1 month ago
Gig 42 - Battle of the Axe, 06.07.10
4 months ago
Gig 30 - The Aristocrats! - Underground Club, Thomas Reads, 08.04.10
Gig 25 - East Cork Comedy Club - Middleton
5 months ago
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!
5 months ago
Gig 28 - Underground Club, 19/03/10
6 months ago
Gig 23 - 27 Club, Cassidys, 25/01/10
Gig 20, Underground Comedy Club, Thomas Reads, 14/01/10
7 months ago
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!
8 months ago
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.
9 months ago
Gig 18, Boards.ie Comedy Gig - Cassidys, Westmooreland St, 05/12/09
Some lovely guys from mixtape.ie filmed this gig properly with HD cameras and such. Should hopefully get the footage from them at some stage.
Pre Show
I had a good feeling about this gig going in. Geek crowds I suspected, would be smart, self deprecating, and (according to world beating sex columnist Dan Savage at least) kinky. The perfect audience for my creepy routine. The gig was a lucky snatch (ok ok), as I’d been fortunate enough to stumble across a thread on boards.ie discussing it, and offer my services. So when the first promoter pulled out, and Drogheda’s Graham Duffy stepped in, he was able to offer me the gig. Just another demonstration that in comedy, it never hurts to ask. Cassidys on Westmooreland St, where Shane Browne runs the excellent ‘27 Club’, is a strange room. Wide rather than long is a good thing in Comedy, as more of the audience can see and hear the acts, and there’s a normative pressure against talking to their table rather than listening to the set. However Cassidy’s is bisected by two mirrored walls, so that the audience is divided into three Chunks, and in some seats the view is better through a mirror. One result of this was that I spent this gig glancing left and right like a nonce in a infant care unit.
Watching the Video…
Apologies for the cruddy video quality- there was actually a video crew at this show from Mixtape.ie, so perhaps a good quality recording of this show will emerge at some stage! MC Rory O’Hanlon (a comedian with probably the most comfortable stage presences in the country) messed up my name, made me sit down and reintroduced me, which messed with my intro a little. Right before I got up Graham told me 10 minutes rather than 7, which of course I didn’t hear, meaning I did a shorter set than I needed to with such a great crowd.
I’ve discovered at this point that anything you can do to reference the night you’re performing, this venue and this crowd in particular goes down a storm: Caveat, that’s assuming it’s a joke- merely saying ‘Tim talked about this earlier’ doesn’t get a reaction. I’d written a brief derogatory intro with lots of geek references, but I threw in a ‘callback’ to an earlier performance by Hamlet Sweeney (an up and comer with great delivery).
Right away I can see how distracting all that looking left and right was. Must remember to focus on one portion of the audience. On the plus side I’ve reduced my wandering about the stage and general twitchiness to a minimum. I’ve also gotten better at slowing down and waiting for the laugh. This is so important. When I first started I’d watch comedians with awful material get up and get laughs that I couldn’t explain. So much of this is due to simply waiting for the audience to respond, guiding them (and occasionally cajoling them), and giving them permission to find you funny.
Really happy with how I adapted my material to the audiences reception. It’s a small thing but saying ‘Never since have a found a lady under-confident and psychologically screwed up enough to lick my arsehole’ is so much better than ‘…kind enough to indulge’.
This show was the first time I shortened the intro to the ‘older girls’ bit. Contrary to most comedians I think being verbose is fine- assuming the audience understand that you’re being intentionally pompous. But ‘bits’ do need a quick payoff. It’s alright (better in fact) for grotesque descriptions to go on and on and on, as Richard Herring says “Past funny, to unfunny, and back to funny again”; but introductions should be slow but brief.
My intonation during some of this gig was great. I really inhabited that ‘character’ (Edgar Oliver by was of Francis Urquhart), with lines like ‘a yooooung girls vagina…’ Although I’ve done the ‘vagina impression’ much better. This is a bit that I really need to commit to. I need to become the cunt. The description afterwards was well done though, I feel I did the ‘older girls vagina’ gestures better than I have before. I still don’t understand the last line in that bit, “It’s not the teeth you need be afraid of, it’s the acid tongue.” It seems to work, so what the hell!
Tried a ropey new bit at the end, ‘Pooing old man’, which went down OK, but doesn’t work in practise nearly as well as I’d hoped. Still, glad I tried it.
