gig 17. A quiet night in Egypt.

A weird night at the Egypt cottage. it was the first time there was really no audience to speak of. It's never been full since the first one, but usually the tables in front of the stage fill up with genuine punters. This week there were a couple of friends of acts and that was about it.

Callum Cramb was compere this week, and though he did well, the 'crowd' wasn't quite as perked up as John Scott usually gets them - of course callum didn't have much to work with.

John Scott came at the end, with tales of how his new agent had got him the compere spot at the Hyena. He'd just come from a crowd of 400, and been paid real money, and it looks like John won't be able to waste his time with us losers for much longer - and who can blame him?

All in all it felt like the beginning of the end. But who knows- we might get 30 people in next week and everyone will be back on top form.

So anyway, it was a tough crowd.- I had another lot of new stuff- but it was more in sections, so the technique i used last week of doing a gag, then asking for marks out of 10 wouldn't have worked. In the end i dropped a lot anyway, as no-one's material was going over as well as it should have. Instead i thought i'd be loud and brash and hammer home the ammusing characters-and try to stirr up the crowd that way. But it didn't work frankly. I still need punchlines to trigger the laughs. I did a bit based on a stag do i'd been to, playing up a drunken argument between me and a barman who wanted the groom to stop dancing on the tables dressed as wonderwoman. I'd hoped this would get small laughs all the way through, like a little sketch, but there was nothing -it was only (partially) saved when i explained -'what they objected to was the fact that wonderwoman's costume is basically an American flag, once he took that off everyone was fine.'

I also mentioned that the phrase 'Monkey arse counter flaps' was written on the toilet wall and tried to think why. Again, my repetitive explanation didn't get many laughs, but the last line 'If anyone has a better explanation of why the phrase 'Monkey arse counter flaps' is on the wall i'd like to hear it.'-got a laugh that almost justified what had gone before.

Basically, I was a bit too drunk and trying to get laughs by just getting louder and repating things. Callum nearly tried to get me off early, and listening back to the tape I'd dithered, backtracked and ummmed so much that 5 minutes of stuff took 10 minutes to say.

A few things worked.

A terrible vegetable pun: That's challotte / ya' lot. Actually got a laugh.

I was saying french only sounded sophisticated, giving an explanation of the literal meaning of compere -comme pere -like dad. This got a laugh, but i followed it up with too much waffle. A similar joke explaining how TGV actually means 'very fast train' didn't work, again mostly because i made it too long.

Similarly some stuff about Isambard Kingdom Brunel was mostly overblown and didn't work. Though there was a bit when i pointed out that despite his popularity people didn't name their kids after him. This allowed me to imagine Brunel in a primary class and i got a laugh with;

Miss, Imambard's taken all the plasticene!
Yes, and please order another thousand tons or, upon my sam, this bridge will never be finished.


TIP: DON'T GO ON AFTER MORE THAN 3 PINTS.

PS: AL DAWS HAS NOW STARTED A BLOG TOO AT http://blog.myspace.com/BigBlueFatAl -I'LL TRY TO SET UP A DIRECT LINK.