I had my first gig of the year tonight at Outside the Box in Kingston. It's been almost a month since my last gig so I was a little worried that I might be a bit out of practice. Also I wanted to try and do some of my old material to warm it back up for the "Someone Likes Yoghurt" DVD record which I am doing next week in Cardiff (check gig guide for details. Early show is now sold out, but still tickets remaining for late show - Book Now, Walesoes).
I wasn't as rusty as I had feared though and even when I almost lost my place early on I was able to adlib my way out of it and set up quite a nice running joke about everything in the act being written beforehand, even the stuff that couldn't possibly be. At this point I was doing the newer material, which I am very familiar with and which I am able to break in and out of without any real problem. Having had a rest from it though I was finding new ways of doing stuff and different nuances which meant I was able to enjoy myself with it. I was reminded of how much I like this part of my job and how there is always room for improvement. I often get asked to give advice to new comics or more often people who want to try stand up, but never have. The only real advice there is is to get out there and do it. You do all your own learning on the job. And it seems to me that it's an education that never ends. Which is what I suppose makes it interesting.
Early on I picked on a young couple who I think would be described as Goths (though I am old now and so it might be some new derivative). But they were pretty cool ones with flamboyant hair and clothing and the self-assurance of youth. Not that they were cocky, they were just comfortable with who they were. I liked them The girl objected when I estimated that she was 15 years old, because she was in fact 19. And a 19 year old woman is pretty much the only age where you'd be insulted to be called 15. I made this point to one of the other women in the audience - "You'd be quite flattered if I thought you were 15 wouldn't you? Not that I ever would. It's dark in here, but not that dark!"
So things had gone well and I'd done a spirited version of the potato/potarto routine, so I moved back in time to attempt the Rudyard Kipling bit.
The change of direction confused the crowd for a while, or maybe I just wasn't as at ease with the material, but it took a little while to get going. My current act is much more bullet-proof in a stand up environment. Much of the Yoghurt show material is a bit more obtuse and specialist and I now realise that it was accidentally quite brave of me to try out these unusual ideas in this context. I am not sure whether the newer stuff is better or whether the specialist and uncompromising nature of the old stuff is actually more impressive, but for the first time in the night I felt I was ever so slightly struggling. I guess there are more actual "jokes" in the newer stuff, whereas part of the fun of the 2005 material is that it's mainly about subjects you would never usually here in this environment.
As I got more into it all though the audience warmed to it - apart from the Goth couple who had a brief conversation and then left. I don't think it was the routine itself that had caused them to go (they may have been big fans of Kipling and been offended) - maybe they had to catch a bus.
At the end of the piece I thanked the audience for bearing with me and giving me a chance with it, though added "apart from the two teenage Goths, who weren't so keen and decided to leave to probably go and have sex with each other. Probably quite experimental sex judging from the way they were dressed." The audience laughed.
I allowed the frustrations of the character Richard Herring (who is very different to the real Richard Herring, who is much more balanced and less jealous and resentful of the young and their sexual freedoms and attractiveness as I am sure you will have realised by now).
"The thing is," I continued warming to my theme, "that they are too young to be trying out experimental stuff. The kinky stuff is for us old people who have tired with the tedium of regular intercourse. When you're young you need to just stick to ordinary sex. You can't appreciate the dirty stuff because you haven't had enough regular sex yet. You've got to wait. He'll be doing all kinds of grotesque things with her and have no idea how great it actually is. He'll be fucking her in the arse and just think it's normal because he's never even done vaginal sex yet."
It's great in stand up when an idea like this just pops up and then you can run with it. I think there is something in this idea that maybe I can expand on in another occasion, but it works both on there being a level of truth to it and because it is an expression of bitterness, frustration and let's face it envy on my part. I mean on the character Richard Herring's part. I am gettin' enough thank you very much Lil Chris and all you teenage bastards out there who have no idea how lucky you are.
Yes the lines between me and the character Richard Herring are very clearly defined.
I went on my way, buzzing on the adrenaline of live performance, which is a better high than going to bed with a sexually liberated 19 year old Goth any day of the week. Oh yes. If I say that enough times I might start to believe it is true.
