party_hard

So last night I re-lost my comedy virginity. I'd not performed since July 2007 - plenty of time for my comedy hymen to reform.

I was on at a potentially tricky gig. It was the third night in a pretty traditional pub in a pretty traditional part of Lancashire. You know, a racist pub.

I did my set (I managed to write 5 minutes in the end) and had an absolute blast. Only one line fell flat in the whole set - a hit rate I'd be happy with performing polished material, let alone 5 minutes of brand spanking new stuff which was all about how my marriage failed. A lot of comedians have said upon learning of the marriage breakdown "Well it's material". Which is absolutely spot on. I'm taking the ball and running with it. Watch out comedy world!

The headliner even came over after I'd performed to specifically tell me that he really enjoyed my set. I was flattered until he performed his set - I then became worried. He did 30 minutes of material, I'm willing to bet that none of it was written by him. Hack hack hack hack. He managed to even satisfy the audience with a horribly racist joke. There was no irony at all, it was just a horrible, spiteful joke that went down scarily well.

There was also a part of his set where he basically just sexually harassed a young lady in the audience. She was sat there politely enjoying the show, not drawing attention to herself in any way whatsoever when the act in question just went on and on about how he would love to get her in the shower and have a soapy tit wank off her. It was horrific. No comedy involved in it at all. It was just a perverted old man sexually harassing a defenceless young girl in front of a room of strangers. She must have felt like total shite by the time she got home. I'd never felt so uncomfortable at a comedy gig. I would've left if there was a way to conspicuously do it without drawing attention to myself. Having performed on the same stage that evening, I didn't want to be associated to that kind of thing at all.

Then I went back to a fellow comedian's house to settle down for the evening. I've missed the late night comedy-folk discussions that are commonplace on the circuit. Because comedians don't work in the day, there's no need to go to bed at a sensible time, so discussions until sunrise are not at all uncommon. Usually bitching and backstabbing about people on the circuit, occasionally shooting the shit and smoking pot. Last night we went for the latter.

I could've stayed up all night. I only went to bed at 2.30am because I knew that I had to be up and on the road to work in 4 hours time.

I'm so happy to be back on the comedy horse. I got a good, solid response last night to material that is incredibly rough around the edges. With a bit of TLC that this material is undoubtedly going to get, I'm going to be tearing roofs off left, right and centre.

Y'all should come and see me. My gigs are listed here: www.myspace.com/leighjonescomedy

In other news - LONDON! Come on SG-folk. I'm coming to London in December and have nowt planned. Be my tour guide!