It was a great night last night, after taking nearly a year off comedy, and coming back and getting some laughs. I feel super fat on stage, part of the reason I stopped, and I’ll have to keep working on that…
I almost cancelled before the show, not just from being sick, but also because I had no confidence in my material. But I was rewriting parts of it right up to the last minute of the show, and it came out far better than what I had originally written down.
Because that’s what I do. I have a hundred notes, I pull them together into some kind of storyline I can remember, and then I say it a dozen times until it comes out naturally, all the while changing words here and there to make it funny.
As for this specific show; I was far more nervous than you’d expect from my 19th show, I forgot my place part way, messed up one joke majorly, two fell completely flat and need major work; and people were laughing at things I didn’t expect. All in all, not a bad return. I won’t leave it so long before trying again…
Everyone else up there was great, the audience was really forgiving, and John Conway in particular was back in Perth and being his amazing self, and I can’t wait for his special show on Sunday night.
I’m tired. I stay up late every night doing nothing, and my weekends go so fast seemingly doing stuff for everyone else, so much so that they are more stressful than relaxing. I’m feeling down because a couple of people rated my videos down on funnyordie.com which I don’t understand at all because the audience reacted well and to be honest the standard of videos on funnyordie.com isn’t that high anyway. And I’m super overweight, I haven’t been able to get myself to get back into my exercise regime due in part to that ridiculous lack of sleep from above.
I started putting together a set list for tomorrow night, but with all of these factors, it has failed to materialise into something funny. There are some good ideas, but it’s probably still a week or two away from becoming something I’d be comfortable saying on stage to make people laugh.
So I’ve cancelled my spot for tomorrow night. I really hate to do that, because it IS so unprofessional, and spots are so hard to come by. And I could have re-run old stuff. But I hate that, and I don’t want to do it. I want to do new stuff, I want to make my stuff better, and that’s what I’m going to do. Just this time I’ve run out of time.
In the very beginning, the MC forgot my name, and it was really embarrassing (for him, but it’s no big deal really), and so when I went on stage I moped on and started saying, “Don’t feel bad for me, when I was younger…” and then the video begins.
See my post below for the rest of the back-story about how I got the show.
I’ve just watched my performance though and I have to say it’s pretty good. The material was tighter than the night before with a few tag lines I came up with just before (and during!) the show, so I’m happy with that.
On the down side there were some prickly moments. I fumbled the beginning and end with the mic, dropped one bit without realising it, and messed up the toothpaste joke so it missed part of the setup and so nobody could understand it – and they didn’t laugh. I was wondering why! My mistake.
But yeah, good fun for me. Now onto preparing for the next show …
Last night I had a special call to fill in at Comedy Lounge just a few hours before the show was set to start.
I quickly watched my video from Wednesday night and realised that it wasn’t as bad as I thought. There was plenty of laughter, and the main problems were me messing up my own lines and sometimes stepping on the laughter too early.
So I decided to try the same thing again, after all what’s the worst that could happen in front of a professional audience?
I did remove a few sections that weren’t that great, and revised a few words here and there, plus filled a minute of the space with material that I knew worked from my first deadpan set. And the results were pretty spectacular, probably my best night at Comedy Lounge so far.
It was a big surprise for me. Firstly, I should have more faith in my material even when it doesn’t hit the first time. Secondly, I started doing deadpan but switched to my normal voice mid-way and it still worked; so I think it’s more to do with the type of material than the way in which I say it.
Also I ended the set poorly, it wasn’t clear I was actually finished. That was my bad. Also the very last joke completely bombed, which was weird because it completely hit the first time.
I have a recording of it all and will put it up tonight. I think it’s worth watching this one first, then watching the difference in the video from Wednesday night. It’s night and day.
Now I have to start preparing for a new show on Tuesday. I already have 30 seconds of it ready. The rest I’ll pick up from my rapidly diminishing backlog of pre-written material, and I’ll be hoping real hard for some inspiration in writing new stuff over the weekend!
