Saturday, July 26, 2008

26/07/08 Not working for the man
















My contract finished yesterday...yee ha!
It feels good to chill out and be a free man again, although I really should be spending all my spare time getting into a state of readiness for the upcoming Fringe.
A few folk in the comedy business have recently told me that I have improved a lot.
This is a good thing.
I've had quite a lot of gigs recently, most of which have gone well.
I did a full weekend for the first time in Glasgow last week ; the Thursday and Friday were great, but the Saturday night was a bit of a struggle.
Overall though, quite chipper about the old comedy thing.
I think I started getting better after I got a couple of duff reviews on this
comedy web site.
I remember at the time that my nose was fairly out of joint about the reviews; mainly because, by any objective analysis, I'd gone down really well (which was alluded to in the review).
Anyway,with hindsight, it was probably the best thing that's happened to my act, as it made me take a long, hard look at what I was doing, and led me to play around with the format a bit.
I'm not saying I'm amazing and wonderful though...just got a bit better, ok?
I was having a funny conversation yesterday with a work colleague regarding our experience with "tight gits" in our respective social circles.
I do know people who will always, always, always be last to get a round in any pub situation, and who are delighted if, due to licensing time restrictions, they are unable to get their full quota of rounds in at the bar.
I was trumped though by an outstanding tale of tightness.
My colleague was contacted by telephone by a friend and asked if he would mind looking after a bag of frozen peas of his by storing it in his freezer.
Why?
So that he could switch off his freezer and save the electricity, as he was going away on holiday for a week.
Now you could argue that he was being green.
But I'd say that was merely a by-product of the principal motive, which was undoubtedly tightness of the highest order.
That was a very funny tale.
Last year I wrote this about the death of a couple of friends of mine ; Harry Horse and his wife Mandy.
I was shocked to read some grim details emerge of the actual circumstances of their deaths in the media.
Later that day I had a gig on, and it felt very strange to witness one of the comedians go into a routine about Harry Horse and the circumstances of his death.
I didn't enjoy hearing a comedy routine about something so personal, but I did rationalise that I can't have it both ways.
If you're going to have the odd dark piece of material in your set, you have to take it on the chin when you hear material on a subject that you are a bit sensitive about.
It was a pretty good joke though, I observed objectively.

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