Friday, 28 November 2008

Standup@Sound

Last Friday night came - as did the snow!!! Now was the moment of truth for us budding stand-up comics. After several weeks of our Stand-up Comedy evening class it was time for our 'graduation'. The venue was sold out in one day. Apparently, it could have sold out 3 times over!! Sandy Nelson, our tutor and MC for the night (and himself a professional stand-up) informed the audience that this was our debut performance - and that we had written all the material ourselves!! It was amazing the amount of people in the past week or so, who would say: "Well, give us one of your jokes then." Totally missing the point. Stand-up is more like a dialogue by the comedian with the audience. Not the old-fashioned rattling off of old jokes. I couldn't say any of it out of context of the routine.

The music played and I was first up on stage. Take the mic out of the stand and there you are. Just you in the spotlight and the creature called the audience out there. When the laughs start coming - what an incredible buzz!! And when they keep on coming..... No matter how you think you'd maybe done well in rehearsals, getting that energy from the audience moves it up umpteen notches.

I, for one, am desperate to do it again. Of course, there may be times when it doesn't go so well, but that's life.

Wednesday, 26 November 2008

Fareweel tae an aald freen'

For the past 3 years, I've been (ir)regularly blogging, under the name of Soljey, on BBC Scotland's Islandblogging. This was set up to provide snapshots into the unique life - some of it intelligent - on the Scottish Islands. Now the Beeb has decided that Islandblogging has run its course and they'll be pulling the plug on it. Hope I can import the images, etc from Islandblogging to this one - wouldn't want to lose them.

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Who says the Vikings are all dead

Big hairy vikings are still alive and marauding around the Northern Isles - see pic. And I don't mean just at Up-Helly-Aa!!

I have a blog on BBC Scotland's Islandblogging. However, it seems that this is being wound up. So here I am. Hopefully will eventually be able to import my Islandblogging entries to here.