A busy week for me. Not one, not two, but three whole gigs! Three changes for me to hone my comedy craft, or crash and burn in a holy trinity of public humiliation. Thankfully (and surprisingly) there was a lot more of the former!

First stop was Carnivale on Monday night. The second time I've been here and I daresay I'm keen to book in again. A well run night with a really friendly crowd of regular comics, and plenty of gags about unisex toilets (something of a rarity in your typical London pub).

I was beginning to feel that the Olympic Mascot material was getting a little stale, having lost its topical edge, so I replaced it with a story about drugs I've had on a back burner for ages. I spent a good chunk of Sunday evening honing and re-working the tale, as well as rehearsing and tweaking the run of shorter gags in the opening few minutes. I've also dropped the one about selling hotcakes, as while its a nice clever thought, its proving more charming than funny.

I wanted to focus on keeping the opening few gags punch and firing them off as quick as I can, so there's no dead space. This worked surprisingly well. I may have covered over a few laughs, but the energy kept high, and the laughs seemed to build on each other from punchline to punchline. So I think the tradeoff was well worth it. I even got a nice smattering of laughs for a gag I'd written that afternoon (which I know I probably shouldn't have put in, but I got away with it).

I still looked at the floor a couple of times, but not between every single gag. And far few in the way of rubbish afterthoughts, I didn't have time for them. The only downside to high momentum for the first section was that the story segment lost a lot of the energy, and felt like it was falling flat. But all in all, a great gig to start the week!

Second stop, William IV on Tuesday. A bit thin on the ground attendance wise this month, so it became something of a workshop night. Which was fine, as those of us that were there knew each other pretty well.

Having a little wiggle room with regards to time, I had a quick confab with the audience. Which amounted to getting the few (5) non-comics in the room to introduce themselves. This got a couple of chuckles purely through virtue of what they said themselves, which was handy, as I didn't have anything clever to respond with. Hence afterwards I declared this to be a demonstration of why I don't do audience interaction. Still, fun to experiment.

I launched into my short-form gags and managed to keep the momentum up, getting quite a nice reaction. Again, the story fell a little flat, but still kept everyone entertained.

I'm finding that I really need to work hard in a gig to get the most out of these one and two liners. I can't just phone it in every time, which I realise now I was doing before. The great thing is, I'm getting a feeling for exactly where the effort should go.

My third and final gig this week was at We Love Comedy's new Open Mic night in Piccadilly. The night was at the Queen's Head, which has a lot of comedy on over the week, run by a lot of different people, and I've performed there many a time. I can honestly say this was one of the best nights I've had there. Hats of to Sean Brightman for organising and publicising such a brilliant night, and to Al Cowie for some inspired compering...taking audience interaction to its illogical, toe-sucking conclusion.

I was up third in a packed line-up, which worried me a little, as I'd had bad experiences at recent open mics going on early. I was even more worried when the second act didn't turn up and I was pulled up 5 minutes early. There was also a chatty couple in the front row (the over-involved, well meaning pseudo-heckler types) which I was a little worried about. But my quick-fire delivery for the first few minutes had the unintended bonus that they didn't get a pause to say anything, so I managed to avoid getting into an unwanted conversation. I noticed over the course of the night that this was working for a lot of other acts as well. Even amongst the ones that engaged them directly, the best ones were controlling the conversation by cutting them off after a sentence (which would seem rude in conversation, but not when you've got the microphone).

Again, I was a bit naughty and threw in a gag I'd written that afternoon. But it went down incredibly well, the first "afterthought" line getting a laugh even before hitting the key word. Definitely keeping that in. Its nice and clean, too.

The story, again, was probably the weakest part of the set, but it has a nice punchline to it (almost a shaggy-dog story), so think I got away with that. Perhaps its just me getting into the mindset of the quick-fire segment and expecting more frequent laughs. Think I might have some better stories up my sleeve, though.

This was an awesome night to end the week on, and a great week overall. I feel I've stepped up a bit, and just need to make sure I work my ass for all my future spots. And record myself, which I'm ashamed to say, I didn't do for any of these three. There's a lot to think about in this comedy lark!