September has been a poor month for gigs, I have performed a measly three compared to my normal monthly average of 12-15-ish.
The most recent addition to the September trilogy was on hosting duties at the night I co-run on Wednesday. The previous week was not too good in terms of audience numbers, so I was determined to rectify that. I went out flyering for a couple of hours at the weekend and had a feeling that the gig would be a massive improvement. I don’t know where this feeling came from but I’ll learn not to trust such feelings in future, because flyering brought in exactly no people.
Last week we started the show with nine audience, this week we started the gig with… drum roll… five.
In the bar there was a big networking event for people who worked for a charity and they turned up in the middle of the first half. There must’ve been about 40 people mingling, so at the interval I did my best to convince them to come and watch the second half. I was unsuccessful, but most of them were at least willing to have a conversation about it. However, one of them was perhaps the worst person I have met in my entire life, not only was she deeply unpleasant but she also sneezed on her hands and then carried on as if nothing had happened.
This one woman removed any guilt I may have had about basing the bulk of my Edinburgh set about the awful world of telephone fundraising and the questionable dealings of charities. So thanks for that, Jar Jar Bint-face
So despite failing to recruit any new audience, we continued the second half performing to just three people. It was at least proportionally better than last week when we lost seven people and were left with two. I’ll take it as some sort of victory; and no, I won’t let go of these straws I’m clutching.
Thank you, former housemate Andy for being the only person who answered my distress call (text message) for audience and turned up. Thanks must also go to Nick and Jo from Margate who had a great time. So although it was small, the audience satisfaction rating was 100%; I am assuming this anyway, I didn’t actually ask.
It was more fun than last week but still not a great night for the soul. I think the night is definitely worth persisting with, when the gig is good it’s very good indeed.
October is when I will get properly back on the comedy horse; I had been suffering from writer’s block up until these past few days when I’ve written a chunk of new stuff. So this is a clear sign that my comedy fatigue I sustained from Edinnburgh is nearing an end.