No Punchline

Monaghan sod ape, and rippling buffster Gerry McBride is known throughout the Irish comedy scene for his here to fore sorta secret (facebook only) blog Chronicles of a Joker. I’ve featured guest posts from Gerry on this site in the past, so it’s my pleasure to let you know that easily the best narrator of the Irish comic experience has finally opened up a public blog. So far, No Punchline looks to be just as informative as Gerry’s old blog. Irish comedy fans and freshman standups would do well to check it out…

I used to think that getting ahead in comedy was impossible; now I realise that it’s not. It’s really easy, it just takes a long, long time. Initially, I was like a lot of open-mic guys; I wanted everything all at once. I wanted gigs in venues that wouldn’t give them to me, so I got frustrated and pissed off. I yelled conspiracy and shenanigans, that the whole comedy circuit was a sham, and it wasn’t what you know but who you know. A couple of years down the line, and my attitude has all changed. Those venues that told me I wasn’t ready to gig with them? Turns out they were right, which is something I learned on nights when I jumped in at the deep end and suffered painful death in front of a demanding crowd. When I returned to the same venue a few months later, with a pared down set and a less cocky attitude, I rocked.

Gerry’s set himself the goal of doing a gig in every county in Ireland, and writing about the experience, so join him on his herculean quest!

Quick Update

- Patten Oswald deals with a heckler

Haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve continued to film all my gigs. In two minds as to whether to continue to post all my videos, as the bad gigs I’ve had recently have primarily been in almost completely empty rooms, and I’m not sure a lot can be learned from this. But i’ll definitely be uploading / posting a couple of good recent gigs soon.

One thing I’ve learnt is to avoid tiny gigs, and especially tiny rural / suburban gigs. It can be tempting to view these gigs as a ‘challenge’, but really they don’t teach you anything useful; except that people are even more stupid than you suspected. This applies trebly if it’s a free local show. Tempering your comedy to please drunken hicks is only going to end up producing a dumbed down variety act.

I’m planning to do some dates in London soon, so I’ve been ploughing through Johnny Armstrongs magical list of open mic nights, which though astoundingly thorough and useful, is pretty time consuming to read. Originally I was thinking about aiming for bookings towards the end of February, but now I’m thinking March is more realistic. The time scales promoters plan ahead can be very frustrating!

Comedy is still the best kick I’ve found, next to writing; and I’m finally starting to get a bit less nervous before gigs. Moving to Dublin next week, the plan being to head to as many clubs as possible, smooze and do open spots, try out new material, and give this stand up thing my all. Wish me luck!

Breaking My Cherry

I started the Virgin Standup project right after my second comedy gig. By fluke I’d had both of my first gigs filmed; already I was addicted to performing and unhealthy fixated on becoming the best standup I could be. I set out to rigorously analyse each show, to learn as much from my mistakes as my successes. This was easy at first, a real thrill, as beginners luck & nervous energy meant it was quite a while before I faced a genuinely tough room. Cringing as I watched over each set was excellent motivation to improve, and helped me hone in on elements of my stage persona that needed most work. However, as time went by on I got lax. Starting with a run of bad gigs in October I became more and more reluctant to commit to the hard work of reviewing these shows. As a result I’ve written less material than I otherwise would have, and made a couple of mistakes that I didn’t need to. I hereby resolve not to let this happen again. Join me as I watch over all my gigs, and catch up with the crits on the ones I’ve been to terrified to review.

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