Last night saw me do my thing at Laughter\u2019s Just The Tonic, in Welwyn Garden City. I met Jonathan Prince when he performed with me on my first night and he\u2019d been great with advice before I went on. Last night I was on at his show, and my shortest ever journey to a gig – yaay. A huge thanks to Jonathan for the nod. I love the work and buzz-building he applies to the show and its one of those where the promoter and venue really do fit and give real hope for successful and sustainable comedy hub. The venue was good and seemed to actively support the evening in a way not typical of some of the other venues I\u2019d performed at.<\/p>\n
Mc\u2019ing the evening was Rick Pistol, who opened the show in quite unique fashion \u2013 which really set the tone of the evening. You were, between laughs, thinking \u2018this is the weirdest thing I\u2019ve seen and chuckled at in a while\u2019, but you found yourself thinking that over and over as the evening progressed.<\/p>\n
Joe Jacobs opened sharply speaking among other things, about the mechanics of office speak.<\/p>\n
I came on next\u2026 and it was good to have my brother and his other half in the audience, alongside the long suffering Mrs Howard. Whenever there is a high standard of acts, you do appreciate a bit of additional support. I was pleased overall with my performance, but again took immediate note of some amendments I think will be beneficial to the set. After I left the stage, the MC (Rick), immediately likened from my moving from Brent to Stevenage with moving from Iraq to Iran.<\/p>\n
Arthur Turner performed his set next, with his unique doctor-based set drawing amusement from the audience. Don Biswas followed up with an array of strong jokes, all bustling for inclusion in his forthcoming Edinburgh show. I really enjoyed his set, while Arthur had my brother in stitches (quite fortunate he\u2019s a doctor really).<\/p>\n
Interval came and a picture of all the acts together was taken, a nice touch. The show resumed with Cally Beaton holding court and bringing the audience fully into the spirit of the evening. I was really impressed with the performance and use of a particular audience member.<\/p>\n
Phil Zimmerman, who many would recognise from Never Mind the Buzzcocks exposure, came on and consolidated the \u2018unique\u2019 theme of the evening with his non-confirmative approach to comedy, both frightening and amusing. Phil has a multi-streamed offering in terms of skill set, with side lines as a\u00a0freelance football writer on the Sunday Times and The Independent, and as a musician.<\/p>\n
Headline act to close the evening was Peter Ford, delivering a masterfully tempered and warm account of life for the more mature gentleman. His stories of the old lady in the post office and about shopping with his wife were particularly popular among a consistently strong set.<\/p>\n
The night really did get me thinking about the variety of different styles encapsulated within the stand-up comedy framework, all completely different, yet all seeking the result for the work and imagination that goes into the routines. Loud and quiet, relaxed and energetic, traditional and completely out of the box. There are no set rules in comedy and that was probably my overriding observation following the evening.<\/p>\n
We, being my brother Shaun, his girlfriend Cailin, and my wife Liz, stayed on afterwards for a drink up until about midnight. The journey home brought the near-custom fast food stop which brought its own challenges. The club next door had just shat out its incumbents and that resulted in a 20 minute queue with me on my own stood among a cattle of 15-18 years doing all the things that 15-18 year olds do, having drunk beyond their capability. Age has never kicked me in the gut so hard. Bloody happy meals at one in the morning from kids babbling on about university acception\/rejection between choking each other by tongue. I\u2019ve just felt that kick in the gut again. And for the record, a Big Tasty, is neither big nor tasty.<\/p>\n
Back home to watch the set. Was relatively pleased how it went. I had been nervous leading up to it but did feel better as soon as I got started on stage. I\u2019m really developing that, \u2018sod it I\u2019m here now\u2019 mentality and seem increasingly eager to just get on and start. Each gig affords me more comfort on stage and I\u2019m actually starting to believe I won\u2019t be lynched on the way out, which is a bonus.<\/p>\n
And for whatever reason, something possessed me to start reviewing the leaders debate that I\u2019d missed and sadly, the robotic and cloned \u2018representatives\u2019 was a far cry from the originality and uniqueness offered at the show earlier in the evening. So it has to be Mickey Flanagan for prime minister then.<\/p>\n
It was actually Good Friday last year that I took my first steps into comedy and it was somewhat fitting to be on a show of someone I\u2019d performed with that evening, last night. It was a pleasure to have performed there and I would definitely like to do it again.<\/p>\n
Enjoy the long weekend and good luck avoiding all mention of bloody zero-hours contracts!<\/p>\n
James<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night saw me do my thing at Laughter\u2019s Just The Tonic, in Welwyn Garden City. I met Jonathan Prince when he performed with me on my first night and he\u2019d been great with advice before I went on. Last night I was on at his show, and my shortest ever journey to a gig …<\/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-86","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\/86","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=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameshoward.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}