my first gig, by neil, age 37½ (at the time)

Published by neil on June 20th, 2006

The journey to actually getting up in front of an audience was a relatively brief one: from serious consideration to first gig in around three months. It grew out of the ashes of a live sketch show (Casual Sketch) which sadly never made the stage (yet). So the next plan was to cut out reliance on other people and go it alone.

The place was both infamous and much loved: a small club called The Troy Club. A new act night was in the planning and I managed to persuade the entirely animal product free Andrew O’Neill to give me five minutes of time.

With a few weeks to prepare, I wrote comedy like a mofo - most of it was rubbish, but gradually something started to emerge that at least I thought was funny. That is at least a good start; if you don’t try and present what is funny to you, then you will have a much tougher time persuading a bunch of strangers you are funny.

The Troy that night was heaving as usual, with audience spilling out into the hallway and stairs. A good friend had turned up to see me strut my stuff, as had a few of the collaborators from the stalled sketch show, some of whom themselves were considering a similar ’stand up and not be funny’ attempt (at least providing I survived my ordeal).

The Troy club at that time consisted of a small room with a bar at one end and a space opposite, near the window (through which passers by had been known to heckle), which served as a ’stage’.

I don’t entirely know what I expected but something resembling a raised platform, a microphone on a stand, and a curtained backdrop that had more than a fleeting probability of staying put for more that five minutes, would have sufficed. As it was, I should have been grateful of the plastic spotlamp (£2.85 from Homebase) clipped to the fireplace about two feet to the right. Its head-level mount and ‘blind the right eye’ orientation offering an interesting, visually impared view of the packed room from the stage.

It was the lack of microphone which threw me the most. Many hours running through my routine, microphone in hand, left me with this spare, useless hand which really had little idea of how to behave - hands need practice too, take my word for it.

So, blind in one eye and with one quarter of my bodily appendages flailing like an unwanted bit of old rope, I managed around half way through my heavily rehearsed routine (including a couple of minor but gratefully received siggers), when all knowledge of said routine vanished from my consciousness like the coherence of George Bush at the neccessity of handling a unscripted answer to an unanticipated question.

The greatest fear for any comic, let alone a complete novice, is dying on stage. The second greatest is forgetting your material - often leading to dying on stage, so it’s just as bad. The odd thing is, it was an unexpected laugh that threw me (unexpected laugh, check your flies - as the age old performer’s advice rings). A line which was merely a setup went out there in a moustache and glasses, and got mistaken for a gag. Before I knew it - and a millisecond after realising that the imminent, beautifully crafted punchline would have the potency of a full-blooded male faced with the seductively draped Ann Widdecombe - there was nothing.

Remember as a child when you would find yourself in a dream, perhaps at some significant family gathering, fully clothed apart from the complete absence of clothing? Well, drying before an audience on your first gig is far worse. In fact if I had been bereft of dress I am sure the moment would certainly have been obscured by laughter.

With 98 eyes all anticipating my next move - they think the silence is intentional - I search around the room for someone holding up a large banner containing the rest of my routine. The remaining pair of eyes, although they were turned away at that time, were to be my soft landing.

The second part of this gripping tale shortly…

Tags: Comedy, people, Personal, standup
Posted in Personal |