Mel and ME (or Hard to Wallow)

I did stand-up at Oxford Brookes University last night.

It was quite exciting: a big crowd and a new venue. The night as a whole went pretty well. There were a few student comedians that went down the best, and the crowd was occasionally quiet or difficult, but on the whole I was pleased with it.

This will sound patronising and self-important, but I don't know if the Brookes audience was my ideal crowd. I think you need to have a certain maladjusted streak that can only come with age and social inadequacy.

I did what I thought was my strongest material (Cat Skinning, LSD, Carnations). I also did my material about lies (which you can see here). The latter didn't go down so well.

I think it was partially a demographic problem. My joke about Mel Brooks hating M.E. fell down for two reasons:
1) The audience didn't seem to know who Mel Brooks was
2) The audience didn't seem to know what M.E. was

It's difficult to get past that.

An odd juxtaposition between two things you've never heard of doesn't generate a lot of laughs. Even if you only knew what one of them was, the joke wouldn't work. If you don't know either, the joke might as well be in Latin.

I tried to contextualise Mel Brooks with the recent film Spaceballs. Of course, that film was made about 10 years before most of the crowd were born.

My only real reservation about my performance, was that I was a bit too focussed on getting everything right. I didn't leave much room for improvising or interacting with the crowd. Still: it's a lesson for next time.

I never get disheartened after a gig. I think I'm always really happy that it's over, and I still feel like I'm learning something new each time. Of course, I've never been seriously heckled or booed. That might be more difficult to handle.

I think I'd take it in my stride, though. By which I mean: sob in the foetal position, wallowing in my own excrement. That will disarm the hecklers.

Some people say you can't wallow whilst in the foetal position. But I think I could manage it. I'm going to try wallowing in a wide variety of positions. Possibilities include:

Wallowing on a moped

Wallowing whilst face-down in trifle

Wallowing whilst leaning against a doorframe

Wallowing whilst juggling

***

It's not often that a headline can really buoy my spirits, but there's one today on the front page of the Guardian:

Hull City team save woman on bridge

Manager talks suicidal woman to safety while leading struggling team on walk to 'look for clarity'

That's just beautiful. It's a nice story anyway, but I mainly like the idea of Hull City wandering around helping people. It could be like Kung Fu or The Incredible Hulk. Each week they can get involved in various plots (foil a smuggling ring, reunite a son with his estranged father, raise money to rebuild a church etc). But instead of the standard one protagonist, there would be about fifty staff and players. They could all form personal bonds with the townsfolk and then walk off mournfully into the sunset to sad piano music.

It would be a tale of isolation: a transient existence where the players, management, physios, office staff, hot-dog vendors and matchday announcers of Hull City are all utterly alone.