My first visit to Touching Cloth at Dirty Dick's since June, and another night for a little comedic experimentation!

After the previous night's dismal performance, I was determined to redeem myself. I hastily chopped out some of the weaker material in my set, replaced it with some slightly more solid bits, and included a new gag with a different approach to a lot of my more recent stuff. And all without time to properly rehearse! I was worried I was setting myself up for a fall, but there's a lot to be said for nervous energy.

The first half of the night was dominated by a drunk and somewhat rowdy group of office types who seemed to be the de facto target for anyone wanting to practice their audience interaction. I had no such intentions, but spent much of the first half thinking of something to say just in case they piped up during my set. In the end, they departed during the interval, leaving behind a small, but attentive crowd of comedians and friends they'd brought for moral support. Responses were slightly muted compared to the first half, but I think I got something out of most of my gags. Some went better than others, but they can't all be winners.

I was particularly pleased with the new material I threw in, even though an afterthought I'd put in fell a little bit flat. The initial payoff got a good laugh, and that's something I can work on. On that note, some of my older "A" material is beginning to feel a little stale. I'm thinking of spending a bit of time working over my set as it stands (including keeping the new bits from this particular evening) and doing my best to make it feel fresh and exciting again: adding afterthoughts, tightening up timing, working on intonation. It would be all to easy to keep doing the same bits with the same words, and that would just leave me getting bored and coasting through the older gags. Which is something I can't afford to do.

Performance wise I was reasonably pleased, especially with my entrance - which I managed to keep pretty high energy, allowing me to get a good initial response as I greeted the crowd. My pace was ok, but I'm thinking I can take a little more time over my set up lines. I get the feeling I'm rushing them a bit at the moment, which can dull the impact of the punchline. I still need to keep pace up moving from bit to bit, but I can have pace without shooting through lines as if I can't wait to get it over with. Besides, my set's well under 4 minutes at the moment, I can afford to slow down a little.