Tom Holmes

Another week of successful gigging, resulting in a rant-free blog, which I understand is not a very interesting reading again. Does anyone really want to hear about a handful of ‘nice’ gigs? Wouldn’t have thought so.

A quick breakdown of the week, though:

Monday – The Hob, Forest Hill. Had a corker, got offered a spot at the pro night. Lovely Jubbly.

Tuesday – TNT, Kentish Town. Good night, set went well, had a couple of beers with my buddy Craig Hazell (shout out). Smashing.

Wednesday – CinnaHAHA, Stevenage. Filth night, which is always exciting. 15 minute set went very well, I enjoyed it immensely, but fuck me Stevenage is a long way away. Cheers to Gary G Knightly (shout out: 2) who is a bearded lovely.

I then slept.

The below is something I wrote a while ago but have yet to post. I’ve been in two minds about it, as I don’t want to be one of ‘those’ comedians, but I’ve had a busy week and can’t be arsed to entertain my single blog reader, who this week I’m guessing will be either Daryl Perry or Ben Clover (shout outs: 3 and 4).

Cheers.

 There’s always some kind of debate underway about the thieving of material in standup comedy. I understand that this is not a new issue by any means and that it will have been around since the dawn of standup itself, but I heard someone talking about it at a gig recently and it pushed it to the forefront of my mind.

I believe it was done to me. 

I have wanted to mention it several times in the past, but didn’t want to sound like one of those bitching and moaning comedians who think that the world is out to get them and that other comics thinks they are so great that they just have to steal their jokes. I was at the King Gong at The Comedy Store on April 30th, 2012 (http://www.tomholmescomedy.com/gig-26) and a feller went up, I forget his name, he started strong, his act was very loud, very animated and his thing was to moan about stuff, but in a way where he was eventually laying on the floor, crippled by his annoyance, almost begging to the people he was angry with to change their ways. He did well, he actually lasted about four and a half minutes – almost the full five – before eventually losing the rabid crowd and getting gonged off. 

 I remember thinking ‘I do stuff about that’, and ‘I do stuff like that bit too, maybe I should have done that material tonight if the crowd seemed to like it so much’. It wasn’t until the interval when I was about to leave that I was approached by the feller, who said that he had seen me at a gig a while back, I forget which gig in particular. 

 The next day I realised that I had done the material that he was doing at the gig he said he had seen me at. The more I though about it, the more it made sense; he did about half my set, almost word for word. It was all the stuff about how I hate it when people bring their kids to work on their day off, how everyone pretends to give a shit about the kid when they’re bringing the little twat around, how the kid doesn’t want to be there and we don’t want the kid to be there, how people at work try to make smalltalk while I’m trying to make a cup of tea when they really could just say nothing, and self-service tills (when it was still mildly funny and relevant). I know that this sounds like generic, hack material, but it was far too similar to ignore.

 Because his delivery had been so vastly different to mine, I almost hadn’t noticed it. Where as I just stand there in a pretty laid-back, some may say ‘sexy’ way and just talk about it, he was screaming, laying on the floor with his arms outstretched to the sky.

 It doesn’t annoy me that it happened and to be honest it didn’t even annoy me at the time, once I had realised. I only wish I had got the fellers name, not so I could hunt him down and give him an oral and/or anal warning, but just so I could see how much use out of the material he got, whether he’s still using it and how well he is doing.

 This genuinely wasn’t a moan, the material definitely wasn’t my best and I really don’t care that someone has used it, it happens to comics all the time. I don’t use the various comedy forums and am not an active user of The Comedy Collective on Facebook, where I believe that the whole ‘so-and-so stole my stuff’ – ‘no I fucking didn’t’ debate rages constantly. I’m just mentioning my own, brief encounter with it.

 I don’t understand the mindset of someone who would steal a comedian’s stuff though. Surely you’re only kidding yourself, and while you may very well get laughs, you’re not progressing and in my humble opinion, this standup bollocks is all about progressing, getting better and eventually doing something with it. 

 Anyway, I’d better get back to practicing some new material. I’ve had an idea about talking about that drawer that every man has in his house where he keeps all sorts of things that he’ll never use. Things like used batteries and old currency… why is it that you can never throw away old currency? It’s a drawer that only men use… can’t think of a name for it yet.

And another thing: Garlic Bread? What’s that all about?

…I called it that so more people will read it.

Whenever the week starts with a Bank Holiday it throws me off massively. It also doesn’t help that on Sunday Night (which I kept thinking was Saturday Night) I got so unbelievably drunk that I was still feeling the effects of it by Wednesday Evening (which I kept thinking was Tuesday Evening). In between all of this haze and depression I had my only gig of the week on Monday Night (I wasn’t quite sure what day it was at that point).

Care Of Police Survivors is a UK registered charity dedicated to helping the families of police officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty, rebuild their lives. It is a massively worthy cause and I was not only privileged to be asked to perform at a fundraiser gig for them, but also to be on the same bill as the fantastic Terry Alderton.

The gig was in Westcliff-On-Sea, Essex, an area that looked lovely, an area that I would have liked to have spent the day in if I hadn’t have got so ridiculously arseholed the night before. I understand that it sounds extremely unprofessional to get so drunk the night (and early morning) before a big gig, but all I will say is this: I didn’t deliberately set out to get anywhere near as drunk as I actually got and I’m not a professional… so there.

I had just about recovered enough to give it 100% and my fifteen minute set went very well. I was the penultimate act on, just before Terry (I just call him Terry) and the audience were lovely all night. My very good friend Craig Hazell (I just call him Craig Hazell) was compering and did a sterling job and it was obvious very early that the audience were up for pretty much anything.

I was critiqued by a rather drunk mate of mine that attended, he told me he was disappointed that I was doing material he had seen “a thousand times before”… It was my 117th gig and he’s only ever seen me onstage once. My opening five minutes were only about a month old, but the remaining ten was indeed tried and tested stuff. The way I see it, it was a big gig in the fact that there were a few pro acts, including Tel (just calling him Tel now), on the bill, as well as a few industry people I was keen on impressing in the audience, so no, I wasn’t going to be trying brand new stuff, that’s not the way it works.

I was told by T.A that he enjoyed my set, which was great to hear from someone like Big T, as he was absolutely phenomenal, a cut above the rest, definitely something to aspire to and work towards. Cheers T-Towel. I also have a provisional date for my first attempt at compering a gig. As I have stated in previous blogs; it is definitely something I’d like to do, and now it looks as if it will be happening at the end of June. I’d better start practicing my “Well, that was rubbish, I can’t hear you, I said ‘Are we ready for some comedy?’ ” [Disclaimer: I will not be one of those comperes]

It was a long drive home from the gig (well, for my girlfriend it was, for me it was a long drive in the passenger seat trying to show my support for her being nice enough to drive me to-and-from the gig by staying awake). Got to sleep at about half 2 in the morning and was up for work at 7. The hangover stuck around for a while, but has completely gone now. Although the faint, dark feeling of depression that follows me around like an unwanted critical comment from a drunken friend, is still somewhere inside me. I understand that my dreadful post alcohol attitude is not normal, I also understand that if i didn’t drink that I would be happy nearly all of the time. However, it’s not that easy, is it.

This week has been quiet, I needed it to be. I have pretty much worked, slept and drank water for the entire week. It has been an uneventful yet extremely necessary episode in my life. Next week however sees me gigging Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday. It’s surprising how ready I am to gig once I’ve had a couple of days off. I get the hunger for it again.

Next weeks gigs:

Monday – The Hob, Forrest Hill.

Tuesday – TNT, Kentish Town… Need a plus one for this, if you are heading down there anyway give me a DM on the old Twitter.

Wednesday - CinnaHAHA, Stevenage.

Sunday 19th – Scream Lounge, Croydon.

Several thanks

x

I could sum up the gigging week in three words:

Pointless, Shit, Nice.

Monday was pointless, Wednesday shit and Thursday nice.

However, I have decided to be a little more objective than that. Plus when I began writing the blog on Thursday morning, I was expecting Thursday night’s gig to be crap as well and was expecting the third word to be something like ‘bollocks’ ‘wank’ or possibly ‘turd’ instead of ‘nice’.

Monday was quiet. It was a comedian-heavy crowd, with maybe only four real audience members. I have seen gigs like that pulled before, but I was relatively happy that it wasn’t as I wanted to shake out any cobwebs on my material in preparation for my Laughing Horse Semi-Final. I managed to get an early spot and knocked out the material to a massively indifferent response. There were a couple of laughs, but nothing to give me any kind of boost going into the penultimate round of the national competition.

Wednesday was the big one. I can sum up the gig in a single photograph I took of myself whilst travelling back home on the train at midnight. I call it ‘Peeved’:

I was on 11th out of 14. I decided that this was definitely for the best, the audience would be a lot more relaxed and tipsy by then, and whereas I don’t like going on late, I have – as I have mentioned before – come to terms with the fact that I go down better when they’re pissed (half-hearted oral sex pun attempted).

As was the case with the Quarter-Finals, I watched the acts coming in and realise that it was going to be as tough as I assumed it would. But when the night started it was evident that the first few acts were struggling to get anything much out of the audience, who were about 20-25 strong. The first half ended with only a couple getting any big laughs, so I knew that it was still all to play for. The lad before me had qualified in Newcastle and came down with a few supporters, who roared at his material. He was good, and his friend’s massive laughter pointed out to the rest of the audience that they should be laughing too.

I went on and tried to strike up something with the audience, I hate the hugely overused word ‘banter’ but that was what I was trying to get going… but nothing. They just weren’t having it. They weren’t having anything remotely rude. It was tough, tough, tough.

I tweeted later that it was 6 minutes of silence, which wasn’t completely true, but it felt like it as I just stared at the majority of expressionless faces. I don’t think it was anything I did. I have fucked gigs up for myself many times and been generally shit, but I don’t think that was the case at this gig. I’ve started off relatively strong before, got nothing from the crowd and crumbled like a tiny, frightened bitch, but again, that wasn’t the case. They just didn’t like it. Simple really.

I took a certain amount of solace from the fact that – from what I saw – a large percentage of the acts didn’t have a great one, although I must also concede that not many had as bad a gig as I did. The fact that I beat X amount of people by getting all the way to the Semis is genuinely good enough for me, although I just wonder what would have happened if a different crowd had been in. Hey-Ho. Not sure what I’ll do next year as far as competitions go, I’m still currently in one, and I’m not sure how much I am supposed to say about the next stage of that, but the well-known TV Comedian I will be opening for has a fan base that I am sure will not be into the kind of shit I’ll be peddling. Again: Hey-Ho, these are all fantastic opportunities and I’m loving the experience.

Any kind of pressure I felt the previous night was completely gone for Thursday’s gig and I had a couple of beers and tried out some new stuff at The Regent, Angel. I opened the night and had a nice relaxed set; a welcome return to enjoying the stagetime.

Saturday is the third of my monthly spots at The Central London Comedy Club and THEN Bank Holiday Monday is the big one… do you have your tickets yet?

Another blog and yet again I am worried that I am coming across as a bit  boastful. I would just like to say that I am not really doing anything of any worth and I have definitely, definitely done my fair share of moaning and being down on myself and the circuit. If you are sick of this long run of positive, optimistic blogging, then go back and find the one where the cunt in the hat mugged me off in Kentish Town and then read the following few months after that, it’ll balance out.

Monday’s gig was one of those gigs where it didn’t matter whether it went well or not. The small room had about 25 people in it, half of which were comedians and I only wanted to see if my new stuff was any good. Well, I had an incredible gig. Maybe it was my position in the bill, maybe it was because I had practiced it so much, I don’t know, but I got laughs at every single juncture and they were BIG laughs. The idea was to do some new material around a subject I already have stuff on, hoping to flesh out a 10 minute set. I was a bit worried that it looked as if I was doing old stuff and trying to pass it off as brand new because I knew it so well, but regardless, it was actually one of the best gigs I’ve had for a while. There was a comedian there who hadn’t gigged for a year and – he – got – DRUNK. He was laminated. He was nervous and decided to drink away those nerves. I genuinely found him funny though and I’m not just saying that because he kept telling me how great I was afterwards and that he would “like to suck my dick”… plus there’s a chance he may be reading this blog.

Wednesday I was at Dirty Dicks doing the material again and I opted to be filmed. I haven’t had a new video since I was filmed at Point a& Laugh Comedy about 10 months ago. Luckily the material went down well again so hopefully I’ll have a relatively decent video of myself. They’re very strict on time at Touching Cloth, so I was wary of overrunning, as opposed to Monday when I was up there for an extra couple of minutes with the old audience interaction. It’s nice to have a more relaxed vibe and a less stringent set time, but I completely understand gigs that make sure no one overruns, especially when they have about twenty acts on the bill.

Thursday was a bit different. There was an opportunity to ‘Double up’, which is nobhead talk for doing two gigs in one night (or, as I incorrectly referred to it as ‘Double Bag’, which means something else completely… am I right, lads? Hey?!) The first gig was in Teddington, however there was a colossal lack of audience – there was 3 people and they were all with a comedian who was going on first and then they were all leaving – so the gig was pulled, which is nobhead talk for cancelled. I felt sorry for the promoter, he’s a bloody nice bloke and doesn’t get much help from the venue with promotion. So Tim Renkow and I (name dropping) got on a bus and went down the road(ish) to Richmond, where I was half offered a spot last week. I wasn’t too bothered if I got on or not, as I had bought the train ticket already and was actually quite up for having a few beers and watching Tony Marrese headlining. They were fully booked as always, so I just watched a fantastic night, topped off by Tony doing an unbelievable set. The man is ridiculously good. I remember thinking how I want to be as good as him when I grow up into a real boy.

Tonight I am attending the taping of TV-comedy-quiz-panel-show-type-thing Would I Lie To You. We’ve been before and it’s a joy watching David Mitchell and of course, one of my very favourites Lee Mack. I am hoping that one of the comedians get some kind of incapacitating (but obviously not serious) injury and the producer panics, before asking the audience if there is anyone that has perhaps recently gigged in a room above and/or below a pub. I can always dream, can’t I.

Beanbags.

As a treat, I have written this week’s blog, slightly drunk, on the train back to Windsor from Richmond, on my bloody iPhone. I’m mad!

So, I was at Touching Cloth Richmond. The gig was lovely for so many reasons:

And now I shall label those reasons:

Firstly: Closeness … that is rather self explanatory… and also why I was able to get a leeeetle beeeet drunk, rather than having to run to my train with a sweaty top lip, as is usual practice.

Secondary: Train Ticket price. This doesn’t bother me. I pay a lot to gig, but it is worth it. But when you pay literally half the price for a train ticket unexpectedly, you will definitely find a lump in your pants… and it’s willy, not poo.

Thirdly: It was a lovely venue with a nice, proper (if slightly ‘inputy’) crowd.

Finally: My favourite boy in the world, Martin Wyatt was hosting it. It is his gig, and he is the best…

My impromptu ‘talking to the audience’ was commented on by several (about 5… does that count as several? Also, at what point does Afternoon become Evening? Seriously, I would love to know if there is an actual, official point) people afterwards. The new material was relatively well received, but the rapour with the crowd was the standout thing for me… and to be honest, it was BY FAR my favourite bit. The front row consisted of a female netball team on their end of season do, and they were bang up for it.

Maybe I seriously need to look into the fact that this seems to be a trend of my recent gigs. There’s always a certain buzz when you are trying out new material that you think has the potential to be good, but the bigger buzz for me has been the audience interaction of late.

Maybe I should MC some gigs? I’ve been asked by promoters on a couple of occasions after doing a set, if I would compere a gig for them. I always say yes half-heartily and maybe thats why it never comes to fruition.

But maybe I need to bite the bullet and do it. I think I’m ready.

Wicked.

Sent from my iPhone

It’s been a quiet week. It’s been a while since I’ve had a quiet week. Although the quietness of the week wasn’t quite as quiet as I would have liked it to be when I first realised the potential quietness and decided I wanted to embrace it.

Saturday I gigged at Central London Comedy Club in Charing Cross. The lineup was great, full to the brim of lovely, talented comedians. I saw a couple that I am very fond of and had a good chat. Personally I didn’t feel as if I was on form, I felt a bit flat and average, but I was informed by my extremely honest girlfriend that I did well, so you never know. It was definitely the least successful gig I’ve had in a couple of months, but it wasn’t too bad.

Monday I went and got unnecessarily drunk. I never drink on a school night any more and spent a large portion of the following working day hiding in various locations, gently weeping.

Wednesday I felt good again for a while and was able to write these first few paragraphs, before slowly losing interest as I was still very tired…

Thursday however was my only gig of the week. But when that gig is Free and Funny at The Camden Head in Angel, that’s nothing to shake a fish at. You can lead a horse to water, but never throw stones at the kettle, especially if it’s black. I bottled doing the new material for a couple of reasons: The audience were, once again, queueing down the stairs, into the pub and actually down the road (Photograph attached, below)! There was also a couple of people there that I wanted to vaguely impress and I managed to convince myself as I paced around outside the venue muttering to myself like a mental and/or hobo that it was the right decision to do the old shit. I definitely made the right choice as I had a bloody stormer. Someone had better call a company based near Angel, North London that specialises in repairing roofing, because I blew that bloody roof off… or something like that.

One thing that did happen that I have been battling with for a while, is during this perfected, tried-and-tested 5, I have one line that either gets a really big laugh or gets absolutely nothing. Sometimes I leave it out, sometimes I start saying it before I’ve remembered that I was going to leave it out, as it got nothing last time (although the times that I accidentally do it, it always turns out to get a laugh). Last night it failed to get anything whatsoever, and it was never more evident how much it didn’t work, as the rest of the set had gone so well and the laughs had been so loud. Basically, during the set I talk about searching the internet for naughty things on my girlfriend’s laptop, I then say that “I forgot to delete the internet history:  schoolboy error… was actually something I’d googled”. I like the joke. The people that like that joke seem to really like the joke. The others genuinely don’t realise it’s a joke. The inclusion of the line tainted last night for me. It was very nearly spot-on, but me being me, I obviously dwelled on the fact that the line got nothing but tumbleweed. I got over that though and I have now decided to not use the line within that particular set again, although maybe within a slightly different context and with a tweak it may work.

In other news, the whole Margaret Thatcher thing happened this week. I wasn’t offended by the myriad of jokes that made their way into my life via text message or twitter, I just found them incredibly shit. But it’s the people who have been involved in these ‘marches’ and  ’celebrations’ that have really pissed me off. Most of them weren’t even alive when Thatcher was in power. Most of them couldn’t tell you a fucking thing about the woman or any of her policies or her political legacy if they had a gun to their heads. Bandwagon cunts.

That is all,

God bless.

I felt as if the little break I took to my parent’s B&B in Devon was deserved. I was knackered and other than walking into the little village to get a pasty and going to the local pub a couple of times, I did absolutely fuck-all.

I was originally going to be going down there for about ten days, but I had to cut my break short as I had a gig in Maidstone, Kent. I had deliberately blocked the days off in my diary so that I couldn’t book any gigs in, but when my mate Kev who runs the night informed me that he had managed to get comedian Joey Page to headline, I knew I had to do it. I like Joey, I think I first saw him on telly when I was starting out doing standup and noticed that he was young like me and clearly doing relatively well, plus I thought he was very funny. When I got a twitter account about this time last year, he was one of the first people I followed and we began sending each other pictures of White Lion Bars (the confectionary treat, not a euphemism for a lion’s cock) whenever we saw them in a shop, which is not very often as they are extremely rare. This all happened ages ago and I was massively surprised and chuffed when I got to the gig and Joey had bought me a White Lion Bar (again, the confectionary and not an offering of a large, severed feline penis).

I went on just before Joey and had a great set. I did some of the old audience interaction with a guy that I believed looked like Robson Green, but in reality, when I saw him afterwards looked absolutely nothing like him whatsoever. I think I’m definitely improving with the audience interaction and when it goes well it is hugely satisfying, mainly because you, and more importantly the audience, know it’s all coming off the top of your head. – A little side note for myself when I look back at these blogs in years to come, or anyone who reads this as a document of a fledgling standup comedian; now I don’t drink any alcohol at all before going onstage, I feel that it makes me sharper and better at talking to the audience and coming up with witty, quick banter. Anyway, it went very well, Joey came on, was hilarious and then we had a little chat afterwards. I went home genuinely on top of the world.

Being on top of the world only lasted for a couple of days, as I had to return to the day job (for those who regularly read this; I’m still using that). But it was also a return to gigging and an XXX night at The Camden Head, Camden (it may seem unnecessary to add that the Camden Head is in Camden, but there is also a Camden Head that is in Angel which also hosts comedy nights and I know a couple of comedians that have got the two confused… with hilarious consequences). It was one of the most enjoyable gigs I have done for a very long time. Being an XXX night, the idea was that there were no limits regarding material. There’s never usually any limits at a gig anyway, apart from the odd night that says ‘No Rape Jokes’ (frigid), but the fact that I knew the audience were aware, and hopefully eagerly expecting, utter filth excited me. I brought the filth like a rancid, flea-bitten, octogenarian prostitute from Senegal with a penchant for egg sandwiches. I did some controversial stuff that I’ve had written down for some time but never done, and once again had a good talk to the audience before finishing on some material. It was lovely and so well received that I was contemplating doing it on Wednesday…

… I did not do it on Wednesday.

Not only did I choose not to do the filth, I actually decided to change what material I was going to do during the set. It was a small, middle aged audience, and I previously realised that my newer stuff about work colleagues seems to go down well with an older audience, so I did that and it got great laughs. The natural progression was to go from there onto the bit about women with names for their vaginas, but I realised that this would not hit, so I switched it up with a little bit I did roughly this time last year about April Fools Day, followed by my solid end. I was lucky enough to be very well received. It was nice to be able to pull out material from the past and use it, and again I had some cracking interaction with the crowd. I usually decide from watching acts before me and how the night has gone to that point what it is I’m going to talk to them about, as well as having some little bits I can pull out depending on whereabouts I am in the running order and things like that. I think from now on I’ll only use about 8 minutes of material (some people are thinking, really; you’ve got 8 minutes of material! Since when?)  and use a couple of minutes to interact. I fucking love it now. – Another little side note: I am already foreseeing me doing this and it going horribly wrong at some point in the future and me completely abandoning the idea and saying something like ‘well, I’ve never seen Ricky fucking Gervais or Michael fucking McIntyre interact with anyone during their sellout fucking gigs and look how rich and fucking famous they fucking are’.

The gigging week is not yet over as tomorrow I am at Central London Comedy Club for the second in my monthly spots there. Last time was absolutely mental, so it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

I wrote some long rant about some shit when I was on a train back from a gig the other night that I was originally going to put in the blog, but I’m not sure it will go with the rest of it, and besides it’s actually quite long already. I also wanted to write the jokes that I did at the XXX night, because, as dark as they are I am actually genuinely proud of them. Maybe it’s because I don’t usually write jokes that I wanted to put them here to show them off, but a couple of them are pretty dark and I’m not sure that I will be doing them justice by having them written down and not said onstage.

I love you all.

Saturday was the weirdest gig ever. I don’t want to slag the night off or discourage anyone from going there, so I will just mention a few things about the night that made it memorable to say the least.

The compere/organiser was craaaaaaaaaaazy… the amount of a’s I have used there denote the level of his mental illness. He was heckling the acts and going through audience member’s bags during the other comedian’s sets, pretending to steal their purses. During my set he took an old ladies scarf out of her handbag and pretended to strangle her with it… so, that’s normal. The audience consisted of one table of about eight ladies with an average age of about 67 (being generous) and a middle aged couple. I was brought on to “Who is your favourite Doctor Who?” – which eventually, after the audience literally named every other actor who had played Doctor Who, got a reply of “Tom Baker” – which then lead the compere to say “Talking of Tom Baker, here’s Tom…”. There was no applause as I don’t think anyone knew what the fuck was happening and I felt that I first had to clear up any ambiguity, as it sounded as if my name was Tom Baker. Which I suppose was understandable, under the extremely unclear circumstances.

For the second gig in a row, I had to change what material I was going to do, but even with the less offensive stuff, I still ended my set on a sizeable boo due to my Roy Castle/Windsor Castle/Lung Cancer joke. In all fairness, the ladies had said to us comedians before the gig started that they didn’t want anything “blue”. Although, I could have talked about vaginas, Brazilian sex addicts and homeless men masturbating as was the original plan, so they got off lightly. By the time the gig ended, I had almost forgotten that there was a competitive element to it.

Good news: I won.

Bad news: I have to return to defend my ‘crown’.

It’s always nice to win things and I received a bottle of wine (which I was genuinely worried I was going to get mugged for whilst on the DLR on the way through Canning Town). The night was an experience and looking back had some hilarious moments. It was also very nice to see comedian Andy Storey, who was particularly funny with his improvised audience interaction with the lovely old ladies (who coincidentally voted for me, bless them, so I feel bad about saying they had an average age of about 78, so I may go back and change that bit).

Wednesday was a lovely gig at ROFL & LOL, Finsbury Park. The new material is really taking off, although the bit about women who have names for their vaginas hasn’t had as many laughs the few times I’ve done it as I thought it would. Maybe women don’t name their vaginas any more… frigid. I should probably do research into stuff like that, although I don’t think it would go down too well if I went into Windsor High Street with a clipboard asking women what they call their genitalia. The fantastic Richard Todd was compering and I forgot how much he makes me genuinely laugh, which I have to say is quite rare.

Thursday I was at Bite Me Comedy Jam. I felt a bit flat and average, which was unfortunate as the lineup – including the aforementioned Todd again – was cracking. It wasn’t a bad set, and I got a couple of big laughs at points I hadn’t before, but I knew I could have done better. Lovely night however, and the Underdogs were fantastic, very clever, slick sketches. It can’t have been all that bad as afterwards a couple of women (or birds, as I think they prefer to be called) told me I was very funny and a promoter gave me his card and told me he’d like me to do his new gig in Clapham. But the quote of the week was from a woman on Wednesday who said to me after I came off stage “You’re actually really funny though, you know”. Wasn’t quite sure how to take it, but I think it was a compliment.

It was also my birthday this week (thanks for the cards). I am now 27, which my Dad pointed out means that I can no longer say I am in my ‘mid 20′s’. I don’t feel any different to when I was 17, so age really just is a number. The only real differences in my life is that I am not as good looking as I was when I was 17 and I also don’t smoke any more… that’s about it. ‘Late 20′s’ sounds old, so I will instead be using ‘Mid-teens’ when describing my age.

Off on a little holiday for a week or so. No blogging, no tweeting, no thinking about comedy (hopefully).

Many, many thanks.

It happened again.

I went to the gig, I was scheduled to go on right at the end, but the night ran over for one reason or another and I had to leave before I could do my set otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get home.

I’m not bothered about the fact that I have work the next day, but I am bothered if I have to pay additional money to get home on top of the already extortionate price of a train ticket from Windsor to London.

I don’t mind spending the money on getting to gigs. I worked out how much it has cost me to do my 100+ gigs (probably not the best idea), but it actually didn’t shock or anger me; it’s money well spent and I have benefited hugely from it. I also would be spending more money if I wasn’t doing comedy and was going down the pub every other night drinking and doing god know’s what else like I used to… BUT, nights like Tuesday are pretty shit. I’m not going to go into specifics, or even say where the gig was, but the walk home in the cold and wet at gone midnight with a hole in my trainer and a lighter than necessary wallet was fucking awful to be honest. I didn’t feel sorry for myself as much as furious and wanting to kung-fu someone in the neck.

I’m over it now though. Luckily, this has only happened about three times, so they are few and far between.

This ballache was sandwiched between a nice Sunday gig at Fat Controller Clapham, where I did 10 minutes of largely new material and an out of town spot in Iver on Thursday. Thursday was strange, potentially awful but ultimately lovely. The audience were older, so I had to change my material at the last minute as it was obvious that they weren’t going for the filth. Luckily the bits I chose went down very well, as did my improvising, although the joke I ended on went down about as well as a cock sandwich at a lesbian picnic. But all in all it was very nice.

I also received news this week that I was unsuccessful in my quest to progress to the third round of the Amused Moose. The Email didn’t come as a surprise and gave me encouraging facts such as ‘to get to the stage you did, you did better than 70% of other comedians’, ‘we only put through 42 people’ and ‘You’re probably not as shit as you feel, Holmes’. It’s alright, I didn’t think I’d progress, but it’s always slightly disheartening when it is confirmed in writing.

My girlfriend has been away since last sunday, and in her absence, being home alone, I have completely and utterly… behaved myself. If I haven’t been gigging (or traipsing all the way to London to sit at the back of a dark basement and then NOT get on) I have been in bed at about 8:30 of a night. I have done grown up things like buy deodorant and tomatoes. I cannot promise this will be the case tonight as it is Friday and I haven’t had a single beer for over a week! (the exclamation mark is there to show that I never go a week without a beer) But I do have a gig tomorrow, so I probably won’t. I’ll no doubt substitute a dozen lagers for a large pizza and a scrondle.

God bless.

Scron·dle

[scron-dl]  verb, fon·dled, fon·dling.

verb (used with object)

1.

A scrotal fondle -

A technique preferred by young male comedians who are trying desperately not to drink themselves into bother when their girlfriends and/or wives are absent.

As I finally reach my 100th gig, I’d like to stress that this isn’t going to be another retrospective on my experience as a fledgling standup comedian thus far, I’ve done a couple of those at various ‘landmarks’ already. But to sum up a brief timeline of my gigging life for anyone that may be new to my blog; I did my first ever standup spot on 18th July 2011 and only gigged six more times that year. I felt monthly gigs were enough as I was so wracked with nerves that I felt sick for about a week prior to every single gig. Obviously this was pointless, you learn absolutely fuck all doing a gig a month. So when 2012 came I began booking in a gig a week, and eventually that turned into two a week and by the end of 2012 I had gigged 81 times in total. I see 2012 as my first year in comedy, anything that was done in 2011 was largely irrelevant as I don’t feel I benefited at all from those 7, hugely spaced out gigs.

On Thursday, 7th of March 2013 I gigged for the 100th time.

I don’t usually read. I always think that when I have some spare time, usually on train journeys to and from gigs, that my time would be better spent writing. But for christmas I was bought Mack The Life, the autobiography of one of my favourite standups, Lee Mack. It’s the first time I have read a comedian’s autobiography, and as I assumed, it is very insightful. Apart from names of venues, promoters and general approach to standup comedy ringing true, his attitude, naivety and goals are astoundingly mirrored in my own. I haven’t finished the book, so don’t ruin the ending and tell me whether he does eventually become a comedian, but one bit that really made me think was when Lee wrote that the first rule of comedy is to do what you find funny.

I do not particularly do what I find funny.

I have said this before. I don’t think that if I watched myself doing comedy I would particularly laugh. This was more the case when I first started, as my material is becoming slightly closer to what I find funny, but it’s still not completely there. But the thing is that I now know what I do that makes audiences laugh, I know what category I fall into, I know my ‘comedy character’, I know what sort of a comedian I am. Lee Mack says that he was told that you won’t know who you are as a comedian or indeed whether or not you’re even going to want to be a comedian until you’ve done 100 gigs. For some reason 100 is the landmark, a landmark I wanted to reach when I first started.

I know a hell of a lot of comedians have taken a hell of a lot less time to do 100 gigs than I have. I am also aware that it really doesn’t matter how many gigs you have done; I saw a comedian recently do his first ever gig and absolutely storm it, really, really funny feller and I have also seen people doing the same material for the 500th time and still not getting laughs. Either way, I salute all of them.

Wednesday was the first time that I did not progress through the first round of a competition. I knew it wasn’t going to happen when I was halfway through my set. The same set that has done me so well in the past. It’s probably fitting that as I approach my 100th gig I am still experiencing crap nights and new experiences… trying to put a positive spin on the cunt.

Gig 100. 15 comedians, 3 go through to the Semi Final of the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year. It was a strong heat, that kept getting stronger every time I saw another comedian walk through the door. I had resided that I was not going through, especially after the previous nights events. I pulled number 9 out of the hat, which meant I was first in the second half after a featured act that was not in the competition. I hate to say it, because he seemed like a nice geezer, but he killed the room dead. Bang. Deceased. I thought this was going to seriously harm my chances, but on the contrary I think that it actually helped me to have a storming set. I came on, brought the atmosphere and energy right up and had a fucking great 5 minutes.

I couldn’t stay until the very end as I had to make my way home, but I later received confirmation that I was one of the three comedians that progressed. I was over the moon. It was a genuinely perfect way to celebrate 100 gigs.

Now, it’s time to stop counting the gigs and carry on working hard and building on the success and fun I am experiencing doing the circuit.