Monday 23 March 2009

Diary of an Unemployed Comedian- An Introduction

Like a once proud former-lover whose changed his mind, I’ve come crawling back to my blog. I will need to do some grovelling, possibly buy it some flowers, and be really dismissive about all the other blogs I’ve written while I’ve been away, but I think…given time, we can rebuild that trust and enjoy a fruitful blogging relationship once more. What do you say Blog? Do you still feel it too?

But there’s going to have to be a change in rules. When I started ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore’ last year, it was to give myself an outlet to review, critisise and muse on assorted TV shows and comedy shenanigans. I set out a very careful house-style, with everything written in the 3rd person and the subject matter being more important that the writer. I nearly always stuck to it.

Then I got really busy, and didn’t watch enough TV, let alone have time to write about it.
But now…I have all the time in the world. I hear-by re-christen my review blog ‘Diary of An Unemployed Comedian’. The reasoning behind this being, that these are the only apsects of my existance that can be considered interesting. I’m hoping it’ll be at least a tiny bit readable for you the, well, reader, and me the…er, me, to see how these dual aspects of my current predicament pan out. And it’s always nice to see a record.

The ‘Comedian’ Bit.
I don’t want anyone to think I’ve got ideas above my station here. I’m not exactly a comic yet, what I am is starting out on the road to stand up success, mostly by doing 5 minutes here and there on the open mic/new act circuit, booking gigs myself, or pulling favours from comic friends to get a few decent gigs in the bag. I’ve been gigging a couple of times a week since my first proper London performance (discounting my Edinburgh debut in August) at the very lovely House Of Mirth in Waterloo, a gig ran by the supremely talented Jess Fostekew and TV’s Sara Pascoe. To get it out of the way, here is the only footage currently in existence of me doing stand up. This is gig number six, at Tom Webb’s excellent new-act night Party Piece in Stoke Newington.


As you can see there’s still some distance to go. But every gig gets a little better. Except for the one I did last week in Battersea, where I was on 18th of 20 acts and no-one enjoyed themselves. I barely raised a titter there.

I’m doing a Gong Show on Wednesday. That’s going to be really interesting.

The ‘Unemployed’ Bit
As of Wednesday 11th March I am bereft of full time employment, a hapless victim of this cursed recession. Bother. The main problem is I’m not really trained for much, for the last couple of years I’ve worked behind the scenes in the comedy world, first booking gigs for Avalon, then making videos for Warner and Myspace. I have a certain ability with the written word and a head full of mostly pointless trivia, but these skills are rather specialised and post Crunch there isn’t much out there. It’s been over a week since I had my second interview for this plum job, which I rather think I blew quite superbly by talking too much about comedy when I was told that comedy only really counted for 20% of the role. I’m hoping my application for this comes off, but frankly I’m probably dreaming with that one.

I may try and get a job in Dominoes in East Dulwich.

That just about brings us up to speed I think. Any days I don’t update this please send me a long email telling me I’m a wanker who can’t stick at anything.

1 comment:

Amanda said...

You're actually not a bad stand up comic! There was me thinking you'd be shite.

Although I have heard your opening lines more than once, which leaves me to wonder whether you treat all your relationships like a gig. Now I think about it, this seems to be the case.

Thumbs up.