Another night, another gig, another lesson.<\/p>\n
Venturing into the near but not quite London locality, I had been apprehensive about the gig at the White Bear in Ruislip. A comedian from the show on Monday had tipped me off that it could be a tough one, while a mate from work showed up to offer support \u2013 Cheers Alex, You\u2019ve bagged yourself front row at my first and inevitably sold out 02 gig!\u00a0 Sorry to those I didn\u2019t tell, didn\u2019t get it confirmed until quite late on.<\/p>\n
Journey down was horrendous; I avoided the M25 as recommended, but managed to hit non-stop road works on the way down my alternative route.<\/p>\n
An hour and twenty minutes later, I arrive and mingle, always good people on the circuit. Mike Lord who ran the gig from Monday night was on as an act too, and I met a lovely comedian named Pamela Hilton. There were eighteen names on the bill, of which I was the thirteenth \u2013 great omen huh? The longest act list I\u2019ve been part of as yet and some of the other acts were extremely well supported.<\/p>\n
The show starts and straight away the MC, comedy impressionist Steve Williams, is calling me and Alex to seats nearer the front. He asked if I was performing tonight, and left me alone when I said \u2018I am, yes\u2019. Alex didn\u2019t have the get out of jail card so took a minor ribbing, and took it well.<\/p>\n
The show started and there were 9 back-to-back acts before the break, and I was fourth after the break. Just before I went on, a couple of people left, unfortunately one of whom I\u2019d thought of a good gag for. Always (at least) one good joke that gets away.<\/p>\n
I was knackered having been up since before 5am and I hit the stage at 1050pm (had been due on at around 9.30pm). I felt very lethargic by the time my turn came around, which was the first time that\u2019s happened. Anyway, on I went to claim my five minutes of stage time.<\/p>\n
Having watched it back more than once, the first half was solid with good laughs, a couple of very big laughs, but then the laughs were harder to find second half. They were there, but for some reason a lot quieter than during the first half. It was like I\u2019d lost their attention literally at the half way mark. Parts of my act which usually hit the spot just passed without response. It\u2019s an odd feeling when you have a tried and tested gag which passes almost as if it were just a statement of fact.<\/p>\n
I had been warned about keeping to five minutes and while I was happy with the delivery, I could have done with slowing down a bit and leaving more room for laughter.<\/p>\n
There is a great analogy for subconsciously training the audience to cut their laughter. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist known primarily for his work in classical conditioning, reportedly rang a bell each time he fed his dogs. Any he time he rang a bell after this, the dogs would immediately salivate. They had been conditioned, in the same way that an audience will be conditioned to stop laughing for too long if you keep just moving on to the next thing while they are still laughing – because you are watching the clock.<\/p>\n
Naturally, I\u2019d wanted to smash the place down\u00a0the first time that someone\u00a0I knew outside of comedy\u00a0(other than my wife) was seeing it live and I am generally sadistically self-critical. As usual, I felt much better when watching it back afterwards; in terms of laughter I would pitch the response to my set as somewhere in the middle overall. Wasn\u2019t bad, wasn\u2019t great.<\/p>\n
As I returned to my seat, Steve (the MC) went back to Alex to comment on the fact he was recording it for me. Other comedians recorded their sets but it hadn\u2019t been mentioned so I wanted to run around and tell everyone I wasn\u2019t recording it because I am egotistical arsehole (that\u2019s just a coincidence), but it is to improve my set. I remember very little while I\u2019m up there, so I need to be able to watch it out without thinking about the words or actions that I need to remember for the next gag.<\/p>\n
Some of the stronger acts experienced the same but showed an energy that took the room back once it had started to quell, and it\u2019s definitely one for the list of things to work on. I was more concerned about the journey there and the time I was on than the fact I was going up, it must be becoming more \u2018normal\u2019 for me.<\/p>\n
Afterwards the acts were called up to the stage for a \u2018clap-off\u2019 to see who won \u2013 and I was missed. I was starting to think I\u2019d upset someone somewhere along the line.<\/p>\n
Then the person who brought the most people inevitably got the loudest cheer and won. She was very funny to be fair and had brought a good crowd so fair play to her, but there were two other strong acts I thought should have been in with a shout (no, not me).<\/p>\n
Another well organised gig with a great set up, huge thanks to Pete Jee\u00a0of Havana Laugh\u00a0for the opportunity and the hard work behind putting a night like this on.<\/p>\n
I left more tired than I\u2019d been in a while, and resolved to try and avoid being 13th<\/sup> on where I can. Either that or learn to keep the energy up for a far longer period than I\u2019d been used to.<\/p>\n During the drive back I kept asking myself if this was my first \u2018bombing\u2019 \u2013 but having watched it back, it definitely wasn\u2019t. It\u2019s still weird how the perception can be different from when you are up on stage. It does make you wonder what kind of drive home it will be when the time does come. I\u2019m certain it\u2019s going to be a shitty one.<\/p>\n Few weeks now to work on my material, particularly the latter half, to make sure I can have a happy drive home again for on my next gig. As Winston Churchill said, \u201cDifficulties mastered are opportunities won\u201d.<\/em> And I likes winning, does me.<\/p>\n Until then, thanks for support and enjoy the weekend!<\/p>\n James<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another night, another gig, another lesson. Venturing into the near but not quite London locality, I had been apprehensive about the gig at the White Bear in Ruislip. A comedian from the show on Monday had tipped me off that it could be a tough one, while a mate from work showed up to offer …<\/span> Continue Reading<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}