2nd July- Party Piece

Tonight I ventured up to the Queen's Head in Kings Cross for Party Piece, an open mic night that runs every week. I've spoken at length about my opposition to gigs that occur in the same room as the main bar in a pub and felt hindered by the conditions the last time I performed there. Fortunately I was able to do my set in front of a small attentive crowd who were fully engaged with proceedings. I felt I had a solid gig, not all of my material connected but I received a handful of warm sizable laughs which is good going for a five minute set.

Over the past couple of months, I've largely performed the same five-seven minute set to prepare for the Chortle Student Comedy Award Final 2011 in Edinburgh on 28th August. Although I'm largely happy with it, three bits are rather hit and miss. Similarly tonight, the three inconsistent pieces of material went down to very little. It's left me with a difficult choice as structurally each piece is important for the set to make sense as a cohesive whole. I'm going to see what tinkering I can do with it in the next three weeks.

I'm in a difficult position as I've got to put together a dissertation project for my MA due in for early September as well as prepare for what will be the biggest gig of the year for me. But these are the sorts of positions you want to be in as a stand up and most of my big gigs/credits have come in the latter stages of comedy competitions. I'm proud of these achievements although they're a little frustrating at the same time, but that's a topic for another day.