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 …
I did another deadpan set tonight, though occasionally found myself slipping into my normal voice a few times, which ruined the effect a little. A lot of my bits didn’t necessarily have punchlines but I was thinking they would pull through based on the weirdness/self-deprecation factor.
They didn’t pull through.
At one point in the show, I heard at least one person say, “That’s wrong”. Also when I walked off stage, someone said (incredulously), “Was he video taping himself?” Well of course I was, I’m a professional.
The crowd was great though. I’m just going to relegate all of this material (except one or two pieces which were great) into the “stuff only I found funny” pile. Or I could use punchlines. Either way.
I feel sad because I actually worked pretty hard on these. But that’s a comedians life. You do 12 bits, you’re lucky if a few of them hit, rinse, wash, and repeat until you have increasing amounts of solid material to rely on.
Gallery
Coming soon, along with the last two sets of photos I embarrassingly said were coming really soon but didn’t.
As per my previous entries, I struggled to come up with a set this week, and ended up putting together a sick deadpan sarcasm show, which is probably my favourite kind of humour. It went awesome! I think this is my most successful night so far if you were to measure it by loud, consistent laughs throughout the whole set, and comments from the audience and other comedians after the show.
But it was also more difficult. It didn’t all fall together until the day before, so I didn’t have much time to practice. And despite being a similar length and word count to a normal set, it had 3x as many bits and tags, which made it hell to memorise, especially given my nervousness to perform it.
Amazingly the last bit was the funniest, which I felt was the bit most likely to fall flat. Only 2 or 3 one-liners fell flat, but the next laugh was so close around the corner nobody noticed except me. On the downside, I normally learn a lot of things to improve, and after this performance I didn’t learn much except that it worked great as is.
I’d like to perform this one again soon and see what happens with a different audience. I was talking with Ardun Ward about doing a street show. If any other comedians want to join in, let me know.
As for my next official set, I’m not sure if it will be deadpan too, because I can’t work out if this set have worked if I had done it normally. Was it that funny, or was the deadpan what sold it?
If you’ve seen my stuff before, skip to the middle
Notes
I got an email from a comedy club manager on Tuesday asking me to come in and do 5 minutes for Thursday night. I was really surprised because I’d just taken a 2 month sabatical and only resumed comedy last week, and suddenly I had another chance to take to the stage at a professional non-open mic venue! So I jumped at it!
The first half of my set I use the cat/vet story. I’ve used this 4 times so far, and the only great reaction I had was on the very first night I used it, and since then it has gone down further, and further. I feel sad about that and can’t quite identify why except maybe I’m just not passionate enough about it anymore?
Then I went into my new Transformers bit I started last week (but couldn’t record back then). I’d retooled it a little and made it longer, then came up with a great tag just a few minutes before going on stage. It worked a treat! It’s my new favourite bit.
And finally I finish with a mix of new and old coffee bits. I have a lot of stuff about coffee and this was the first time I tried to chunk them all together. The result was pretty good, though I skipped a few beats and the very end needs tightening up.
Overall I realise I went way too fast, and yet, finished exactly on 5 minutes! So, I’m happy about that. And I didn’t forget anything! The audience took a while to warm up but I’m pretty sure they liked me at the end. Compared to the other performances of the night, I was in the middle of the pack – a few didn’t fare so well, and others blew me out of the water. Which is good, because the audience wins!
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to be a “great” comedian. I definitely have trouble converting some of my ideas into stuff that is funny, and even more problems working out how to perform them on stage. But it’s still early.
I also heard last night about a competition called Green Faces. I couldn’t work out how to enter the Perth rounds, but I might like to give it a try with a mix of some of my lesser known and newest material (definitely not the cats bit anymore, for now).
PS: If you have any advice on how to take better video under stage lights, I’d love to hear them.
Gallery
(Coming soon, the pictures from the video won’t be very good).
I prepared a set almost exactly the same as the last half of my Northbridge street set from Saturday which got a good reception, so I knew it was good, and yet when I ran it last night it went okay but not great.
I didn’t feel alone though, despite there being about 60 people at the club, there was something off with the mood compared to last week, all of the professionals were struggling to get anything out of them.
I did do something different this time, every time I looked down at stage I reminded myself to look at the audience instead and try to make a connection. That didn’t work, I mean I did it, but there was no connection.
So tonight is my big night and I have to decide am I going to do the same thing as before that didn’t win it for me, or am I going to run my new stuff knowing it worked once and bombed once.
I was flicking through a book called Comedy Secrets, where it had a paragraph or two about why material works one night and not others, and that some studies have shown external factors have a big impact on how the audience will receive material. Still, I feel like as a performer we’re meant to be able to turn the crowd around and make them laugh because out stuff is FUNNY. Not just funny in the COLD or the HOT or on a SATURDAY but FUNNY. And when we know the audience can randomly like or dislike material despite it being funny, it’s hard to know where the line is between saying – I had a shit night – or – the audience had a shit night.
