Form slump

Haven’t been a good week at all, haven’t got much good gigs of late. Last couple of weeks been a bad affair for open mics in general and me in particular. Most nights I been to the night is either dead with no audience and have to be pull or the vibe is not right for comedy. My friend Eugene is starting standup comedy as well and he just done 2 gigs, hes doing it quite tough at the moment and probably finding the ins and outs of his act and about the open mic scene. Guess it just a matter of doing this more and refining your act.

For me I am at a creative cross road: theres a divergence between what the audience wants and what I find funny. I wrote a few ethnic gags and it was average at best. Some of them are funny but most probably can be classified as fillers than anything. Also my strength is in the clowning and being bonkus with surreal material, maybe trying to deliver “gags” is a mistake.

Still: You got to do the full range to see what you are and what you are not. – I am definitely not a wordsmith. (Judging from this blog)

Did Dale’s sunday open mic gig last night and tried my new material – funny enough packing it all in like a shotgun might not be the best way to test new material. Most new material bombed. Oh well……… Best part of me is working with Shane tonight as a comedy duo. He just got this random idea for both of us to go up and improvise. Once we hit the stage Shane was on fire and hit the ground running as soon as he came on. I was hanging on for the ride most of the night. It was fun night and Dale is turning his Sunday open mic into quite a successful night!

To be fair with the new material I got, I actually don’t find them to be that funny. I think its passable but I wouldn’t class them as hilarious and maybe thats where I gone wrong.

Suns out! Summer is back……..I should get off the comp and go out!

Baptism of fire – Part 2

During the week, Marc one of my comedy course graduate dropped me a email saying theres a spot for his Dulwich gig on Friday because Harriet dropped out so both me and Trudi ended up getting a 5 min slot.

I was so slow under with work on Thursday that I left the client I was working for at 10:00p.m. I was tired but than again I decided that I need something afterwards to alleviate the stress I decided to goto my Mate’s Denis and Shane’s Edinburgh preview show. It looks like they got a few ideas but still have to write the show itself. Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh: its their first time they performed as an Edinburgh show so we might have to give them a bit of slack. looking forward seeing it in August!

I stayed there till 12:30 and got back at 1:00p.m. I think I went to bed at 2:00 but went to sleep at 6:00 and got up 7:30 for a 9:00 meeting…. hmm rad! Can’t believe I sounded so coherent in the meeting and still managed to work a full day! And still have a gig to do!

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The gig was part of the Dulwich Festival. For those who don’t know about Dulwich, think a Kensington/Chelsea but except in the east but maybe a bit less posh, but not by much. The gig itself was at a classic British watering hole in a room with capacity of 100. Most of the audience are reflective of the people of the surrounding suburb: middle aged, firmly middle classed, well educated Guardian readers. The other acts that are on are all my mates from the comedy course, in a way its like the show case agian except now we have 5 months of experience under our belt.

I would like to gloat right now and say I done the best tonight: I can’t because I didn’t.

That honor is Anthony’s  with his muscial comedy, also Alex was great too! I thought his beginning was a bit cagey with the crowd heckling away, but the rest of his dark, down trodden and ironic woman hating humour loaded with sarcasm turned out to be a winner. 

For me I guess bomb would be a fitting description: I fluffed my first line of my set, I was viewed as the novelty act. Not exactly funny, but odd enough to watch for a few minutes and be consider as vaguely entertaining.

TBH it wasn’t my best of nights but I did gave it my best and I did get a few laughs. Streetfighter material will never worked in front of a 100 middle aged Dulwich crowd whos more familiar with Jane Austin novel than a computer game in the 90s. I was heckled by a lady in the crowd. Matter of fact her heckle was just simply the word “Heckle” I guess its a Dulwich version of “Fuck off! Get off you not funny!” which you will hear throughout pubs filled with drunken cunts.

I handled the heckler well for someone just started out. I tried my best to engage the heckler, I didn’t have a hilarious put down but I did my best to landed a few put down. I think with 30+ gigs under my belt I learnt that you MUST let the heckler that you are not afraid to address a heckle in the appropriate manner. I didn’t landed a knock out blow but I sure show the rest of the crowd that I am not afraid to return a few shots if a heckle do come my way.

My set ended up being 6 and half mins in length where I only did around 4 mins of material and 2 mins of rift based on a heckle. Can’t say it was my best but I definitely say I have alot of fun playing the gig and learnt alot while I am up there.

The weirdest part of the gig was that after my stoush with the heckler, I have a round 2 at the bar downstairs with the said heckler after the gig. It turns out to be a pretty drunk middle age woman who is an ex-standup comedian. She was once like us on the circuit and did an Edinburgh show. She no longer does standup but thinks it courageous we are doing it. However she believes we should also be ready for heckle because in London comedy we will get slaughter by the brutal hecklers.

I can see her point and being heckle comes hand in h.and with doing standup. If anything I love a heckler!! They add more random stuff to your gig and make it more dynamic! If a comedian does not address a heckler than it runs the risk of him/her looking like reading from a script. If you are not funny, the audience have a right to let you know that you not funny. In her view there are grounds on her heckling us.

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But than again……..Who is this woman deciding she is THE ONE to take the job on board and be the one to teach us a lesson? And don’t she see our pain as an ex-comedian of what happens if you get heckled? Is she so bitter and disappointed with her own career that shes taking it out on us? And why did she spent 30 mins justifing her action to the comedian she heckled if she believed that shes doing the right thing? Are we supposed to say thank you and just take it? I took her constructive cristism on board, but I took the self righteous wrapping that the advise came with and disposed of it with little regret. In the end I did dropped her a fact that she didn’t know – she was heckling a bunch of Rookie comedians with 5-6 month time on the circuit, I hope I planted a shred of guilt that will eat her heart out once she woke up from her drunken stupor the following morning

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It was good seeing everyone down 5 months on from the course showcase. In a way we can even consider this as our proper show case! We all blossom as comedians. Sure! We got a fuck load of work to do before we become professional, but its encouraging to know that we are progressing and all of us are more than capable of handling and entertaining a room of paying audience!

Listen back to my set I realised that my material was pretty shit from audience perspective, what seens to be happening is that somehow I can armed myself with material that makes really little sense and make people laugh with it! Hmm……… The best bit about listening to my set I realised what Stevie said on the night: The comedy gold I delivered wasn’t whats in my set, it was the absurd mis-match where a room full of middle age, wealthy  Dulwich intellectuals are given a live demonstration of Streetfighter by an Asian immigrant. Now THAT is priceless!!

Now…..Sleep, than more new material writing!

Baptism of fire – part 1

There is like 2 weeks worth of update so I will be concise as possible.

Last Friday (8th May) I played at the Brewhouse again, it was a quiet gig with relative few punters. Neverthless an interesting night. My set gone down ok but it was tough playing to th crowd.

The most interesting part of the evening was meeting up a comedy writer after the gig and talking about my set. He doesn’t see how my signature gag works – there are no logical links between eating pets and having a midget as a pet.  The audience just can’t draw the connections even though I can see the connection itself. It does explain why when my jokes fell flat, they stare at me dumbfound: they just dun get my humour.

Another thing I learnt with my comedy is that its all a trust building execrise: In order for the audience to get into your material, they needed to have trust in the comedian that he/she will be funny. It is the comedian’s job to win that trust. Most night branded as new act night (e.g. comedy virgins at Stockwell) these trust was “given” to whoever on stage.

This is also applicable to established comedians as well: The audience seen their work and “knows” that they are funny. This is why Stewart Lee takes like 8 mins to finally get to a punchline where a new comedian is given like 8 seconds. Having said that Stewart Lee probably done the hard yards and proved himself to be able to deliver a funny punchline in 8 seconds or 8 mins.

For a new comedian unlike an established pro the audience don’t know you so the trust is not there. It should be the new comedian first port of call to begin with the best gag/material to win that trust. Most open mic set either involved new comedian winning the audience with first gag and storming it to the new comedian battling for the full 5 mins to win their trust.

Final point is that audience have a perception of who you are and what joke you will tell: If you are a muscian/comedian than you expect a funny song, a female comedian than something about being a gal and dating, a fat guy a fat joke and a black guy will be about race. Indeed my problem is that my appearence is a chinese they expect a hilarious ethnic gag to begin my set. Its not because I dun wanted to have one, I DUN HAVE ONE!!

My humour can be loosely based on surreal humour, but Mo Lei Tau as pioneered by Stephen Chow is my spiritual inspiration. It is a combination of of random slapstick, clowning, Juxtaposition to the point of absurdity, combine with puns and parody.  I watched Stephen Chow’s work since I am a kid, his style of humour not only inspiration but it defines my humour!

The week that comedy die

Work is ok: Thought I was gearing up for a project at last, turns out one of the key client business resources is busy with other stuff, so some stuff have to be put on hold until following week. Rest assure it will get alot busier.

Its been an ok week in terms of comedy. I did Stockwell on monday and my friend Kate and Allan came along to see me, it was a good night and good to see the new material went down a treat. Wednesday did a gig at the Camden head at Camden, David from home/Australia came to London for work. The night was ok with around 8 comics and 5 audiences. I have a pretty good gig but did notice that most of the laughing are kind of done by the comics….. hmmmmm……

Friday I signed up for the stand up and coming gong show. I was exicted because last time I did Stand up and coming the audience was great and my material went down well. Ok I didn’t survived to 6 mins but I was using the gig more as a trail run for my new set. Unfortunately there were like 3 audience so they have to pull the gig. I found out that a “pull” gig is the worst gig a comedian can have!!

After a bit of a drink, head down to the Lions Den gong show to see how the situation is: Its similar with them having only a third of the audience they normally have. Whats worst is that the audience that were there doesn’t really wanted to be there for comedy as per se. When quality acts like Luisa getting gonged off at around 4 mins, something is wrong about the night.  Oh well…… long weekend is not good for comedy it seens!

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I was feeling a bit hard donw by for having a gig I am looking forward to pull, on top of this I was reading another comedian’s account of her night she where she  tackle hecklers and held her own. This imspires me to go out there and do more gigs and at the same time raised the question in my head “Why can’t I have comedy revelation like that.”  So I got off my ass and went out to comedy brewhouse and got a 5 min spot.

The night went well; I always heard about this comedian Lousie and tonight I finally seen her in action and she was RAD!! Her material was great and she slot straight into the impro slot really really well! I was on as the third act of the second half and second kicked off well with 2 acts doing some surreal and foreign material. I came on and did my streetfighter stuff and hit a chord with the audience which is rare considering these people are paying punters not comedians!!

Than something happened: A guy walked out after my streetfighter material and I naturally asked him

“You leaving already?”

To which he replied “..yeah….because its fucking terrible……” and than he walked out.

I felt like someone just pulled the pin and left me with a hand grenade. I was silence for like 5 seconds and the best reply I came up with was “Maybe he doesn’t like ethnics…”. I do kicked myself for not snapping him with a witty reply! God damn opportunity missed! I hate to be nasty and mean to people, matter of fact I hate confrontations in general and will spent all efforts in avoiding them. If I wanted to keep going with Standup I will needed to learn to confront wankers as I am sure there will more when I do more gigs. Just have to make sure that I dun lose the rest of the love from the rest of the audience. All in all saturday night gig went down pretty good besdies that one minor incident.

 Starting to get back into computer games, played a bit of Dawn of War II and hated the campaign mode! Its kind of like a RPG crossed with a RTS, make up your mind FFS!! Red Alert 3 took like 7 hours to install. WTF?? Only enough time to put it on but not play it!! Darn!!!!