Last Wednesday was my final gig of 2009 - compering at 5 Minutes of Fame - and it proved to be a great way to round off my comedy year!

We had a brilliant line up of acts, old and new. Congrats have to go to Andrew Rodgers for absolutely storming the end of the first half (probably the best performance I've seen him give so far). Plus we were treated to some great last minute additions to the line up, including Eal Lyons, back from Bristol for Christmas, and Nelson de Gouveia, my previous co-conspirator in running 5MOF.

The audience were relatively small, but wonderfully warm and friendly. I opened with my usual "Ladies Man of the Year" routine, which went down pretty well, and then some applause exercises. I've been doing the same one for a while now, and thinking I should probably rehearse the dang thing, as its quite clear I'm blagging it and some of the energy is lost as a result.

I tried out some new material on opening the second section, which went down surprisingly well, and I managed not only to win a bet with Nelson (that I could get a certain phrase into the routine) but I also got probably the biggest laugh I've ever had (from one of the smaller crowds as well, go me!). And it wasn't from a formulaic rule-of-three gag, or a story clumsily implying a woman is of dubious morals before revealing she's my mother (and hoping nobody believes the story). It came from what I would have called a weak similie (followed by a weaker metaphor).

I'm aiming to get a showreel together, so I videoed this gig, and it was clear that the humour at that point came mainly from my performance (overconfidence, sleaze and a slim grasp of reality). Watching the rest of the night, there were a lot of places where my performance was letting me down. I often lost eye contact with the audience, and dropped my voice at ad-libs and some key phrases, so the meaning was lost.

So I think that my big aim for next year should be tweaking my performance. Fix my posture, keep eye contact (something I noticed the best acts doing constantly, talking directly to individual audience members for a sentence or two each), and learn my material so thoroughly that I can focus on getting the best reaction from it that I possibly can.

I've been writing a lot lately (probably got about 30 mins worth of tested material now), and I should probably re-focus some of that time to rehearsing and reviewing my current sets. Recording every performance will be massively useful for review (even with just the voice memo function on my phone). I should be getting plenty of practice as well: certainly need to book myself more spots in the New Year. One spot in a week is good, but 2 or 3 would be even better!