Tryin' Gigs

First off, let me apologise for the sheer awfulnuss of the headline pun.  I'd change it to something wittier, but I've been working for a whole 9 hours today, so fuck you, deal with it.

When I moved to London I decided not to resume stand-up until I was sorted with both a proper job and a place to live.  Well, since I finally found a full-time, permanent job two weeks ago and I'm not living on the streets, I guess it's time to grace the stage once more.

Only, down in the Big Smoke, I'm finding it harder than I thought.  I've found a few gig websites, and emailed quite a few promoters who do gigs locally to me, but so far.... nada. 

There are plenty of gigs, sure, but a lot of them are either bring-a-buddy or pay-to-play.  Fuck you, London comedy scene, I won't do what you tell me.  Both those concepts are appalling and highly flawed American imports that apparently all but ruined the New York comedy circuit, and the way things are going, London won't be far behind.

If I don't get a bite soon, my comedy career is over before it starts (again). 

In short, somebody give me five minutes of stage time and I'll give comedy gold in return.  Or comedy frankincense.  Or comedy myrrh.

You know, whatever.

Set In Stone

After much writing, re-writing, editing and downright jiggery-pokery, I've finally got a five-minute set I'm happy with.

The trick was to put 30 random one-liners into an order that made sense, and more importantly, something I could easily remember - something which was always a problem when I gigged up North.

I divided the jokes up into 8 loosely-connected themes, such as Jobs, People, Religion, etc and split the jokes up into boxes with these themes labelled on each box. (By the way, I'm talking about Microsoft Word, I don't actually have eight boxes full of jokes on my living room floor.  That'd be weird.)

I've got a printout in front of me and I think I can memorise this set fairly quickly now.  I hope so, because I want to start gigging again and make my debut on the London open mic circuit.  I've been away from stand-up too long, and although I only did 7 gigs last time, mainly due to travel constraints, hopefully I can accept open mics and open spots all across the city.

Let's hope London's public transport system doesn't let me down...

Opinion: Dot.Comedy – Telling Jokes In Cyberspace

 Below is an article I wrote for North East comedy website Gigglebeats, published today:

Opinion: Dot.Comedy – Telling Jokes In Cyberspace

Back In The Game

Well, I did it.  I've written a new stand-up routine consisting of new jokes, the best jokes from last year's set (I only performed it seven times Oop North so they're still technically fresh) and stuff I posted on Twitter that got positive reactions.

I've cherry-picked forty of the several hundred jokes I've written in the past year or so, and though I haven't timed it yet, the routine will be somewhere between five and ten minutes long. 

Now I just have to remember all the gags and rehearse the fuck out of them, and try and develop a personality/style that best complements them.

Crisis Of Confidence

It's now almost May and I still haven't gigged since moving to London.   This is not good.

The problem has been that I got bored of the jokes I was doing, and threw out my entire set to write something new and different.  Trouble is, the stuff I wrote - when I actually managed to write - was not very good and too much of a departure from my one-liner style.

The other problems was that the genre I was working in - wordplay jokes - was littered with people writing the same jokes as me, at least in cyberspace.  That depressed me a little bit and I got bored of writing these gags.  I need to be a bit different and original in the comedy world, otherwise what's the point?

After much soul-searching, and veering between giving up stand-up comedy altogether and back, I've decided to continue with the one-liners.  But I'm just going to work hard to write better ones.  Cut out the bad puns (not that I had many), rely less on easy wordplay material and save the really good jokes for my set instead of wasting them on Twitter and Facebook.

That's the plan.  Now I've just got to write, memorise and rehearse about fifty gags and I'm ready to get up on stage again.

Wish me luck...

Twitter Ye Not?

I may not have gigged at all yet since moving to London, and I may have discarded my entire set after my last gig up North to try something new, and I may have written a new five-minute routine in a different style which I ended up chucking in the bin because it didn't sound like 'me', but it's not all bad on the comedy front.

Since I discovered that a certain comedy chain runs a weekly joke competition on Twitter, I've been spending a lot of time and energy on writing new one-liners for said competition.  Since I've won third prize, and then second prize, within the space of two months, I must be doing something right.  (Although that £100 first prize still eludes me, but would come in bloody handy.)

Asides from the accolades, the competition - and Twitter itself - are helping me to become a better joke writer.  The 140-character limit, and the fact that I'm gaining a bit of a reputation (and more followers) from other tweeting comedians means that I have to work harder to craft a decent one-line joke then ever before.  When I have my days free I can write and post up to a dozen gags a day, half of which are at least half-decent.  Even when I'm working a day job, I can while way the hours by thinking up a few gags and then posting them to Twitter via my mobile phone.

The downside of course, is that by immediately posting my brand new jokes to Twitter, they become public property and can be shared across cyberspace, which renders them void for use in a live set.

The previously aforementioned new routine took me several weeks to write and didn't come naturally.  When it was done, and after I performed it for Yvette, I decided it was not much good and decided against performing it live.  Although it made some interesting points, it wasn't really my voice and the joke count was rather on the low side.

Therefore, I've decided to return to one-liners.  Except that I don't want to go back to my old stuff, because I think I can do better, and I can't use the Twitter stuff for the reasons I've already mentioned.

All of which leaves me in an unenviable position for a comedian - a willingness to return to live comedy, but a blank piece of paper with "JOKES" as the heading...