I had a gig in Gloucester this week in a pub that I have driven past hundreds of times, if not thousands, over the years but had never been in until now. Maintaining my record of mainly doing gigs this year in my home county.
On Thursday night, there was an audience of about 15 people and they were a receptive and engaged crowd. So, this is the part where I say how much fun it was and how much I enjoyed it.
I tried a couple of new bits. One of them was a joke about a gig I MC’d that went painfully on my birthday in 2019. I tried that joke out for the first time at a gig at the end of July and had been meaning to try it out for ages before that, but either forgot or avoided because it is quite morbid. But two outings and two good sized laughs is a decent return. If anything, it received a bigger laugh on Thursday after I did some rejigging of the order I provide the details.
Often, just changing the order of words in a joke can sometimes result in it getting much bigger laugh. In fact, that is fairly basic joke writing. Provided that it makes coherent sense, of course. Otherwise, confuse will it people just.
The other new-ish joke isn’t actually that new at all, it’s just been in storage for 17 years. I first tried in 2005 at an open mic night mainly for music in Southampton when I was a student. It was in the days before Google Maps, when I’d draw my own maps if I was going somewhere not covered in a London A-Z. I did got a decent reaction in the circumstances on that night in 2005, despite it being really loud outside the venue and I was mainly relying on visual cues from the handful of people in the room. I don’t think I tried the joke at too many other gigs. But as it was about arguably Gloucester’s most famous builder – I’m not sure if “appropriate” is the right word to use – I thought I’d give it another airing. It needs a little refining, but I think I will try it again sooner than another 17 years
I haven’t written anything on here in two weeks, mainly because I have been playing Return to Monkey Island instead. I really enjoyed it and will write a more details summary in due course.