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Today's testicular surprise was a tweet from Caitlin Moran containing a report from the New Scientist saying that testicles have taste buds. I can't think of a worse place to be able to taste, and if my own sexual partners are anything to go by, nor can they! How have I got through so much testicular research without discovering this. I am sure this will feature in my stand up show!
Do come and see.Second try out gig of the year at the Bill Murray and once again the small room was full despite it being 6pm on a Monday. It's incredibly helpful to get a crowd in at this stage of the proceedings. I'd done a bit of work on the script in the day, but not much of it had stuck in my brain, but bit by bit it's creeping closer to being ready. I have to work out where to put the interval for the full length show and it seems like maybe the point where I go under for the operation might work. In the first half I have two balls, but in the second half I have half.
I reached that point at about 50 minutes, which is more or less the right amount of time. I'd favour 50/40 for a 90 minute tour show. Unfortunately I only have about 20 minutes in the second half as it stands, but that's the bit that I haven't properly worked on yet. And the 20 minutes this evening featured a medical emergency and I can't rely on that happening every time (though it's the second time in the last four stand up gigs that it's occurred). There was a slight kerfuffle to my right and I saw a man lolling to the side, either fainting or having a seizure, but whatever it was the show couldn't go on.
The audience and staff were great and everyone leapt into action to help. It looked pretty dodgy for a minute, but then the man revived and seemed fine. There was no way he was going to stay in the room though, much as he wanted to. They got him out the fire door and called an ambulance.
The same thing happened in Chiswick last year (though it wasn't so obvious what was happening in that big room) and although I put tonight's incident down to the cramped warmish room and last year's one down to alcohol, there may be something in material about bollocks and bollocks going wrong that sets people off.
In Talking Cock there was that routine about a snapping banjo string that made a man collapse into the aisle (I would later, bizarrely,
attend his wedding in Tobago) and perhaps talk of balls being extracted (which I'd been discussing a few minutes before tonight, describing how the cancerous ball was squeezed out of my tummy like a blackhead) might have the same effect on some men (don't think I'd been talking about anything too graphic in Chiswick, but even balls being handled or diseased might be enough to send some men crashing to the ground in sympathy - weird because we all just laugh when someone gets smacked in the balls by accident).
Anyway, I had thought the gig might have to end, but the man seemed well enough as he left and I was able to joke about his attempts to upstage me - "Oh did you just have testicular cancer? Well I died. Beat that!" I am sure he'll be OK. I have yet to knowingly dispatch anyone with my comedy.
He missed the appearance of Right Bollock (which I almost forgot about) who went down pretty well, but who still clammed up a bit under the pressure. I think this section will be quite a bit longer in the final show. If I get a bit more theatrical he might possibly haunt me during the show. There is a month til the next gig and hopefully I will use that time to work on what exactly this show is going to be. I won't though. I'll leave it all til the day as usual and then get bored and decide to wing it.
If it ain't broke.
It's going pretty well so far. People seem to like it, at least the one's who stay conscious. I am competing with a few middle-aged comedians telling people about their near death experiences at the moment and my problems were definitely the lightest of these. But none of them have a puppet of a diseased testicle. One that I now know has taste buds.
That's my ace in the hole.
Or is that the other one?
Retro RHLSTP from when I had two balls and wasn't afraid to talk about them slapping round a guest's chin, with the wonderful, though never as good as me, Sarah Millican.
Up here.
