31/03/05 One Big Laugh

It felt very strange to get up, have a light breakfast then head off to a dark basement bar at 9.30am to do a stand-up comedy spot.
I had a 10.00am slot booked in the "One Big Laugh" 36 hour continuous stand-up comedy event. The event was organised by Mac Star and Michael McEwan to raise funds for the "Depression Alliance" charity, (and the 36 hours was successfully reached, breaking the world record apparently!! yee ha!).
There were about ten people in the bar when I arrived. A few had been there all night and looked slightly the worse for wear.
Mac Star had been on stage for 6 hours to cover for some no-shows, and was knackered and slightly spaced out. He ended up doing 12 hours on stage altogether over the event which is pretty incredible.
My joke about the gig reminding me of when I played Hitler's Bunker shortly before he committed suicide got my biggest laugh....
I think I did about 15 minutes then handed back to Mac.
I spent the rest of the day getting more annoyed and irritated trying to organise this stupid communal repair. At last, the money is in place, and the work starts on Wed 6th April. The downside is that for the next 3 months there will be scaffolding up at the front and back of the building, and my sleep patterns will no doubt be badly disrupted.
I popped back into The Three Tuns later to watch some more of "One Big Laugh".
There was a nice raucous atmosphere, and it was a bit like a comedian's convention.
The only irritation was quite a lot of talking going on during the acts. I suppose this was inevitable. The problem with doing 36 hours of continuous stand-up is that there are no gaps at all where you can wander about the bar and have a blether. There is always someone talking on stage. Still, it was good fun, and good to meet up with some visiting funny types.