Just the one gig this week, and just for a change, this one was being judged. Specifically, this was the 17th heat for this year's Leicester Square New Comedian of the Year contest (try saying that a thousand times at moderate speed).

After a run of slightly iffy gigs, I was decidedly nervous going into a contest, but after a friendly chat with some of the other acts, and seeing that we were pretty much just going to be performing to one another, some of the pressure was lifted. Unfortunately, performing to a room of comedians does have a distinct disadvantage: it makes it somewhat harder to get a laugh.

I had a bit of a shaky start, and my first few gags didn't get much in the way of reaction. On the plus side, I didn't let it rob me of energy like I had previously, and I powered on through my material. I did manage to get a couple of decent laughs from some self-deprecating asides, but on the whole, my pre-written stuff raised little more than a titter.

One thing I've discovered in recent gigs is that the one-or-two-liner approach is really hard to pull off. Your material needs to be tight as hell, and the timing has to be spot on to get more than a mildly amused giggle. Not only that (although possibly a cause of that), when you watch a lot of comedy  - and the folks at open mic nights usually do - you get used to the common gag formulas, and it becomes harder for them to surprise you.

I have to admit that my current approach has been a bit lazy, just slipping in new bits as I come up with them, rather than trying to create something that flows and has structure. So I'm going to take a bit of time to write some new material before I book more gigs, focus on crafting jokes around a theme, putting in proper links, find a point-of-view and all that jazz.

Now I just need to find time for a writing session or ten.