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.