Edinburgh, Chortle & Apologies

Well, i've just arrived in Edinburgh after a marathon 4 and a half hour train journey, which wasn't all that bad - I got four seats and a table all to myself so I decided to do a bit of writing inbetween sleeping and looking out of the window.

Actually got quite a lot written, so might try a couple of new gags tonight at One Big Laugh - i'm doing the coveted 10:50pm slot which I'm quite happy about - much better than going on at 9am in the morning.

Am writing this in an internet cafe, and have just logged on to msn messenger, where i get a prompt from Terry Saunders telling me that 'you're famous', and takes me to the story on the chortle home page about the BA Joke - blimey, it's all kicked off now. Shall I use the gag tonight I think....? Hmmm, no.

Am gonna head down to One Big Laugh in a minute to check it out, and then get a bit of rest before heading out tonight. Apologies I didn't write anything yesterday, it was a pretty dull day, and I couldn't be arsed!!

Chesney Hawkes is 33! (145 - 148)

I've just found out that Chesney Hawkes is 33. I don't know why I'm shocked by that, as everybody has a right to get older, but it just doesn't make sense - he's been around for years and still looks the same age. I'm 29 soon - if i'd have been no.1 in the charts in 1991, I would have been 15, and now probably a household name... although I probably wouldn't be doing comedy, just some competitive reality TV show on channel 4 in a last ditch attempt to resurrect a career which died out many moons ago...

Anyway... A full weekend of gigs, one a night from Friday through to Monday, of varying degrees of respectibility. From the lovely Queens Head and Bath House, through to the silence of the Red Lion (yes, again), to the simon-cant-be-bothered-ness of Laughing Horse Oxford Circus (officially my achilles heel when it comes to performing "comedy").

Friday night flyering was great for a change - it was fairly lovely out, and masses of people about - we'd sold the night out before 8 o clock which means I only ended up doing an hour - this put me in a good mood. When I got back to the venue, I found I was on second which was even bettererer - i'd spent the last couple of Queens Head's going on towards the end, by which times I'd consumed more alcohol than I really should have (and, which I need to eventually cut out altogether).

Phil Klein had a stormer (no, really) as compere, and Mike Manera did really well going on first. I did OK in comparision to some recent gigs, and so was reasonably happy - they liked me, and laughed in all the right places - I got some banter out as well, which is always good fun.

We went to the phoenix at the end of the night, although it was closing at 12:30, so it was an early end to the evening, which was OK cos I was tired, and wanted bed.

Saturday night - Bath House, again was flyering for an hour or so. Again, it was lovely out despite a spot of rain. Nick P was out flyering for something like 3 and a half hours - I felt sorry for him, so abandoned my post and went down to check up on him. We had a pretend fight with the comedy tonight signs, and I left him to it - he seemed fairly contented.

Bath House was full again - Roddy was doing well as compere - Simon Amstell goes on first and gets no material out in 20 minutes - all random banter with some essex bird in the front row - he makes a very quick exit and wishes us all the best...

I can't remember who was on in the second half... oh aye, sorry Nick, followed by some Aussie bloke doing a 5 min spot and me. I enjoyed Nick's set, he's changed his delivery a lot and the performance was more assured, and above all considered. It's one of those sets which you can sit and pleasantly listen to, and he had the audience's full attention throughout which impressed me - i'm glad he is making progress.

Aussie geezer goes on and does 5 storming minutes - can't recall what about, but it's fucking funny, and I have to follow it.

I go on and do the BA gag. Now this gag has been subject to controversy... it's a gag which I wrote based on an old bit of material about Mr.T which I never got round to performing (probably because it wasn't funny enough). Regardless, someone else has a very similar gag on the circuit, and has been doing it for a while. Now it has also appeared on radio and on TV, so I'm going to stop doing it. I did, however, decide to do it for this weekend only and then retire it.

It's my opening gambit - and it gets the biggest laugh I've ever had from any joke, at any gig, in any room ever - laughter goes on for over a minute, and i can't get the next joke out, so just milk it (sic) by walking up and down the room. Brilliant. The rest of the set goes OK, but can't match the opening. I even end up having to re-deliver a joke because Essex bird in the front row objects to me dissing westlife - so I change the joke to Boyzone, and get a roar from the crowd. I will later change this to Busted for tomorrows gig.

So all in all not a bad gig - Stacy and me chat to Nick and Liz for a bit, and we head off down to the Queens Head to catch the end of that - then we all ambled down to the Phoenix where I spent the evening chatting to Michael Fabbri about the first jokes we ever wrote, and the things we'd most like to put into room 101 - my list consisted of umbrellas, own goals in football, wearing in new shoes, and other things. We all decided that we were going to get colonic irrigation done after liz mentioned something about yoga - i can't remember how the conversation got going, or how it ended up, but I seemed to think that having the pipe from a home wine making kit stuck up your arse in order to cleanse your system was a good idea. I have a couple more drinks, put my watch forward and left at 3am (2am)

Sunday i slept in until 3pm in the afternoon, after going to bed at about 6am. I had to leave the house to go flyering for James D'Ch at 5. I was to be doing a marathon flyering session from 5:50 until 8pm which quite frankly, is ridiculous.

Thankfully it was very very busy in town and I run out of flyers within the hour. There were three of us flyering, and because of that and the fact that we had to stick to the fire regulations on the room (30 people!!!), the whole night sold out at 7:15, and doors didn't open until 7:30pm, so it was a marvellous success.

The audience seem lovely, if a little quiet - James goes on, asks a few people who they are etc... and then brings me on. They are not warmed up, and I am annoyed - I try a little bit of banter, but don't really get a lot so I launch into material. I get some good laughs but from different parts of the room, so this isn't anything like what I'd experienced on Friday and Saturday. I do the rest of the set to 'polite' laughter, wrap up and get off. I tell Aaron Counter that I am annoyed - he said don't worry about it, it happens, and said if it was him, he would have spent a bit more time warming them up - he was right, but I don't want to make a habit out of doing that and sacrificing material time. I went home early, and went to bed.

Monday was a nice day, although again, I didn't get up until after midday, and left the house at 2pm with Stacy with a view to buying some trainers. We got into town and I nipped into work to check a couple of things, and met Stacy outside the internet cafe where I bumped into Mike Manera. He said 'what you up to? fancy a pint?' and so it was written...

Couple of pints later, and after enjoyable chat with Mike, he went off to meet up with Lucy, so we grabbed something to eat and headed down to Laughing Horse Oxford Circus, with view to getting a gig.

The place was pretty much dead all night and Nigel decided to go ahead with just 8 audience members and 7 acts. I went on 2nd last, and was rubbish - I was so tired, and couldn't be bothered, but I still got laughs which means I can do this shit, even when I'm completely inept. I want to stop this from happening, I'm smoking too much, and drinking too much - it's not good. I got home with the worst headache ever, and felt sick so went to bed.

After about an hour I felt hungry, so got up and ate, and played Pro Evolution Soccer until 3am, when I went back to bed and had 4 hours sleep.

I'm tired - don't wanna be at work - no gig planned for tonight. I might change my mind later.

eggs

Well last night was fun - i've never seen the Red Lion so busy. I sometimes wish I could say that I've never seen the Red Lion such is the amount of bad gigs that I've been to there. Maybe times are changing, as the days get longer maybe people just want to see free comedy. Maybe people just want to spend more time drinking, thus unaware of what they're doing or indeed watching.

I went on 2nd following the ubiquitous Phil Klein H'Okay Mate - and to be fair he was given a pretty generous reception by a very full room - I think they were laughing when they realised they shouldn't have been thus creating more laughter. I think Phil's generated a niché for himself... by accident.

Alan Wilde was compering - a bit mad, but I like Alan. I'm not sure what the audience made of him though - he introduced me as 'Simon Douglass... this man is always here, and very funny' which I was annoyed about, even though it was kind of true. God, I must get out more.

I started as I did the previous night by taking the piss out of the set, then went into material - most of it worked, some got groans which I didn't expect, but it gave the opportunity to banter which was fun. It must have been the slowest 10 minutes of my life, I couldn't really be bothered - I like it when I'm like that because I have no comedy inhibitions, and some of the punchlines were done much better than if i'd given it any amount of thought.

I'm tired. Last day at work for four days - i'll be glad when this is all over and I can focus on comedy full time without any work stress. Lots of gigs coming up over the weekend, hopefully I can find time to write them all up.

Happy eggs.

Red Lion (144) - H'Okay Mate.

Back at the Red Lion again tonight, although last nights performance will be difficult to replicate - it was a wonderful evening (very odd for a Tuesday), and plenty of people in. One of the horrible things about playing the Red Lion lots is that you get used to very apathetic audiences who tend to sit arms folded, with a defensive "make me laugh then" attitude. Last night was different... lots of lovely people in who laughed and laughed all evening... even at Joel Elnaugh.

Matt Blaize opened - he was very good, trying out a whole load of new stuff, so that got the evening off to an unexpectedly great start. He was followed by Griff Griffiths, again trying out new stuff mixed with some old favourites - he was so bloody loud, but had the audience in stiches. So, when Phil called a break everybody bar two miserable people in the front row, stayed.

I opened the second half. I must admit I was feeling very tired, the shortfall of lack of sleep going back to Sunday night's Exeter gig was a major factor. But this helped me massively, because i've developed this knack over the last year and a half of playing a gig depending on my mood - tonight I was a bit of a stoner. It helped the material sound much more personal, and as some people pointed out i was more myself than usual, and so as a result got many more laughs than I could have predicted.

So... me happy. Jimmy McGhie went on after me and was brilliant - I only remember the butane gas thing from his set, but some other new stuff was equally as awesome. Helen Keen closed the half doing only 5 mins of new stuff - I asked her why she only did five, when she was booked for ten and she told me it was to get the new stuff out. I said, why not do old stuff and new stuff and do ten minutes... I think she took this on board. She's going to be a great comic.

Another break, still the audience persevered with the very happy and energetic Mr. Klein as compere. On came Robin Cousins trying some new stuff, some which worked, some not. Following him was the legend that is Joel Elnaugh... in fact, I think its the best I've ever ever seen him - he was just completely shit. The South African bloke sat next to me at the back and asked if it was for real... I said "yes, he is fucking rubbish", and he burst out laughing.

Terry Saunders closed and was as playful as ever with the audience, although I think this detracted from his set, as he got more laughs through bantering - still very good, but he needs to get some control

And that was the end of the night, jimmy came back looking for his jumper which he'd lost, and i accidentally head-butted a pretty Aussie girl in the back row, but thats another story. The South African guy bought me a drink, and I chatted to him and his cousin for a while, before heading off to the phoenix - Robin and me doing Phil Klein impressions on the way, H'Okay Mate. Me and Phil had a pint, chatted to Bob the poet then I went home and had a look at the pictures which had just been sent to me from the Crewe gig - all very good.

Red Lion (143) - Szilard Nemeth

So, I find myself in familiar territory at the Red Lion this evening trying new stuff out. This can often be risky, especially when the audience consists of tourists... four of them. Maybe i should start taking all the British references out of my set to suit a more international audience, but then again... no.

Don't know who else is on tonight. Last time I did this the audience numbered 7 people and whilst attempting to leave, Gareth Berliner told me I had to go on. He was wrong, but I went on all the same, and did my set to pretty much silence which was hugely enjoyable, and i learned a lot - don't do a gig to seven people. I didn't even manage to get any new jokes out, but that was really my problem because I hadn't written any.

Comedy is fun at the moment, coming off the back of a run of great gigs out of London, and then doing well on my return, followed by a mute crowd at Exeter on Sunday night.

Finally dropped the hackneyed speed dating stuff from my set, which makes it sound so much better, and i do feel relief running through my veins at my ability to get new stuff out in its place... hopefully the new new stuff which I do tonight will give me something else to think about.

Ideally, I want to get to the stage where I am a football manager with a major selection headache but that I feel, is gonna take some time. The subs bench is currently overflowing with ideas and Szilard Nemeth.