Gig 9. BBC New Comedy Heats.

Gig 9 (Sep. 12th) -Our big chance. The BBC new comedy awards Sheffield Heat. Woo-hoo! The ruling had come through and I was allowed to enter with rich doing the Heaven sketch - even though I'd got through on the strength of a tape of me alone doing the Cowboy song. Well, going on a hunch (possibly based on the notion I might wee myself and cry if I went on stage alone) I threw caution to the wind and went for the sketch. -Caution, and the bit about 'we strongly recommend you do the material on your audition tape'

Was it the right choice? Well, we'll never know- as we were scuppered by problems other than our material. In going all out to make it as professional as possible we'd bought some clip on mics. Not fancy radio mics, just a little clip on and a long thin lead. These would allow us to move about naturally- do the business with the props etc. We also had an intro CD of heavenly, gregorian chant type music- (Me going 'Ahhhh' over myself with loads of reverb) We had hoped to do a sound check to get it all sorted. We arrived early - seemingly before any other acts, or the BBC, or anyone who could let us in the room for a sound check. But in the interim we got hungry- went for dinner- and when we got back the place was packed, we'd missed our chance to sound check.

We were second last- so had to tolerate a night of enforced slow drinking and nerves. It was an impressive show, I thought there might be 1 or 2 contestants who were rubbish, maybe they'd managed to produce a good tape in their bedrooms but would lose it on stage,- but everyone was alright- and most were great. This put the pressure off- I knew I wouldn't feel cheated if we didn't get through, 3 of the 12 acts would go on and I even by the first half I'd seen at least 3 acts which could be winners.

The filter of a good tape seemed enough to keep out the real rubbish. I always enjoy local nights like the Chillingham arms (now defunct) -but there is usually at least one act where you laugh out of sympathy- but not too much in case they get the idea they're good at it and come back. Also if you see some local comedy every week then the better / established acts can also disappoint as you've seen at least some of their act before.

Considering the heat was in sheffield there were a lot of acts from Newcastle Me and Rich, Sara Millican (Who made the finals; Dec 12th- listen out on Radio 7) and at least 3 others.

So what happened to us? Well rich went on stage first in his toga and beard, and plugged in our special mics. I went on and our music started- well some music started, some girly chart pop if I remember rightly, then after a few seconds the sound man realized his mistake and our music started. The reason the sound man was so distracted was he was more concerned that he wasn't getting any signal from our mics. So we ploughed on- I thought the mics weren't working well- but it's often hard to tell on stage when the speakers are facing the audience- I tried to speak up as much as I could, and we were getting laughs, so some of the audience at least could hear us. But not those at the back- including the judge.

Oh well! I don't think we'd have won anyway - Sketches are really hard in a stand up situation- no one knows when they're finished, and it's since been reviewed simply as 'long'.

BACK TO THE PRESENT. EGYPT COTTAGE NEWCASTLE TONIGHT, I'LL BE THERE- MAINLY AS A PUNTER. THE ROYALTY PUB, SUNDERLAND WED. I'LL BE DOING THE OPENING SLOT AT ABOUT 8.30.