Looking Backwards and Forwards
Happy New Year everyone. I have mixed feelings about 2009. I was pleased to graduate from Royal Holloway with a 2:1 in Modern History and Politics and go back to New York for a few days. The Big Apple didn't feel as exciting as it did when I first visited four years ago, although perhaps that's not surprising. Since graduating, I have struggled a bit with the post university challenge of becoming an actual human being and remain unemployed. Fingers crossed there will be better things to come this year in that and a few other departments.
On the stand up comedy front, the highlights were performing at the Pier Theatre in Bournemouth and making the semi-finals of the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition. Unfortunately the semi final gig came in the week when my dissertation was due in and that contributed to a poor performance, exacerbated by the quality of the acts on the same bill. I'm looking forward to giving Laughing Horse another go with my heat at The Cricketers in Kingston on 30th January.
I also had more opportunities last year to perform longer sets (10-15 minutes rather than 5, the length of the average open spot) and thought I did reasonably well on most of those occasions. However, for someone who has ambitions to become a proper stand up comedian, I didn't perform anywhere near enough spots last year (I think it was between 15-20, not sure of the precise figure). Part of it was wanting to focus on finishing my degree and part of it was losing my bollocks. I believe that's the technical term.
One of my main resolutions for this upcoming year is to gig as much as I can. I need to silence the voice in my head that tells me I'm not good enough and accept there will be times when I will travel for an hour and a half to die on my arse. I've considered giving up more than once recently, particularly bearing in mind that there are so many people on the open mic circuit (in London in particular) that it's difficult to see how I'm going to progress further. I'm also a lonely person and it has often seemed unwise to keep going with what can be an incredibly lonely pursuit. But I'm going to give it a crack. It would be far better for the comedy going public to decide I'm not good enough rather than give up without trying.
On the stand up comedy front, the highlights were performing at the Pier Theatre in Bournemouth and making the semi-finals of the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition. Unfortunately the semi final gig came in the week when my dissertation was due in and that contributed to a poor performance, exacerbated by the quality of the acts on the same bill. I'm looking forward to giving Laughing Horse another go with my heat at The Cricketers in Kingston on 30th January.
I also had more opportunities last year to perform longer sets (10-15 minutes rather than 5, the length of the average open spot) and thought I did reasonably well on most of those occasions. However, for someone who has ambitions to become a proper stand up comedian, I didn't perform anywhere near enough spots last year (I think it was between 15-20, not sure of the precise figure). Part of it was wanting to focus on finishing my degree and part of it was losing my bollocks. I believe that's the technical term.
One of my main resolutions for this upcoming year is to gig as much as I can. I need to silence the voice in my head that tells me I'm not good enough and accept there will be times when I will travel for an hour and a half to die on my arse. I've considered giving up more than once recently, particularly bearing in mind that there are so many people on the open mic circuit (in London in particular) that it's difficult to see how I'm going to progress further. I'm also a lonely person and it has often seemed unwise to keep going with what can be an incredibly lonely pursuit. But I'm going to give it a crack. It would be far better for the comedy going public to decide I'm not good enough rather than give up without trying.
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