Once again I have failed to incorporate blog time into my day and I am about to head to the Underbelly to see Collins and Herring’s podcast. James of Twitter Comedy Club fame kindly bought me a ticket some time ago, and we both overlooked the dangers of watching anything that’s on earlier than about 3 o’clock ie. we would both have been up drinking till the early hours. James’s excuse appears to have been that he went drinking with Michael Legge, a dangerous endeavor I’m sure. Mine was that I was asked to compere the 2nd Annual Underbelly Sketch Off. This is an event where several upper class students wank off against each other to see whose sketch is wankiest, while non-students News Revue perform excellently but no one is there to cheer for them so they lose. Harsh but true. This is the main problem of any competition where it is judged depending on audience cheers. No matter how good you are, if you haven’t got friends you will lose. This, I believe is a motto for life, and probably why I’m still struggling. (Please read last line with sarcasm. I have loads of friends. On facebook. Never seen them in real life but surely that counts right? Right? Sniff sniff, right?). To be fair to the Oxford Revue and Durham Revue they were very slick and polished, with some lovely sketches, but I grew to loathe their audience of ‘look at us we went to a posh university while you reveled in your own sick at Kent for 4 years’ bastards. I started with jokes and quips and ended up just shouting. I have since realised that that is not good for your throat. Forget all herbal remedies and pharmaceutical goods, if you want your sore throat to get better, the best trick is not to shout at people in a noisy bar for hours on end. Fact. You can have that one for free. After the Sketch Off, I bought one of our flyerers, Dave, a bevvy, as sadly it was his last day. As I’ve mentioned before, all the team are pretty awesome this year and I owe quite a lot to them as they’ve helped sell loads of tickets with enthusiasm for the job. Dave has to go back to Ireland today so I felt booze was an appropriate send off, as he’s a top bloke. This small bit of booze descended into lots of booze until all the flyerers went to Silent Disco and I stupidly thought staying out was a good idea, drinking until the early hours. Bad bad bad.
Some release was needed though. I had one fun show yesterday, but sadly it wasn’t mine. I was cursed with the only really bad audience I’ve ever had. As I walked onstage, before saying anything, I noticed a woman huff and look annoyed as though she really didn’t want to be there. She kept her rain jacket on and clutched her brolly, whilst trying to find the most comfortable way to sleep in her chair. If you are looking for somewhere cosy to nap, please go home and don’t use my gig as a place of sleep. There were several people actually enjoying it, but they got sucked into the vacuum of starey tired people and it became an hour long struggle to raise any mirth. I left hoping that none of them would ever darken a gig I do again. Fingers crossed today won’t be the same.
Must dash for podcast hilarity. Tonight is relatively quiet, so I’m staying in. Whilst tomorrow’s blog will have nothing of interest , it will also be longer. I may just type a succession of random words to keep you all happy. When I say all, I mean Randolph and the two other readers.
NB (see previous blogs for Randolph explanation.)
