I am back! Also: I have a hangover! Those things are not unconnected.

I haven’t been gigging regularly since July last year. I’ve had two random gigs in that time, jumping in to fill a spot at the last minute by doing my old set. But this is the first I’ve done with the thought of getting back into doing stand-up comedy properly.

And of course, being kind-of rusty, I decided to make life easy for myself. I decided to write an entirely new five minute set from scratch in less than two weeks.

I imagined three possible scenarios for how the gig might go:

1) I forgot everything.

2) I remembered everything but didn’t deliver it strongly enough and went “er” a lot.

3) I remembered everything and delivered it well but it turned out it just wasn’t funny.

I was fairly terrified as I got to the Latest Bar last night and started setting up for Charity Chuckle. We had nearly fifty tickets pre-sold, so by the time we’d opened and got everyone in, it was fairly bustling. I nipped out for one last run-through of the new set in the street.

I was third in the first section, after compere Julie Jepson had introduced Amelia Jane Hunter and then Phil Jerrod, who were both AWESOME. So the bar was set pretty high when Julie brought me on to the stage…

I remembered everything. I said “you know” quite a lot, but the delivery wasn’t too too bad. And I got some good laughs. So, all in all, it paid off! I think. There’s definitely room for improvement in terms of delivery and tightening up phrasing etc. But for a first try out of a new set, I was very happy with the results. The crowd were really great and the gig raised money for local children’s charity Safety-net.

Everyone’s a winner!

In the second half, co-promoter of Charity Chuckle, Kerry Herbert did an excellent five-minute spot for the first time in a year, joining an really strong line-up of Michael Mooney, Catherine Heskey and Chris Pacey. The headliner was Carl Donnelly who was really inspiring. It’s that level of stand-up where it doesn’t feel like someone is telling a sequence of jokes, but just chatting away and you happen to be laughing hard every ten seconds or so. Amazing.

So, a great night. Thanks to all those who came along and took part. And thanks also to those that hung out afterward and bought us Tuacas. We were also celebrating the clubs fourth birthday. There was a lot of celebrating.

My head hurts. I’m never drinking again.