I was gigging at the Amersham Arms in New Cross tonight, which was the venue that I made one of my first (if not the first) steps back to being a stand up comedian six years ago. I don't remember too much about it, except it was the first time I saw Matthew Crosby and I did some gags from Talking Cock and it went well enough for me to have another go. I have come quite a long way in those six years, even if I now found myself in exactly the same place. I am glad I took the plunge and fought against my demons and gave it a go. Back then I would not have described myself as a stand up comedian - now I consider that my main job.
Even though I had decided to lay off the stand up a bit this autumn to give myself a break before the tour, this was the third of four gigs in four consecutive days. Because I haven't been on stage every single night since Edinburgh I have enjoyed this little run, though am conscious that I need to write some new stuff. I have got to the point where I have a 20 minutes that I know will work for most occasions, but I have been doing most of the jokes for three or four years (and a couple of the gags are around about 18 years old). I am pretty fed up of my routine about the hand signs that kids use to denote homosexuality and lesbianism, but it pretty much always works. I didn't do it last night and was pretty determined not to do it tonight, but suddenly hit a point where I couldn't think of what to do next and this was all that I had in mind. Maybe it should be its last outing.
I feel my act has got a little bit safe and boring, with lots of jokes about sex (good ones, but evenso) and being back at this venue where I had begun my journey back to stand up made me think that it was probably time for me to branch out again and take the kind of risks that I took back then, which led to such odd material as the infamous yoghurt routine. Not to say I want to be quite as irritating as I was back in those days (deliberately so, getting some fun from aggravating portions of the crowd) but it would be good to do things that challenge the audience and myself. I managed this a bit tonight, veering away from the well-trodden routines and giving a run out to the one about racists from Hitler Moustache and the stuff about my small-handed solution to the problem of paedophilia from Headmaster's Son. And much as I have some funny and well-formed routines to draw upon from the past I know that to truly start enjoying this again I have to write some new stuff. So perhaps next year's Edinburgh show should be another one that is more about creating a funny hour of stand up than telling a story or choosing a theme.
It can be too easy to hit cruise control with stand up and drift along doing the same familiar bits that work, not noticing that months and years are passing by. And whilst I feel it's important to entertain these crowds, it is probably more important for me to once again escape my comfort zone (like I did very much during that first year of stand up) and see what I can come up with. With an act that has a bit more to say and will make people think a bit as well as laugh. At my best I am doing this I think, but there is some way to go. More than ever, with comedy getting more commercial and businesslike and about filling big venues it is important for comedians to rebel and react against this. I don't know if that is the place of 43 year old comedians, but if all the youngsters are just trying to get on Michael Mcintyre (I mean the show, but it works in a literal sense too) and make millions, then maybe it is left to us oldies.
I think I am probably too much part of the establishment already, but come on you young'uns. Stir things up a bit.
What was important for me tonight was the realisation that I needed to mix things up a bit and do stuff that I am prouder of. Even six years in there is a long way to go. I have got better, but there is still much to do if I am going to be as good a comic as I can be. I need to start sticking my fingers into the wounds and twisting, or sticking my cock through the bars of the tiger cage (and the fact that I have used a penis analogy is not a great sign for my hopes of originality). I have climbed a mountain, only to discover that there is a much bigger mountain looming above this one. Do I still have the energy to climb? What will my act be like in the autumn of 2016 at the Amersham Arms?
On the drive home at about 11pm there was a momentarily disconcerting occurrence, when suddenly all the street lamps on the long road I was on went out at the same time, as if a thousand people had all forgotten a brilliant idea. The sudden plunge into darkness caused me to jolt a little. It was somewhat spooky. Each of the lamps still displayed a dull light which made things even more eerie. As I got to the end of the road the lights starting pinging back to brightness one by one in order. Perhaps they carried on all the way up the long road behind me, but it was a fitting metaphor for the idea of wiping everything out in one go and then starting again, one idea at at time.
