to mention) and will need to be replaced. You see some stuff gets a laugh but actually is still weak open spot level material and needs to go.
The corporate that I died at was great because Joe Bromehead went on after me and smashed it, I watched and noted the real differences between my car crash and this swaggering performance standing dominant in the middle of a room of corporate bellends drinking their twat juice and puffing their chests out, an ironic verb considering they are trying to look as masculine and hetero as possible!
I noted a few things down from that night and they have come into play a few times since most recently when I closed 2 small gigs in 2 days that had drunk and chatty crowds in, I swaggered a little like Joe but I also chose my word placement and body language too, things the sadly missed Mark Rough advised me on.
These 2 gigs went very well for me, I didn't have the room rolling around laughing like I had hoped but to get the majority of these 2 restless audiences on board required many tools from the armoury that I devoped over the last year.
My persona style had changed a little too. I am a caricature of myself on stage and in Chester I felt I would beat the gong on material alone without the style or effort I usually adopt..... Wrong..... Should I say ..... GONG!!! Unlike some acts I won't pretend the audience were wrong or the MC felt my go gong was harsh, it's important to be realistic, I was gonged because my jokes don't cut it and I need the persona and the style that suits my set, it was a good lesson to learn and one that has seen me kick on.
I have also started to write better stuff and I feel more confident re writing my older set to keep it up to date and at a similar quality level to my new bits. I have been able to take a slight social commentary position and tweak it to fit my style of joke telling which is something I finally feel good about. I'm always writing and often meet up with Jed Salisbury and comedienne (if Hull daily mail is to be believed) Andy Woolston to write. This is good for me as they are both able to write in such a way as to fully complement my writing style and they are both solid acts too which is always helpful, this and the fact I feel like these guys are good people too helps when for example we have to say to each other... Erm... That joke you just wrote is.... Well I don't wanna say shit, but it's mainly because it's not even good enough to be called shit!!
I am very aware of my topics that lack originality too, subtle jibes from peers aside I know what I am doing with my work and I have a plan to remove some of the less original styles. Things like the dyslexia joke or topics like my grandparents can be culled once I have tightened my newer bits and I have full confidence in those pieces of material.
My progression is another thing I wanted to look at 2 years in. I have headlined 7 times now and no this is not counting going on last this is when I have been asked to close a gig, they are always small gigs I'm not deluded and I do not believe anyone can be a headline act within 2 years or 500 gigs whichever comes 1st... Why? Because there is a lot required to close a gig, not the easy gigs that anyone who genuinely has 30 mins (not the people who have 15 mins and can talk for 30) can smash those, headline acts can do it when it's tough, when the MC is ropey, the crowd are drunk, the venue is inappropriate or any other situation along those lines. Even tougher is being a good MC. So many acts seem to miss the point of being an MC and do so selfishly or with no real skill... I MC with no real skill, the best MC's have an abundance of skill acquired from time spent gigging, this is not to say that no one with limited experience is good, there is just 2 levels of good and one can only be achieved through experience.
Paid work is the next thing that follows experience. This is providing you are good enough, I seem to be ticking a few promoters boxes now which is nice as the paid work is flowing weekly now and boy is it useful to eat real food and not have to decide petrol to a gig or heating which don't I need this week!! I'm really pleased that so many promoters now see me as solid enough to be worthy of payment for my comedy services.
I am going the right direction, but I know I have so much more to work on that year 3 is going to be massive, things like Edinburgh, my solo hour and more regular paid work coupled with continuing work on my set will really keep me busy but I hope when I look to my 3rd birthday in this very tough industry I can say I am really a comedian and not some encouragable amateur.
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