Stand Up Round Up

I've done three gigs since I last blogged here. The day prior to the aforementioned Royal Holloway Comedy Night, James McPhun talked me into going along with him to one of the qualifying rounds for the Amused Moose Laugh Off 2010, despite the two of us continuing to hold grievances regarding new act competitions. 51 acts each doing a minute and a half is a recipe for a hellish evening but I ending up enjoying the night, partly because I had a really good gig. I hit all my punchlines and got one of the best reactions I've had in a while from the audience (who were of course almost all comics). The last qualifying round isn't until Easter Monday so I won't know until next week whether I've gotten through to a heat. Amused Moose say that the contest aims to find people with 'star potential' rather than the funniest stand ups. I don't really fit the criteria so I'm not expecting an email, but we shall see.

The Royal Holloway gig with McPhun the following day was good fun. The crowds are always supportive and I had a pretty solid show. The majority of my set was new material, a lot of which was about death, something I've been thinking a lot about since my Grandad's funeral. It's not something I think people particularly want to hear about at a comedy night but they got behind it anyway, even though the laughs tailed off a bit towards the end. James also had a good gig, despite being hindered by the fact about twenty people left the room once I had finished. This was tremendously unfair but very funny. Do I have a band of mysterious comedy acolytes? We may never know.

Finally, I was at Punchlines at De Ja Vu in Reading on Sunday night. I had a difficult gig in front of a small crowd consistently mainly (and bizzarely) of a Toys R Us Christmas party. My delivery was all over the place in the first couple of minutes and failed to get much of a reaction initially. I found their level and pulled it round by the end of my set which was annoyingly cut short due to an extra act appearing and the previous act overrunning. Not particularly enjoyable.

I've been watching a lot of stand up shows on TV and on DVD lately and I'll be reviewing them in upcoming blogs.

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