After a week's break, I was itching to get back on stage, and absolutely terrified I'd forget my material. So I didn't do any.

I was down for a spot at this week's Jester Jester's, and just as well I'd pre-booked, as the drop-in spots filled up fast. And deservedly so, there was a fantastic, friendly atmosphere there on Monday. Despite the audience mainly being made up of acts - can't expect much different at an open mic night -, they were acts who were eager to see some comedy as well as perform it.

Before things got underway, myself, Nelson, Stephanie Laing and Andrew Rodgers sat having a bit of a natter and slowly developing a sketch concept in which Anne Robinson flips children the bird after making them guess which hand she hid a coin in. During this and other amusing banter, I recounted a news story I'd seen at work that afternoon. Nelson's response was to challenge me to tell the tale during my spot. This wasn't the first time this had happened, and I hadn't learned since last time, so I took him up on the bet.

The set I had planned on doing was a bit tight even for five minutes, so I ended up completely throwing it out to just throw out the news story and a few random thoughts (about the shape of the room and something a friend had said the other day). This took about 2 and a half minutes, at which point I asked the organiser how long I had left, something that probably smacks of unprofessionalism, but what the hell, I'm not a professional. With the remaining time I rattled through my Nazi/Pirate gag, taking a moment to address a random comment from the crowd.

I was surprised how relaxed I felt just winging it. I think the audience made it easy on me, seeming pretty receptive to "experimenting", plus the fact that I wasn't actually telling jokes forced me to rely much more on mannerisms and energy to eke out some laughs. And luckily, I didn't do too badly in the laughter stakes.

I've been having a lot of problems with timing of late, crafting a set for exactly 5 minutes and invariably running over when something unexpected happens. Now I know I can get away with improvising a little, I'm going to try cutting my prepared material down a bit, get together a 3 minute core of really solid stuff and give myself the remaining time to just play around and enjoy myself. This is currently a hobby for me, if I'm not enjoying it, its not worth doing.

Of course, if I want the freedom to be spontaneous, I'll need to be more organised with respect to timings. After all, I can't rely on rough timing of something I might not have said before (or may have said in a different way). So I'll have to start setting an alarm on my phone, being very careful remember to use the vibrate function. No, not like that.