Keep calm and dont clam gig 23

The prize for winning a gong show varies depending on the organizer, sometimes its cash sometimes its Prestige and sometimes as with Mr Bens it’s an 8 min slot as opener to another gong show.

My 8 spot was on Monday 11^th June, i figured that as England were playing this day it may help in that there will be more people about and Mr Bens would be busy, perhaps they were going to capitalise on the match and flyer round Leeds, or even hire a screen and show the game? Sadly this was not possible for them and it turns out that the road was closed that leads up to Mr Bens too meaning that only a handful of people turned up. Initially i felt very relaxed as an opener, basically they would hopefully recognise i was a past winner and be more inclined to relax and enjoy my set, sadly the lack of numbers meant it was difficult and the relaxed feeling i had leading up to this and while i was watching England’s draw with France had gone, now i had a feeling of.. if i’m dying on stage the gong isn’t there to come and save me!

A few familiar faces were among the participants, Ben Gibson the most notable as he had yet to gig when i was not present! Matt Fong was also participating which gave me an opportunity to meet him as i had seen his website and heard of his nights in Doncaster, Matt is confident friendly and chatty, making him instantly likeable.

 Tonight’s MC was Lewis Charlesworth who was beginning to look very at home as Mr Bens MC, when i did my 1^st ever gig back in March i thought Lewis was not as good as Sully, he is very good just different to Sully (o Sullivan the resident MC who incidentally has yet to be MC when i gig there)

Lewis asked me who was to go 1^st between myself and the other 8 spotter Marcus Barlow from Oldham. Neither of us minded so for the sake of argument i went 1^st.

I had a slight twinge of nerves but was otherwise much more relaxed than normal when 1^st appearing on stage, i tried to get a little audience interaction but quickly sussed that this was not going to work for me so made a joke of it and moved on. There were muted laughs throughout the whole set but nothing more and as i panned the room to try look at each audience member i could see which ones were getting it and which were just silent arms folded and not impressed. There were one or two of these unimpressed people in a crowd of around 20 but i was not going to let that put me off, it was my 8 mins i was going to carry on regardless. The laughs albeit muted were from the same 5 or 6 people too so i was grateful to them for their willingness to enjoy, the reason the whole room was not enjoying it and laughing is down to me and my lack of stage craft or funny enough material... it will come.

I completed my set and exited the stage with a feeling of disappointment that it had not gone better but on the whole i could not complain and at one point where i had forgotten a bit i was able to keep calm where in past i may have clammed!.

Marcus did his 8 mins and although he forgot a little bit of his set he looked more polished than me up there and was funny, i liked his set and general persona, dry and to the point.

I did not take much note of the gong show itself to report but i enjoyed Rex Purnell, Matt Fong and of course Ben Gibson who all had good sets for differing reasons while dealing with a very tough crowd.

The eventual gong show winner was joint (i didn’t get the name of one of the acts but he was good) Mark Hayden who is comedy marmite was the other joint winner, he had opted for a numbering his jokes and allowing the audience to choose the numbers. It was an interesting approach and enough to see him take joint winner.

Next for me is a trip to Driffield on Thursday 14^th.