Monday, July 02, 2007

02/07/07 Like A Bad Night In Baghdad








So I had an interesting gig in Glasgow on Saturday night.
It's probably fair to say that my welcome in the West was comparable to that accorded
to the two gents in the Cherokee Jeep who decided that the existing short term car park at Glasgow Airport wasn't quite close enough for their liking to the Check In desks.
With hindsight, I did make a severe error of judgement by going ahead with using the inner voice/backing tape intro thing.
If I'd been thinking straight, I'd have observed that the way the crowd reacted to the first act strongly suggested that they'd not go for this weird intro at all.
In addition, I had a technical hitch with the CD and had to stand about onstage for a couple of minutes assuring an already sceptical audience that I would be "hilarious" once I got started.
It's often stressed in comedy land how important a strong opening to your act is.
It gets the audience comfortable and immediately onside, and buys you time to get up and running.
Unfortunately, I was getting booed and heckled within a couple of minutes of launching my unusual intro.
At this point, I get the feeling that the audience made a collective decision to refrain from laughing at any of my subsequent "jokes".
I wouldn't want you to think that I was blaming the audience for my own shortcomings, but most objective observers would probably conclude that there was a substantial quota of mentalist morons present amongst the assembled comedy crowd.
They didn't really give any of the acts a lot of respect, but I definitely copped the worst of their wrath!
I ended up overrunning and doing a 25 minute set.
When you're constantly being interrupted it's impossible to tell how long you've been doing, as your usual material/time markers are all over the place.
I should remember to look at my watch before I go on stage.

I tried to win them over by suggesting that according to recent scientific research, people in Glasgow have smaller brains than their counterparts in Edinburgh and are subsequently less able to appreciate the nuances of sophisticated comedy.
I also mentioned that they were bitter over Edinburgh status as capital of Scotland.
(of course I am a Glaswegian myself and obviously refute these suggestions, but playing the snobby Edinburgher seemed the best way to wind them up)
These are sophisticated heckler put downs though, aren't they?
(I know...I know...I know....must try harder! ho ho)
Unfortunately, all this didn't seem to help matters at all.
It just turned into a war of attrition type shouting match.
I've never experienced a reaction like that in any gig anywhere...
I even had some people walk out!
I have to say that on a strange masochistic level I really enjoyed it...
I'm sure it's ultimately "character building"...
Bizarrely, some of my worst hecklers told me afterwards they'd actually really enjoyed it...

It's fascinating to see your friends eyes light up when you tell them you've just had a fairly catastrophic gig...
It obviously makes a far more interesting story than hearing about how well I did the week before...
People are bastards. (apart from me, obviously)
I think that is the motto of today's piece.

This is my all-time favourite sketch from "Absolutely"....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had no idea you were still using that tape, if it's the same one I'm thinking of. I take it that was Blackfriars? I had one of my worst gigs there, but I was drunk so the pain was dulled.

And I have now found lots of Absolutely on youtube so I will get no job applications done tomorrow either!

tony

jimbo said...

I hadn't used it since last year..just thought I'd use it for a change...I think I'll let it RIP now though! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Here's my all-time Absolutely favourite...thus blowing the "scientific" research that us Eastie's are more intelligent than Weegies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ-ALQ8wcqk

Mouthy Git of Dundee
PS...and for the really purile but ultimate in failsafe comedy material..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IYnWTmxkBM