Preston.

On Saturday I was in Preston, gigging in a tent, in a car park outside the Adelphi pub.

It was part of ‘Bangfest’, a three day music festival with lots of (I’m assuming) local bands and DJs; and a comedy tent was part of the proceedings. One of the organisers was involved in last year’s Preston Tringe (their version of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), and I had spoken to them about the possibility of doing a show there, in the end, this didn’t happen – I was doing my degree and there wasn’t time to put a show together – but they got in touch to ask if I’d like to do an ‘Edinburgh’ preview as part of the comedy tent at Bangfest.

I’ve been putting together a show for a while, and though it’s not going up to Edinburgh this year (see here for what is), I’m hoping to take it to Leicester Comedy Festival next year, as this year’s show with Adam Hess was really fun, and we managed to sell out 60 seats both days (more down to the promotion of the show by Mike, Shaun and LCF; and the popularity of the festival as a whole, than people coming for our handsome faces), showing that it’s a very good place to try stuff out to really nice audiences.

So on Saturday, I gave the show – my pretentious blurb/poster can be seen here – its first ever run through, and it turned out just fine. There’s a lot that can be lost, and there’s a lot that needs to be added to make the show hang together more, but the general thread worked and listening back to the recording, there were laughs all along the way, and a nice finale that capped it off. Some kind words about the show’s profundity from a philosophy and ethics tutor were also very helpful in allaying fears of any glaring inaccuracy and pseudo-intellectual/philosophical bullshit in there. Hopefully it’ll stay that way, and I can continue to improve it until its next outing.I’ll keep the page updated with details of any further previews, although I don’t expect any for a while, what with Edinburgh fast approaching. 

Thanks to the organisers for having me, and to the audience, the sound tech and to the comics who performed and watched.

5kgag – The Laminator

So yeah…One of my jokes (Just one? Did you not see the quality of them?!) got into the final 20 of Highlight Comedy’s ’5kgag’ competition (which I blogged about here) and the voting to choose the winner finishes tomorrow.

I have no pretentions of winning – there’s better jokes in the competition (frankly, I never thought mine was any good until my girlfriend read it in a notebook of mine and said it was funny) including ones by much harder working (proper) comedians who deserve to win.

Have a look at the list:

5kgag Top 20

Well, top 19, as one of the jokes has been removed, as it was entered by someone who wasn’t its writer…which is the case with a few of the jokes – number 1 is a very famous Tommy Cooper joke, and I doubt he entered it. There are other examples, and it obviously isn’t against the T&Cs of the competition – it’s just annoying. Someone could win £5,000 for entering a joke that isn’t theirs.

Having already discussed this, I won’t continue along this thread, but will conclude by weighing up pros and cons of the 5kgag competition and jokes on twitter:

Pros:

• There is a small possibility I could win 5 grand, and I am very much entering into the spirit of advertising my joke on twitter/facebook in order to get votes – I could do with that money; student loans aren’t cheap nowadays.
• My twitter username (an my name), ChrisPJTurner has more hits on google, it has helped this blog, and my overall internet presence has grown (a very small amount). This, for me as an amateur, new comedian, is good.
• I feel good when I see my joke selected as one of 20 best out of 1000s (I think) tweeted. That’s in the top 2% at least.

Cons:

• The next time I tell this joke, there is a possibility someone may think I’ve stolen it. That would suck, and I’d have to address it. However, I’m not dropping it (yet) as it is (and again, this is in the opinion of the audience more than me) a very good joke.
• It is (in a very small way) all over the internet – forums, twitter, sickipedia – and none of these attribute it (apart from sickipedia) to me. The original post on twitter got 2 RTs (including @highlightcomedy). Now, there’s a lot of occurances of it on twitter, none of them attributed to me, or RTed from me. It’s just a bit annoying, as if anything, it would garner me more followers, and that would be nice.

There’s more I’m sure, but it’s late, I just got back from Budapest, and I’m tired.

However, from tomorrow (unless I’m suddenly 5 grand richer, in which case I’m off to Budapest again), I’m starting back on the blog – we’re on G for Gigs incidentally, and I want to get the A-Z of Comedy (ambitious little whelk that I am) done before The Edinburgh Fringe so I can get a daily diary going to post on here during my shows’ runs.

Until tomorrow, then.

…and the refinement of their decline

I have a gig tonight, and i’m hoping to refine a few things in my set.

I usually perform 10 minutes, and that’s the slot I’ve got tonight, and one that I’m very comfortable with – I’ve only ever done one 15 minute slot, at a Labour Club in Didcot, which went very well, and was just my 10 minute set with a few extra jokes, but mostly 3 or 4 extra minutes of audience chat, which they enjoyed.

As I have my So You Think You’re Funny heat in July, and will be doing some 8 spots at the Frog and Bucket soon (you get these when you win their gong show), I’m trying to tighten up my 7/8 minute set, and have some ideas I need to work into it.

Having started out with rather a deadpan style, I quickly moved away from it as I realised I couldn’t quite pull it off, and moved to being more chatty and conversational, a style that, while good and allowing me to connect more with audiences, wasn’t distinguishable from the hundreds of other comedians doing the same, and most of them doing it better than me. So, on the advice of others as well as my own, I moved back to the deadpan style, and have been refining it at each gig since then. It’s getting much better, and I find that positive audience reaction is noticeably up from the first time I tried it. I enjoy it more too – it provides a level of authority that discourages hecklers and makes me seem less ‘studenty’.

One downside is that with this style, jokes have to be very strong, as you really are placing a lot of pressure on them, making them do the work – it’s the jokes making the audience laugh as opposed to the comedian’s skill at physically delivering them, or acting the fool (á la Lee Evans). Recognising that the best thing to do, in order to maximise audience laughter and enjoyment, would be to combine the deadpan delivery with more of a ‘relatable’ persona, I’ve been working on this, and am trying out new ways to achieve this each gig. I’ve introduced a few lines acknowledging the lower energy levels of my set,  and the somewhat distant delivery – lines that get laughs and relax an audience. I’ve introduced ‘Pun Corner’, or the ‘Pun Stick’ (concepts which always get laughs through callbacks) which allow me to get away with some of my more pun-based jokes that have suffered from the deadpan style in the past.

One big thing tonight (aside from the couple of new jokes that I’m testing) is that this will be my first performance wearing a brace. It’s not amazingly noticeable but that doesn’t mean it can be ignored – I have to address it within the first few lines of my set, and preferably with a comment that draws a laugh, in order to relax the audience and make sure they know that I know it’s rather strange for a 20-year old to be wearing one. I briefly toyed with the idea of having MCs introduce me with the line ‘Brace yourself for Chris Turner…’ but frankly, that’s rubbish and wouldn’t work. Incidentally, I always thought that Bracelets were just miniature orthodontic appliances…(That is also rubbish). Hopefully, as I gig more while wearing it, and draw the inevitable heckles (Braceface, Metalmouth, Jaws etc.) I’ll pick up lines, and comebacks that will allow me to address it in the funniest way possible. Perhaps eventually I’ll have 20 minutes of material about braces, and won’t ever get the thing taken off, purely for the sake of comedy. I hope not.

And finally, tonight, I get to watch Tony Cowards, one of the best one-liner comedians in the UK, and a guy that I really admire for his commitment to writing. So far today, all I’ve written is this.

“How do psychoanalysts like their Mars Bars? Deep Freud.”

That’s one for pun corner.

(Incidentally the title of this post is a self-indulgent reference to Stars of the Lid. Check them out).