Hooray real comedy is back on the tellybox! I hope you enjoyed Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle as much as I did. It was as funny as I hoped it would be and watching it was like a breath of fresh comedy air. I didn’t love all the sketches but Stew’s stand-up was brilliant. He did most of that material at Fat Tuesday back in October but it still made me laugh as hard. Lets hope that this heralds a new start to comedy on television. Although I’m sure in reality it won’t get that many viewings as people won’t get it as it hasn’t got vague racism, shit catchphrases and someone wobbling their fat gut and the bbc will replace it with something horrendous like the best of My Family presented by Horden and Corne.
I threw out some new gags last night which was fun. Old Rope’s always a top night, but as Stephen Merchant was on last night it was more packed than usual. Being busy is something you would normally enjoy at a gig, but for me trying out new material in front of them just means there are more people to tell you its shit. Luckily about 60% of my stuff seemed to work which made me pleased as it was a mix of Ed show stuff and some other bits. One of them was about the financial market and now I feel all a bit clever. I also did a gag about Mark Kermode and about 5 people got it which made me feel more clever. Then I ended on a Twitter/rape gag which no one liked and I felt like a fool again. Its not as easy as it looks this comedy lark I tell ya. I made a swift exit feeling rather proud of some of my new gags and raced over to the Paramount Student Comedy Awards at the Comedy Store.
I was heading over particularly to catch Laura Lexx who has joined the comedy world through doing the same comedy course on the Kent Drama Degree as I did. I feel a degree of loyalty to my fellow Kent comedians as there are very few of us. At the moment, to my knowledge, there is only myself, Jimmy McGhie and technically three of the Pappy’s boys although they didn’t do Drama and just went to Kent so it doesn’t really count. Although they were nominated so we will let them join in if they want to just to make us all look better. Sadly I arrived at the Store just in time to catch the final act of the competition, and completely miss Laura and all the other acts. The one I did see though, was Ian Sterling, a young Scottish chap. He was only 21 and already had all the confidence of someone who has been gigging for years. He also had some pretty good jokes too. It terrified me. How is he that good that young? Then on speaking to Robin Ince who was judging, he said they had all been very very good. My fellow professional comedians we should be scared. One of the best bits of advice I was ever given was that doing comedy isn’t a race with anyone but yourself. I think that’s incredibly sensible, but it took me two years to get as confident as these young uns and I fear they will overtake us all very quickly. I think it could just be that the whole night made me feel very old. They were all so full of enthusiasm and excitement which I miss sometimes. Of course it will all change when they inevitably have to wait 8 months for a cheque and do gigs that make them question the state of humanity. I stayed for Jon Richardson’s set which was ace as always, and then the results. Laura got runner up which was brilliant and I hear the guy that won it was really good and deserving of the award. I’m sure they will all become key features on the circuit very soon, and when they do I will insist on making them as bitter as the rest of us as quickly as possible, don’t you worry.
The penultimate Fat Tuesday tonight before we take a two month break while the bar closes for refurbishment. Should be another good one. Will break out the Twitter gag again and see what happens. Lets hope its not starey silence. Again.
