I tried to get out fairly early today as I wanted to catch some shows, I did a bit of flyering on the Royal Mile and had a look around for some shows I might want to catch. I have a long list of comedians I want to see but not so much on the theatre front. Despite being handed a Rain Forest of leaflets, I didn't come across any shows that I fancied. The first show I saw was Lunchtime of Champions, it on at the same venue as us. It was a fun and enjoyable stand up set, in away a similar concept to our show in that it's three stand up comedians with a few sketches. The guys were really funny and members or ex members of the Cambridge Footlights, they had a big crowd at least fifty, some other acts can be harsh about the Footlights and the Oxford Revue, some people think they have an unfair advantage, a lot people have also told me that they are usually shit but to be fair to these guys they were really funny. I also thought it was interesting that they didn't use a microphone for the venue, I was sat at the back and could hear them perfectly clear. I handed out flyers to people as they were leaving the venue in hope they might want to come back later.
I did some more flyering and then headed over to watch Chris Coltrane's show. I've followed him for a while on twitter and I've always found his tweets really funny but this is the first time I've seen him do stand up. His show was great, well written jokes and great stories about protesting, it was smart political comedy, but it also had a heart and warmth and the show wanted to inspire you to get involved in politics and not to be cynical. It also worth mentioning that Chris also didn't use a mic, although his room was slightly smaller than ours and with better acoustics.
I met back up with Gary and Joe and we did some flyering. There seemed to be less people on the Royal Mile this afternoon, Joe decided to dress up as an old woman (who's a character in one of our sketches) this got us some attention and we were able to round up about 15 people for the show. It was a difficult gig everyone was spread out across the room and good handful of them didn't seem to laugh. Gary and Joe both did terrific jobs, I was on last tonight as I walked on stage two members of the audience stood up and walked out (they must really hate people wearing Great Gatsby T-Shirts) I went through the gig there was laughter in places and I think I had most of the room on our side, however one gentleman was not having a good time, from his facial expressions he went from confusion to anger, from anger to boredom, and from boredom to having a look in eyes that said "I want to punch you in the face" the end bit of my set was really fun to do partly because of the gentleman in question becoming more agitated which was something for me to play with. I also did the gig without a microphone I'm not sure how I feel about this I might try again tomorrow.
At the end of the gig a man said he didn't have any change but he enjoyed the show and would like give us Teddy Bear he'd gotten from the Edinburgh Dungeon. This has set and all new bar for what we expect for payment, if you are coming to show bring cash or something that is more impressive than a Teddy Bear, I think we can easily get something far weirder.
We went back to flat and ate before going off to see Nick Helm's 2 hour show at the Pleasance he's only doing two nights this year and we caught his last show. Nick Helm's great and in the environment he was playing his show really worked. The more successful he's become the more fun the shows have been as he's been able to add more and more spectacle to show. I also admire his dedication to make sure things get out of control regardless off how well he is doing. The show was made up with old and new material and two audience members in front of me walked out because they said "We've heard all these songs before" It's a weird one that, if you went to a gig and the band only played new material you'd feel pretty pissed off, yet with comedians doing old material is a cardinal sin. So where does that leave Musical Comedians?
Gary and Joe first saw Nick Helm 6 years ago playing a small room as part of the free fringe. It's really inspiring to see someone who's been through Free Fringe have so much success. Joe tweeted about and Nick Helm favourited it, which I think made Joe's night.
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