Stand-up and be counted
Could our man overcome his deepest fear, achieve a lifetime ambition and beat the gong in a stand-up comedy showdown?
The Challenge
What? ‘King Gong the open mic comedy night where men who think they’re funny find out they’re not.
Where? The Comedy Store, 1A Oxendon Street, London, WC1. 020 79302949
www.thecomedystore.co.uk
When? The last Monday night of every month. £5 entry. Doors open 6:30pm
Why? Good question. To overcome a deep-seated fear of public speaking, to achieve a lifetime ambition to have a stab at stand-up without being stabbed.
‘Maybe I should call this piece To Do As You Die.’ That’s the last thought I had before I stepped up on to the Comedy Store stage.
That stage is – according to the pros - the loneliest place on earth. It has spawned TV shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Mock The Week. Its backdrop is a red round laughing mouth logo – to me it looked like a noose with a gap in the middle for my noggin.
Tonight is ‘King Gong. The open mic night where people who’ve never done stand-up before give it a try – in front of around 400 complete strangers. The name refers to the ‘fucking gong’ bashed by an MC when a comic is so bad that the crowd are screaming for them to be hauled from the stage. On the walls surrounding me are pictures of those who’ve have gonged before me. Robin Williams, Rik Mayall, Rowan Atkinson. Name any comic who’s made you laugh in the past 25 years and you could bet your last banana skin that they’ve done a turn here. And now it was Rob Kemp’s turn.
I have never done this before - and when I see the stage I’m swiftly trying to remind myself why I’m doing it now. Well for the sake of my expenses claim I’ll say that, from a health writer’s point of view, I’m keen to find out how humour can heal us. Science says comedy can boost brachial artery blood flow – a good laugh is on a par with an aerobic workout apparently. Right now for me it's more akin to a seizure.
But the truth is I want to be like those heroes of mine whose pictures adorn the walls. I want to see if I can get a room of people in stitches and feel the affection that comes with that kind of response. Ever since I looked on enviously at the classroom prankster – whose laugh rating scored highly with the ladies too - have I hankered after that skill. Being ‘a good laugh’ is a much respected entry to have on your social CV so I want to see if I’ve got what it takes – and by going right in at the deep end, I want to conquer a fear of public speaking too. (To measure how scared I get I’ve even wired myself up to a heart-rate monitor). But more than anything else I’m doing it because, like everyone else who does, I think I’m funny.
I’m not relying solely on my ability to raise a few laughs among mates in the pub though. I’ve done my homework too. Prior to tonight I’ve paid good money to watch bad acts at venues such as the Britannia Bar in Richmond and Mirth Control in the Lower Ground Bar in West Hampstead. “It’s a no-no to nick others jokes,” Geoff Whiting, a comedian of nine years standing who also manages and promotes comics along with Mirth Control comedy nights had told me. Instead I scribbled down everyday incidents in my life that made me laugh and used the joke-structure advice of a comedy bible to work the observations into a routine. “Rehearse your material and time yourself. Aim to build up about five minutes to 10 minutes of good, strong gags,” Whiting had suggested. “You want to get a laugh at least every 30 seconds.”
One man who once, correctly, thought ‘I’m funny I’ll do that’ is the MC for evening night Mark Billingham. He briefs me on what to expect. “The audience are brutal on an open mic night so you’ve got to stick to your routine and not give up until you hear the gong or the ‘hallelujah’.” The hallelujah refers to the anthem played when a comic lasts five whole minutes without being gonged off.
By 8-o-clock the crowd include a drunken horde of Met Police officers on a jolly, some lost Norwegian tourists and a stack of students taking advantage of the Happy Hour prices and £5 door fee. MC Mark prods this restless rabble with some one-liners then distributes a large (A4-size) red card to three of them. If they think the comics they see stink they raise their card – when all three cards go up Mark hits the ‘fucking gong’. Hence the name.
First on the stage is a 20-something, chubby guy in a Superman logo shirt. His opening joke falls so flat that nobody notices it’s meant to be a gag. Not least of all the Norwegian judge who harshly raises the first card based solely on the fact that he doesn’t like what he sees. ‘Superman’ reacts badly and hollers back to the crowd about ‘not picking on the fat kid’. This merely stirs up the 400-strong horde. There are two more cards, one loud clang of the gong and a cry of ‘Only thirty-two seconds!’ from a bitchy bloke in the sound booth. “Come on – where’s the atmosphere tonight?” asks MC Mark. “I think that fat bloke’s eaten it,” answers the Bitch as Superman bows out.
Next, a tall Australian guy, who has done this kind of thing before, leaps on to the stage. He’s good and the crowd love his mix of self-deprecation, topical comment and gags about lanky footballer Peter Crouch. He lasts for the full five minutes and goes through to the grand clap-o-meter final at the end of the night. For that is the goal of the evening. The comics that beat the gong perform a kind of joke-off at the end with the applause of the whole crowd determining the winner. But long before then MC Mark suddenly says: ‘Give it up for Rob Kemp.’ I take one last look at the heart rate monitor on my wrist. My resting rate is usually around 80 beats per minute. Right now I hit 122bpm. The line about ‘To Do As You Die’ enters my head. Feeling my legs shaking now I nervously step, hop and skip down the pathway to the stage. I take the mic from the stand. And it hits me. There’s silence – no applauding – but why should they, I’ve not done anything yet? There’s only a whisper from someone at the front row who’s misheard the MC ‘Ross Kemp? I fucking hate him.’
I stand for a second peering out from the stage but the glare of the lights means I can only see silouhettes beyond the front row. Those I can see resemble the baying crones who had ringside seats at the Guillotine. I draw breath. ‘Worried about bird flu?’ I ask the masses, overemphasising my London accent slightly. “No, me neither… cos I’m a bloke, I’m not gonna get bird flu am?” It’s base, it’s chauvinistic and for a fraction of a second it’s met with complete silence. Then laughs! Genuine, hearty guffaws – particularly from the Chief Superintendent to my right. I then make eye contact with a female face in the front row as the laughter fades. I keep my composure and wrap my sweaty palm around the mike stand. “No, what I’m worried about is having a heart attack… during a game of charades.” The eye-contact girl pauses a second. She gets the gag. It’s a subtle one. She laughs and her friend alongside breaks a warm smile. What a great feeling it is to make complete strangers react to you like that. I get an adrenaline rush and feel myself grinning at my newfound popularity. When your reason for doing something like this – something that leaves you so open - is because you think you’re funny it’s an amazing sensation to have someone else think you are too. But I can’t spend any longer soaking up the high – I have to get on because comedy’s all in the timing y’know.
I cast one more glance at the giggling girl then realise I’ve not struck a chord with all. From inside the darkness at the back of the store comes a loud jeer. I put the mic back in the stand and rise up straight to try and look more controlled. ‘Confidence’ Mark had emphasised. I have to look like I’m in control I think to myself. I pull myself upright and push out my chest. If you can open your lungs and breath slower you’ll have more command over the pace and pitch of your speech, so the self-esteem experts had advised me.
But my next gag is a slow one. I’m going need a couple of lines to set it up. It’s about my glasses and how I hate people who wear clear non-prescriptive lenses. The idea is that they think they look clever. But I’ve been wearing specs for 30 years and no-one’s ever said I look clever. I find fake glasses offensive because I’m wearing glasses to cure a disability. But as I start rolling this one off my delivery is already faltering and the jeers are getting louder. I stumble on my words. Under pressure I commit a posture sin. I cower back away from the mike stand - maybe subconsciously hoping the Comedy Store smile will swallow me up and allow me a back exit from a gig that’s going wrong. I can’t see the cards going up but I know it’s happening. I try to finish the joke. “You don’t look at people in a wheelchair and think ‘ooh that’s a relaxed look I think I’ll try th-‘” GONG! That’s it. My comedy baptism is over and the crowd are already calling for their next victim. I slink off stage and am suddenly aware - thanks to my glasses sliding down my nose - that I’m soaked in sweat. My heart-beat is racing and I’ve a raging thirst.
“One minute and twelve seconds!” cries the bitch as I scuttle off to the bar. “That was Rob Kemp, a scary bloke,” says Mark to the audience. “Like Harry Potter if he ran a market stall.” It gets a louder laugh than any of my stuff did.
Some people pat me on the shoulder as I did to Superman. Others look straight through me – rehearsing their own lines or shunning a failed comic. I take a swig from my beer and turn to watch the next act on a TV monitor but all I hear is ‘17 seconds’ as another funny man has his dreams crushed. He’s followed by an Australian woman with a great line in ‘bush’ jokes. Then a young Irish kid who looks about 12 and goes by the name of Alan Bennett – he beats the gong too. The successes are interspersed with a Mick Hucknall look-a-like who lasts two minutes. A sixty-something man who begs the crowd not to boo him and an Essex girl who barely gets a ‘hello’ out before she’s carded. In all 29 of us have bared our funny bones to the packed house.
“You were too anxious and the crowd detected that. To get them to listen to you you’ve got to come across as if you’re sure of what you’re saying. You’ve got to win them over with a confident delivery,” MC Mark would later tell me. “If you can produce funny material then your performance will come but you need to polish your act with more stage time.” One man getting more of that is young Alan Bennett. He wins the joke-off and earns the right to do a stint in a few weeks time on a regular comedy night without the gong. I wish him luck and start prying into how he gets his material and where he’s performed before. I need to learn from the successful guys because I’ve come out of this a slightly scarred but definitely addicted performer. I succeeded where others failed and I got the high that comes with making others happy - and making them healthy in the process. All I need to do is get some stage time and to try out in front of a smaller crowd. Maybe the market stall isn’t such a bad idea.
Master the Mic
Whether it’s the work conference, wedding or comedy club farce (is there much difference?) your time in the spotlight will come. Here’s how to stand up and deliver…
See the whites of their eyes
Look people in the eye during your delivery. “This helps keep your eyes down,” says Geoff Whiting of Mirth Control. “When you look over an audience, it gives you a faraway look and distances you from them.”
Stay in the light
If you find halfway through your performance you can suddenly see into the audience for more than three or four rows then you’re possibly at the edge of the stage – which means your face is no longer in the light. It’s much harder for the audience to see your face now and you’re next step could be your last.
Make a stand work for you
Pulling the mic out of its stand means you can move around more – that may be part of your act or it may just relax you - but remember to put the stand behind you or off to the side. “If you keep the mic in the stand, try not to grip it with both hands – you cover too much of yourself and create a barrier between you and the crowd,” says Whiting.
Hang hecklers with their own rope
You have the power of the mic. Use it to repeat the heckle back to the entire audience. But take the mickey out of it – put on a dim, junior garage mechanic’s voice as you repeat it to highlight how poor it was – do this to buy yourself enough time to think up a witty response.
Turn the gag on yourself.
If you get a persistent heckler during your speech point out that by interrupting they’re just making the time you’ll spend speaking drag on a whole lot longer. This way you alienate the heckler and get a possibly hostile audience on your side.
How to get started in comedy…
Comedy courses “Some established acts have come up through these while some people do them and still aren’t very good,” explains Geoff Whiting. “They teach you basic technique and will help your confidence.” Amusedmoose.com offer courses in writing and performing for absolute beginners.
Competitions “Most of the top stand-ups have been finalists in one of the bigger events, like the BBC New Comedy competition or SoYouThinkYou’reFunny run by Channel Five and Paramount TV,” explains Whiting. The BBC also run a Last Laugh comedy scriptwriting competition.
Books The bulk of comedy writing advice books come from the US – but don’t let that put you off. The tips on gathering material, pitching ideas and performing are still relevant. Comedy Writing Step-by-Step by Gene Perret, and The Comedy Bible by Judy Carter are available through amazon.com
Open Mic Nights “Essential,” insists Whiting. “But look to the smaller comedy venues without the 10 month waiting list.” Use these night to learn how others do it – occasionally big names and often for free – then try out your material in front of a crowd. For venues see websites such as www.mirthcontrol.org.uk and www.chortle.co.uk
Could our man overcome his deepest fear, achieve a lifetime ambition and beat the gong in a stand-up comedy showdown?
The Challenge
What? ‘King Gong the open mic comedy night where men who think they’re funny find out they’re not.
Where? The Comedy Store, 1A Oxendon Street, London, WC1. 020 79302949
www.thecomedystore.co.uk
When? The last Monday night of every month. £5 entry. Doors open 6:30pm
Why? Good question. To overcome a deep-seated fear of public speaking, to achieve a lifetime ambition to have a stab at stand-up without being stabbed.
‘Maybe I should call this piece To Do As You Die.’ That’s the last thought I had before I stepped up on to the Comedy Store stage.
That stage is – according to the pros - the loneliest place on earth. It has spawned TV shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Mock The Week. Its backdrop is a red round laughing mouth logo – to me it looked like a noose with a gap in the middle for my noggin.
Tonight is ‘King Gong. The open mic night where people who’ve never done stand-up before give it a try – in front of around 400 complete strangers. The name refers to the ‘fucking gong’ bashed by an MC when a comic is so bad that the crowd are screaming for them to be hauled from the stage. On the walls surrounding me are pictures of those who’ve have gonged before me. Robin Williams, Rik Mayall, Rowan Atkinson. Name any comic who’s made you laugh in the past 25 years and you could bet your last banana skin that they’ve done a turn here. And now it was Rob Kemp’s turn.
I have never done this before - and when I see the stage I’m swiftly trying to remind myself why I’m doing it now. Well for the sake of my expenses claim I’ll say that, from a health writer’s point of view, I’m keen to find out how humour can heal us. Science says comedy can boost brachial artery blood flow – a good laugh is on a par with an aerobic workout apparently. Right now for me it's more akin to a seizure.
But the truth is I want to be like those heroes of mine whose pictures adorn the walls. I want to see if I can get a room of people in stitches and feel the affection that comes with that kind of response. Ever since I looked on enviously at the classroom prankster – whose laugh rating scored highly with the ladies too - have I hankered after that skill. Being ‘a good laugh’ is a much respected entry to have on your social CV so I want to see if I’ve got what it takes – and by going right in at the deep end, I want to conquer a fear of public speaking too. (To measure how scared I get I’ve even wired myself up to a heart-rate monitor). But more than anything else I’m doing it because, like everyone else who does, I think I’m funny.
I’m not relying solely on my ability to raise a few laughs among mates in the pub though. I’ve done my homework too. Prior to tonight I’ve paid good money to watch bad acts at venues such as the Britannia Bar in Richmond and Mirth Control in the Lower Ground Bar in West Hampstead. “It’s a no-no to nick others jokes,” Geoff Whiting, a comedian of nine years standing who also manages and promotes comics along with Mirth Control comedy nights had told me. Instead I scribbled down everyday incidents in my life that made me laugh and used the joke-structure advice of a comedy bible to work the observations into a routine. “Rehearse your material and time yourself. Aim to build up about five minutes to 10 minutes of good, strong gags,” Whiting had suggested. “You want to get a laugh at least every 30 seconds.”
One man who once, correctly, thought ‘I’m funny I’ll do that’ is the MC for evening night Mark Billingham. He briefs me on what to expect. “The audience are brutal on an open mic night so you’ve got to stick to your routine and not give up until you hear the gong or the ‘hallelujah’.” The hallelujah refers to the anthem played when a comic lasts five whole minutes without being gonged off.
By 8-o-clock the crowd include a drunken horde of Met Police officers on a jolly, some lost Norwegian tourists and a stack of students taking advantage of the Happy Hour prices and £5 door fee. MC Mark prods this restless rabble with some one-liners then distributes a large (A4-size) red card to three of them. If they think the comics they see stink they raise their card – when all three cards go up Mark hits the ‘fucking gong’. Hence the name.
First on the stage is a 20-something, chubby guy in a Superman logo shirt. His opening joke falls so flat that nobody notices it’s meant to be a gag. Not least of all the Norwegian judge who harshly raises the first card based solely on the fact that he doesn’t like what he sees. ‘Superman’ reacts badly and hollers back to the crowd about ‘not picking on the fat kid’. This merely stirs up the 400-strong horde. There are two more cards, one loud clang of the gong and a cry of ‘Only thirty-two seconds!’ from a bitchy bloke in the sound booth. “Come on – where’s the atmosphere tonight?” asks MC Mark. “I think that fat bloke’s eaten it,” answers the Bitch as Superman bows out.
Next, a tall Australian guy, who has done this kind of thing before, leaps on to the stage. He’s good and the crowd love his mix of self-deprecation, topical comment and gags about lanky footballer Peter Crouch. He lasts for the full five minutes and goes through to the grand clap-o-meter final at the end of the night. For that is the goal of the evening. The comics that beat the gong perform a kind of joke-off at the end with the applause of the whole crowd determining the winner. But long before then MC Mark suddenly says: ‘Give it up for Rob Kemp.’ I take one last look at the heart rate monitor on my wrist. My resting rate is usually around 80 beats per minute. Right now I hit 122bpm. The line about ‘To Do As You Die’ enters my head. Feeling my legs shaking now I nervously step, hop and skip down the pathway to the stage. I take the mic from the stand. And it hits me. There’s silence – no applauding – but why should they, I’ve not done anything yet? There’s only a whisper from someone at the front row who’s misheard the MC ‘Ross Kemp? I fucking hate him.’
I stand for a second peering out from the stage but the glare of the lights means I can only see silouhettes beyond the front row. Those I can see resemble the baying crones who had ringside seats at the Guillotine. I draw breath. ‘Worried about bird flu?’ I ask the masses, overemphasising my London accent slightly. “No, me neither… cos I’m a bloke, I’m not gonna get bird flu am?” It’s base, it’s chauvinistic and for a fraction of a second it’s met with complete silence. Then laughs! Genuine, hearty guffaws – particularly from the Chief Superintendent to my right. I then make eye contact with a female face in the front row as the laughter fades. I keep my composure and wrap my sweaty palm around the mike stand. “No, what I’m worried about is having a heart attack… during a game of charades.” The eye-contact girl pauses a second. She gets the gag. It’s a subtle one. She laughs and her friend alongside breaks a warm smile. What a great feeling it is to make complete strangers react to you like that. I get an adrenaline rush and feel myself grinning at my newfound popularity. When your reason for doing something like this – something that leaves you so open - is because you think you’re funny it’s an amazing sensation to have someone else think you are too. But I can’t spend any longer soaking up the high – I have to get on because comedy’s all in the timing y’know.
I cast one more glance at the giggling girl then realise I’ve not struck a chord with all. From inside the darkness at the back of the store comes a loud jeer. I put the mic back in the stand and rise up straight to try and look more controlled. ‘Confidence’ Mark had emphasised. I have to look like I’m in control I think to myself. I pull myself upright and push out my chest. If you can open your lungs and breath slower you’ll have more command over the pace and pitch of your speech, so the self-esteem experts had advised me.
But my next gag is a slow one. I’m going need a couple of lines to set it up. It’s about my glasses and how I hate people who wear clear non-prescriptive lenses. The idea is that they think they look clever. But I’ve been wearing specs for 30 years and no-one’s ever said I look clever. I find fake glasses offensive because I’m wearing glasses to cure a disability. But as I start rolling this one off my delivery is already faltering and the jeers are getting louder. I stumble on my words. Under pressure I commit a posture sin. I cower back away from the mike stand - maybe subconsciously hoping the Comedy Store smile will swallow me up and allow me a back exit from a gig that’s going wrong. I can’t see the cards going up but I know it’s happening. I try to finish the joke. “You don’t look at people in a wheelchair and think ‘ooh that’s a relaxed look I think I’ll try th-‘” GONG! That’s it. My comedy baptism is over and the crowd are already calling for their next victim. I slink off stage and am suddenly aware - thanks to my glasses sliding down my nose - that I’m soaked in sweat. My heart-beat is racing and I’ve a raging thirst.
“One minute and twelve seconds!” cries the bitch as I scuttle off to the bar. “That was Rob Kemp, a scary bloke,” says Mark to the audience. “Like Harry Potter if he ran a market stall.” It gets a louder laugh than any of my stuff did.
Some people pat me on the shoulder as I did to Superman. Others look straight through me – rehearsing their own lines or shunning a failed comic. I take a swig from my beer and turn to watch the next act on a TV monitor but all I hear is ‘17 seconds’ as another funny man has his dreams crushed. He’s followed by an Australian woman with a great line in ‘bush’ jokes. Then a young Irish kid who looks about 12 and goes by the name of Alan Bennett – he beats the gong too. The successes are interspersed with a Mick Hucknall look-a-like who lasts two minutes. A sixty-something man who begs the crowd not to boo him and an Essex girl who barely gets a ‘hello’ out before she’s carded. In all 29 of us have bared our funny bones to the packed house.
“You were too anxious and the crowd detected that. To get them to listen to you you’ve got to come across as if you’re sure of what you’re saying. You’ve got to win them over with a confident delivery,” MC Mark would later tell me. “If you can produce funny material then your performance will come but you need to polish your act with more stage time.” One man getting more of that is young Alan Bennett. He wins the joke-off and earns the right to do a stint in a few weeks time on a regular comedy night without the gong. I wish him luck and start prying into how he gets his material and where he’s performed before. I need to learn from the successful guys because I’ve come out of this a slightly scarred but definitely addicted performer. I succeeded where others failed and I got the high that comes with making others happy - and making them healthy in the process. All I need to do is get some stage time and to try out in front of a smaller crowd. Maybe the market stall isn’t such a bad idea.
Whether it’s the work conference, wedding or comedy club farce (is there much difference?) your time in the spotlight will come. Here’s how to stand up and deliver…
See the whites of their eyes
Look people in the eye during your delivery. “This helps keep your eyes down,” says Geoff Whiting of Mirth Control. “When you look over an audience, it gives you a faraway look and distances you from them.”
Stay in the light
If you find halfway through your performance you can suddenly see into the audience for more than three or four rows then you’re possibly at the edge of the stage – which means your face is no longer in the light. It’s much harder for the audience to see your face now and you’re next step could be your last.
Make a stand work for you
Pulling the mic out of its stand means you can move around more – that may be part of your act or it may just relax you - but remember to put the stand behind you or off to the side. “If you keep the mic in the stand, try not to grip it with both hands – you cover too much of yourself and create a barrier between you and the crowd,” says Whiting.
Hang hecklers with their own rope
You have the power of the mic. Use it to repeat the heckle back to the entire audience. But take the mickey out of it – put on a dim, junior garage mechanic’s voice as you repeat it to highlight how poor it was – do this to buy yourself enough time to think up a witty response.
Turn the gag on yourself.
If you get a persistent heckler during your speech point out that by interrupting they’re just making the time you’ll spend speaking drag on a whole lot longer. This way you alienate the heckler and get a possibly hostile audience on your side.
Comedy courses “Some established acts have come up through these while some people do them and still aren’t very good,” explains Geoff Whiting. “They teach you basic technique and will help your confidence.” Amusedmoose.com offer courses in writing and performing for absolute beginners.
Competitions “Most of the top stand-ups have been finalists in one of the bigger events, like the BBC New Comedy competition or SoYouThinkYou’reFunny run by Channel Five and Paramount TV,” explains Whiting. The BBC also run a Last Laugh comedy scriptwriting competition.
Books The bulk of comedy writing advice books come from the US – but don’t let that put you off. The tips on gathering material, pitching ideas and performing are still relevant. Comedy Writing Step-by-Step by Gene Perret, and The Comedy Bible by Judy Carter are available through amazon.com
Open Mic Nights “Essential,” insists Whiting. “But look to the smaller comedy venues without the 10 month waiting list.” Use these night to learn how others do it – occasionally big names and often for free – then try out your material in front of a crowd. For venues see websites such as www.mirthcontrol.org.uk and www.chortle.co.uk