It was my second gig of my “comedy comeback” and I had decided to do ten minutes: double the new stuff, double the jeopardy! It would comprise five minutes of new stuff I’d written on holiday (about being on holiday) and the five minutes from Chuckle. “Imagine!” I thought, “of the relief it will be to get into the ‘old’ stuff: That old material, which has been tried and tested (once).”

I was worried that the pressure of trying to remember ten minutes of almost all new material would push it all out of my head, leaving me blank on stage. There was lots of worrying and scribbling and mumbling on the Thursday evening. And this continued in the hour before the gig.

Walking down to the 3 and 10, I bumped into Roz Ryan as we got to the pub. She had kindly responded to a Facebook update to say she might come down to see my return. I had been asking who else was on that night, hoping to see some friendly faces. Luckily there were a few.

I went up to the green room and said hello to them. Rich Perry was compering. Adian Goatley was on. Rob Dumbrell was on. And David Jordan was also, as you might have already guessed without me finishing this sentence, on. I knew people. Good.

It was sunny – Would there be an audience? Yes. There were about 15.

The comics all left the little green room bit to watch the first half and bump up the audience a bit. Though it seemed pretty full by the time we started. I sat next to Mr Edward Moore who I had not seen for a while.

I went outside in the interval and spoke to Rich and Kym until I got too nervous and went back up. As I was doing so, there was the call for the second half. I stood in the wings (wing?) and tried to relax whilst Rich compered away. Then… I… was on!

I dumped the mic stand to one side of the stage as the applause died away and said hello. After a couple of intro lines, I got into the new holiday stuff and it started getting laughs!

All the holiday bits came out in a slightly random order as it seemed they all related to each other equally. I forgot one line which rendered my impression of a cat catching insects even more nonsensical than it might have been (No one knew that it was a cat catching insects. If they had, would it have been funny? We’ll never know.) I told the crowd I’d forgotten a line. Then added, “Still, slapstick’s alright, innit?”

Finally I got to the “old” section. Which ran pretty much as clockwork. I fumbled my final callback, which was a shame. But overall: Success!

• I had remembered everything (apart from the cat line)
• Most of it worked (though it all needs tightening up.)
• Hooray!

I felt very pleased to have David, Aidan, Roz and people I knew in the audience. But I felt fairly relaxed on stage. In fact, I would go as far as to say, I am enjoying it.

Ed Moore took a few pictures, of which the above is an example. Nice.

I have another gig at the Quadrant this Thursday. I am aiming to write as much material as I can. So let’s see if I stick to this “old” stuff or if I manage anything new and go for Quadruple jeopardy.