Another fortnight, another chapter. The sixth installment of my novel is now online!

I'm also looking for some help coming up with a name for the protagonist of this sordid tale. If you have any naming ideas, please drop a comment on the Facebook group I've set up: Tom's Protagonist Needs a Name

[Read Chapter Six]

[Novel Main Page]

A couple of gigs in short succession this week, Wednesday night at Desperately Seeking Stagetime and Thursday at Rub My Face In It. Two excellent nights in two swish venues (now there's an adjective I've never used before), and two great gigs to report on.

It'd been months since I last went along to DSS, so having my Wednesdays free again, I was eager to pop along at the earliest opportunity - as I had kept telling Anthony and Phil nearly every time I've seen them of late. The night is a drop-in, without pre-booked spots: the first ten or so people to come along get 5 minutes, then the rest get 3. Its an interesting, if different format, and usually makes for a really fun, quick-fire night. The 5s go pretty quick, so I prepared a quick 3 minutes from my phrasebook routine, including a new opener that I wanted to try out.

I got along just in time to put my name down for the 18th spot, and settled in to watch the show beforehand. The quality of acts was really high, which I think was probably due to the need to arrive early. The organised people who'd get there in good time are likely also the kind of people who work hard at their sets (and probably do more than 2 gigs a week *cough*). Not only that, but the audience were really warm and attentive, despite being primarily made up of performers. People say a lot about getting less reaction performing to other acts, but on drop-in nights like this one, I think there's a sense of cameraderie that leaves everyone willing everyone else to do well.

When my spot came up (Phil, the compere, handily having reminded me during the preceding act), I ploughed into my material as quickly as I could, 3 minutes having seemed like an instant while practicing. As a result, I ended up rushing my delivery somewhat, and, even worse, stepping on some laughs. In the end, I managed to get through most of what I had planned, but the timing klaxon went off a few gags before the end. But no matter, the closing material was tried and tested (still, always room for improvement). The positive outcome was, I knew the opening bit worked. If I can just take my time a little in future, I can probably squeeze a bit more out of it. And with more time, slowing down shouldn't be too difficult.

My second gig of the week was at Rub My Face In It at the Moustache Bar (an eccentric basement bar with walls covered in moustachioed versions of popular posters). I have to hand it to Liam and Johnny, they've got a really good night going, and managed to attract a sizeable audience.

I'd considered doing Ian from HR for this one, and had my costume and clipboard hidden away in my bag. However, given the previous night, I was tempted to try out my phrasebook set again. A quick consultation with Nelson and we agreed I should probably go with newer stuff while its fresh in my mind. After the spot I did, I rekon it was definitely the right choice.

I returned some of the gags I'd cut out for DSS, and took my time a lot more, pausing for laughs if there was even a hint of one coming. This worked really well in places, with some of my "afterthoughts" building up the energy in the room step by step, until the laughs were loud enough that I couldn't help but grin. Granted, not all my material went down that well, but I've got plans to improve upon some of the weaker jokes - my recent changes to Ian from HR's material got me into the swing of that.

Watching the video back, the set was definitley too long, so there's room to cut out plenty of the weakest gags. I also ended with my Battleship closer, which is something of a banker, but can take far too long. I should probably concentrate on improving the ending of the phrasebook story so it has a closer in its own right, rather than going totally off topic as a "final thought".

All in all, two great gigs (DSS and RMFII are nights I'd certainly go back to, and recommend) and lots of useful ideas for improvement. I'm taking next week off to do a little writing, rehearsal, and perhaps catch up on some sleep. Bit of luck I won't get too rusty in the meantime.

Back in November, a crew from Sky came along to 5 Minutes of Fame to film some of the night for a documentary. Surprisingly enough, I got asked back in January to take part in the remainder of the segment. And the episode in question is airing next Monday!

The show is called How to Get What You Want and is an 8-part series on how to use social science, body language, and other techniques to, appropriately enough, get what you want.

Monday's episode is part 5 of 8, and is on the subject of humour. In keeping with the theme of handy life tips, I was lucky enough to be given some coaching for my stand-up act from Anjula Mutanda, a life coach and psychologist, and Logan Murray, a comedy tutor. Not only that, but I then got to try out what I'd learned in front of a pre-warmed audience at the Comedy Store! It was probably the warmest audience I've performed to, not least because they were warmed up by the fantastic Andi Osho and Chris James, but possibly helped along a little by the promise of free drinks if they laughed loudly enough.

I've not seen the final show yet, but I'm trying to blag a copy of the full recordings of my "before" and "after" spots, so hopefully I can do a proper gig report sometime after the episode airs.

Episode 5 is on next Monday (March 15th) at 8pm on Sky One. If you've been to 5 Minutes of Fame, there might be a good few familiar faces. If you do, let me know, I haven't got Sky.

This week's gig was at the Coo Comedy Club in Tufnell Park, and I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable nights I've been to.

The evening was geared towards sketches, music and character comedy, which made for a really varied show. And while the audience might have taken a little while to warm up (so some of the earlier acts didn't quite get the laughs I thought they deserved), once everyone got into it, the atmosphere was fantastic. Not least due to the boundless enthusiasm of the compere, Anthea Neagle. Plus the quality of acts was very high, and I was lucky enough to be going on shortly after Little Dark, a sketch group who absolutely stormed it and brought the energy right up.

Keeping with the character portion of the theme, I had a crisply ironed shirt and my clipboard to appear as Ian from Human Resources. After my less than stellar performance last week, I'd spent Sunday working on the routine, cutting out waffle and trying to add more "punch" to the gags. I'd also got rid of the full script from the clipboard, so I spent much of the interval nervously running through the routine to make sure I'd remember it. I'd also foolishly had a few brainwaves on the way in, determined as I was to make remembering it all as hard as possible for myself.

Luckily, the work and worries paid off big time. Almost everything I'd hoped would get a laugh got one, and a few of the better bits almost got a round of applause (I say almost, it might have been someone laughing just hard enough to accidentally bang their hands together, once). I ended up stepping on a few laughs with afterthoughts, which is pretty bad craft, but someone that I can fix with experience (and not much else). I also went a little too quiet at a few points, and couldn't quite make out what I was saying on the video I took. Having volume levels is good, but I should aim to up everything rather than extending the "dynamic range" (get me using big words!) at the lower end.

All that said, I came out absolutely buzzing, and I'm now eager to try and improve the character even more. Its running at about 6 minutes now, so I need to get brutal about cutting out the duff jokes. I think I know which they are, and annoyingly enough, they're my personal favourites. Still, broad audience appeal and all that.

Roll on my next gig! And be sure to check out Coo Comedy every other Tuesday at the Hideaway, if its anything like this week you're in for a great night!

A full week ahead of schedule, here's chapter five!

I'm really getting into the swing of things now, another chapter down only a week after the last one. Ok, so its not the longest chapter I've done, but its longer than the first one.

[Read Chapter Five]

[Novel Main Page]

I had a decidedly weird experience on Wednesday night, involving a conversation on the night bus that made me wonder if people are a bit too quick to judge one another. With the possible exception of juries in armed robbery cases.

I was coming home after a gig on Wednesday evening, it was about quarter past midnight and I was sat on the top deck of the 344. I was minding my own business, with my iPhone set to shuffle. A bluegrass song happened to come on, something that I probably hadn't listened to in years. Just as I was remembering how much I liked the style, and was contemplating listening to the whole album, a gaggle of tipsy revellers jogged up the stairs and one sat next to me. This made me a little uncomfortable for two reasons: firstly, the bus was practically empty so why share seats? Second, he sat right on my coat, pinning me so I couldn't move.

Somewhat uncharacteristically for me, I decided to draw attention to it. I took out my headphones and turned to the guy, "Sorry, mate, you're, um, on my coat."

He looked at me blankly for a few seconds, before a woman who I can only assume was a friend of his appeared, leaning on the seat in front.

"You're on his coat", she said, pointing and shooing the poor bloke, who still seemed dumbfounded. When he finally realised, moved and offered an apology, his accent suggested English wasn't necessarily his main language.

I was just about to put my headphones back in, when the woman - whose name I later found out was Helen - suddenly became very interested in my music collection.

"Oooh, what are you listening to? Can I have a listen?"

I couldn't see any harm, so I agreed to Helen's little social experiment and offered my left headphone.

"What's this? I like it." She said, bopping her head.

"Its a bluegrass band."

"Very catchy."

Helen then engaged in a strange a cappella imitation of a banjo, before offering a pearl of wisdom.

"I'm going to take a guess about you. Are you very religious?"

"Not in the slightest." Was my honest reply. Helen seemed more than a little surprised by this. But I began to think about all the coincidences that had led her to this assumption. I was coming back from a gig where I portrayed an office worker, and was thus dressed in a manner akin to a Bible salesman. I just happened to be listening to music stereotypical of a certain part of the southern US big on conservative christian values. And I happened to have my coat sat on by her friend while she was in earshot. All these things came together at exactly the right time to make her first impression of me entirely fake.

Makes me wonder about first impressions. Should we trust them? For all I know, Helen might be pretty quiet and non-judgemental when she's sober.

For a third time in a week I donned my shirt and tie for a bit of character stand up, and had a really fun night, despite my set completely dying.

Strangely, though, watching a recording back, I was reasonably happy with my performance. I didn't stumble over words like I had on Monday, and think I injected a little bit more energy in than previously. I'd snuck a little time to rehearse before I left, which helped immensely.

Despite not really getting many laughs, I seemed to have the audience's attention, and there wasn't any hostility or anything. General feeling was "we like you mate, we're just not finding you particularly funny". So on the plus side, I didn't feel nearly as bad about the spot as I might have.

I'm not going to beat myself up over it, but think I can take the experience as encouragement to improve. I've got another gig as Ian next Tuesday, so I'm going to spend a good chunk of Sunday working through the set, getting rid of the excess words and perhaps ditching a few of the weaker jokes - the set is ever so slightly over 5 minutes now, so I can afford to cut bits.

I think I'm relying on the clipboard too much as well. I've got the entire set written on it, and although I know most of it without referring to the notes, I still need to follow it to turn pages. I do need the clipboard for a couple of things (holding the "race card", and a quick-fire list), but if I'm looking to it on and off for the whole thing it might appear unprepared. So I'm going to get rid of everything I don't need and make sure I know the set inside and out.

I'll get it right one of these days...

Barely two days after my last gig, and I'm dusting off Ian's clipboard again! On Monday night I ventured north to Kensal Green for another gig at the William IV pub, having had so much fun last time I was very keen to return.

The room seemed a little muted compared to last month, with the "real" audience members a bit quiet and self-conscious. Although the acts were keen to show good support for one another. So a friendly atmosphere, if not quite as warm as last time.

I hadn't run through my set since Saturday, which turned out to be something of a mistake, as I ended up stumbling over a few of my words, and nearly missed out a new gag that I really quite like. Listening back to the recording I took, there were quite a few places where I could have been slicker, and my speech seemed almost broken.

Still, again, none of my gags properly died, and I got a bit of a response for everything. Just need to ramp up the energy and the character's smarm to squeeze everything I can out of the material. I really need to find a way of eking energy from myself, rather than getting it all from the audience - if a crowd is small or quiet, I need to be livening them up. This will be trickier with a character like Ian, who doesn't move a lot, but he's not what you'd typically call "low energy" so I just need to pep it up a bit. And rehearse, really gotta get into a good habit of rehearsing.

Ian from Human Resources is back! After being on hiatus for months while I build up a 5 minute set I'm actually happy with, I've re-tooled my character act (ostensibly to make it "funny") and spent Saturday afternoon rehearsing ready for an evening gig at the Round Table near Leicester Square.

And it was something of a bizzare gig to revive a set on. I'd been asked to arrive at about nine, which I thought was a pretty late time to start an evening's comedy. Turning up at about twenty to, I found that the night was in full swing and ended up waiting on the stairs outside with some of the other acts.

I'd not been in this situation before, usually staying in the audience before I go on, to support and enjoy the other acts. So it seemed a little strange to find myself in an odd approximation of a green room; cramped, with no seating and situated next to the Ladies' toilets. I had no idea when I was on, or even which segment of the show we were in (was a break imminent? no idea), so I hung around just in case. Then a strange kind of chinese whispers developed, where descriptions of every little thing that went wrong were passed back through the group huddled by the door, somehow making them seem much worse. The room was cold. Most of the front row didn't speak English. The compere got in an argument with one of the audience and his group of huge mates.

The break came around and a few of us went for a drink downstairs. I was debating not going on, entirely expecting to die. But I figured I would tough it out and perhaps have a good story to tell later. The second half started without us and I found myself rushing upstairs after someone came rushing down to tell me I was being announced.

I blustered into the room, still wearing my coat. Somehow, I managed to convincingly apologise for being late in character, mentioning being at another seminar, etc, which unbelievably got a bit of a laugh and set the scene quite nicely. Not wanting to tempt fate with the audience, I directed my initial insulting of an audience member at the compere - the audience seeming to appreciate the authority figure being taken down a peg. The few laughs I was getting at this point managed to give me confidence to carry on and actually do a passable set.

From what I hear, the room was much nicer in the second half overall. Granted, there were a lot of non-English speakers in the room, but I managed to direct everything over them and target the people behind them, who seemed much more up for it. The changes I'd made to my script seemed to work well, and no gags fell completely flat, although I didn't exactly tear the roof off the place.

Still, not a bad re-introduction for Ian. Guess the biggest lesson here is "just do it". No matter what I'm hearing or however hostile I may think a room could be, I'll never know until I try for myself.

My first completed resolution of 2010! Last Wednesday I was hosting 5 Minutes of Fame at Rudy's Revenge for the last time. So I thought I'd go out with a bang and as a way of saying thanks to everyone that had supported the night over the last few months, I got a round in at the end of the evening.

Ok, so there were a lot of people there who weren't necessarily strangers. But I think there were enough people I didn't know for it to count.