Friday, February 29, 2008

Dying Standing Up

This week has been pretty eventful. In between not working on my dissertation, I went to see both Juno (overrated) and Be Kind Rewind (underrated) back to back, visited the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to look at opium artefacts and whatnot (ornate jars of bear grease to combat baldness, apparently) amid a police-cordoning-off of Lambeth Bridge area, had a trip down the local to celebrate Jona's birthday, and have seen Richard Herring do his "Oh F*ck, I'm 40!" stand-up show which was very funny and vulgar indeed.

But perhaps the most eventful event of the week (if that makes any sense) was trying my hand at stand-up comedy on Tuesday evening. I went to Kingston University to compete in the regional heat of the Chortle Student Comedy Award 2008. In case you didn't know, Chortle is basically the UK Comedy website, with gig listings and daily news updates of the comedy scene, and has been running a nationwide search for the UK's best student comedian for the past few years, the final being held up in Edinburgh during the festival.

Now, I've never done stand-up before, but I thought that this was perhaps my only shot of giving it a go, and what the hey! You're only young and stupid once. So I applied. I got in. I'm on the list of acts. And now I'm standing in a student bar waiting to go on stage and recite some barely rehearsed material in front of a bunch of strangers, experienced comics, and industry know-it-alls. It was perhaps made a tiny bit more nerve-wracking that the head of Chortle looks a lot like Gregory Itzin aka President Logan from 24 / The Mayor of Eerie, Indiana.

I got chatting to a few of my competitors who were very amiable and supportive individuals. One was actually doing an MA in Stand Up Comedy, another did a couple of gigs every week, for one it was his first gig in 4 years (a final shot at the title belt, so to speak), and another who organised his own comedy night and had done about 100 gigs since September. And then there was me. But hey - everyone's gotta start somewhere.

I was to go on 4th out of 10, and I couldn't really have picked a better slot - not going first, but getting it over and done with before the interval. We had a professional MC warm up the audience of about 30/40 local students, the first few acts came and went with varying degress of laughter from the attendees, and there it was my turn.

Now, I wouldn't say I died on my arse, but during the 5-6 minutes of my act I probably got 5-6 laughs. Here is a two minute extract of my performance; unfortunately they picked the two minutes that included the joke that died the worst death and a long-winded set-up and spiel that didn't pay off (I should be sent the whole thing at a later date).



It was strange because there was no tension in the room and I wasn't really nervous; the audience sat there smiling but not laughing, so I think I held their attention and they were mildly entertained, but they just didn't find any of it actually funny. I got some better response towards the end, and a joke I only resorted to when I needed to fill up more time got the biggest laugh of my set, so what do I know? I think my main flaws were...

  1. Too much set-up, not enough jokes. My running theme could have lasted a whole headline act, but I tried to squeeze it into a 5 minute framework.
  2. The delivery. I didn't rehearse enough, forgot a few bits and tripped over myself a few times. Timing the right moment to drop the punchline, seguing smoothly, and emphasising the right words were also skills I fail to possess.
  3. Not enough dick and fart jokes. Perhaps my approach was too clever clever, more of a referential rant than trying to point out everyday foibles that would resonate better with the audience, or better yet, using more swears and gags about sex and poo. And less bad puns - I expected at least a chucklesome groan, but got silence instead.
  4. Be myself. Perhaps I was too scripted - really I should be making jokes that would make me laugh, and I love dark horrible humour, so maybe I should be just a bit sicker in the head.
  5. Perhaps the most crucial - I just wasn't that funny.
Anyway, the very fact that I'm picking apart my routine is probably testament to my desire to give it another spin. The other experienced stand-ups said it was good for a first try, and those that didn't know I was a beginner were impressed in a Faking It sort of way. It was clear though that I had no chance of winning, but I was just happy to have survived. In the end, the winner was a member of the Cambridge Footlights, had competed in this competition the past 4 years, and was already signed up by Avalon. So it was a forgone conclusion for all involved. You can watch clips from all the acts in that heat here.

Still, it was a good learning experience, I got some helpful tips and advice, and I've popped my stand-up cherry. The thing is now, do I dare go on a second date?