Hmmmm....Nice...!!!

So Hackney has come and gone….
It was the definite highpoint of my comedic career…
What a buzz to play in front of a sold-out Hackney Empire…1500 people…ker-pow…!!!
On this occasion I’d like to say “Fuck self-deprecation..!”
I had a storming gig…I couldn’t have wished in my wildest dreams for it to go any better…it was an absolute joy to play that stage…
My main anxiety before the gig was that I wouldn’t do myself justice, and regret not making the most of probably the biggest gig of my life.
Being so relieved it had gone well, any concern over the subjective musings of a group of judges seemed gloriously irrelevant.
I promise you. I’m not delusional…why only last Thursday I did much of my set to silence at the esteem’d “Heresy” comedy club in Edinburgh.
It was like doing a bible reading at school assembly.
I’ve no interest in hiding disasters.
I know they’re much more interesting to read about than the successful gigs though. I’m not stupid…
But it all got filmed, so I’ll stick a copy of it on here and then you, yes you, can decide if I’m being ludicrously, over-generous with my nauseatingly subjective self-review.
I was delighted that Fergus won…I‘m a big fan of his work as part of the “Colin and Fergus” double-act, and I loved his offbeat solo set on
Saturday night. Class.
Compere Arthur Smith was also on fine form.
He strode into a fairly tense Green Room before the show, and informed everyone that the previous year’s winner had now given up performing (this is true), so that winning this thing wasn’t necessarily recommended for your “fucking career!”, and did his trademark throaty chuckle.
He instantly transformed the atmosphere and had everyone giggled uncontrollably for the next few minutes as he held court.
Weirdly, I felt hardly any nerves as I strode onto the stage and did my set.
I felt more nervous doing the heat upstairs in a pub in Stoke Newington.
I just found the whole place such a comfortable, friendly environment that the nerves just went, and all that remained was a determination to
savour the experience, as these sort of things don’t come around too often.
And playing that stage was a celestial orgasm...buzz-tastic.
Of course being an emotional kind of guy, after the show I was choked at how celebratory my friends were who’d come along to see me.
They were miles more nervous than me about the whole thing ; utterly terrified of witnessing me having having a disaster.
I’m lucky to have the friends I have…they rock! (this is obviously turning into my Gwyneth Paltrow/Halle Berry moment)
And it was great to see my old samba muckers Hannah and Jen also making a surprise celebrity appearance.
Looking back, I really enjoyed the immediate aftermath of qualifying for the final.
Participating in the stand-up comedy experience involves taking a regulatory amount of kicks in the bollocks from time to time, so it’s nice to occasionally get a little bit of recognition that you’re doing something right.
I was enjoying this phase up until the beginning of last week ; then all of a sudden the final was looming large on the horizon.
I spent most of last week constantly pondering on what material to select for the 5 minute set.
It’s agonising, as you contemplate after the event bemoaning that you ended up making some catastrophically bad choices.
Then you have a bit of a worry on where you’ll end up on the bill…probably better to be in the middle of the first half I thought… There are so many acts to get through
that you don’t want to be too far down the bill and perform to a frazzled audience (I ended up being on 3rd in the 2nd half…not great, but could have been worse)…
You worry in case someone’s material is too similar to yours (particularly if they are on first) …Then you worry that if the person on before you is TOO funny then the audience will need a rest and you’ll catch them in a lull…or if the person before you has a lingering death, it may take time to get the room warmed up again…
There’s a whole range of anxiety inducing stuff to ponder over…
I think I’ll make that the end of my competition days…the performing is great…the surrounding stress is not so great.
But back at work now and have made a right pig's ear of something...I'm not getting as good a reaction from my work audience at all...
Back to reality.