The day after the night before!

So last night was the first of my standup comedy course and I am still smiling.
The first challenge for some was finding the place as there appear to be four buildings with the same address. It seems that it is Crown Property the tenants can't change that. This meant that the last course members dripped in up to half an hour after the start. The last arrival still thought she was early, having the wrong start time in her head! (Did I describe her as a little scatty later on? Well maybe.)

The group comprised a broad, but in this instance all white spectrum. The ranged from the young looking 18-year old  who was signed up for the course by his mum and could not break the habit of raising his arm when he wanted to speak to me, the older anchor member. In between we had an actor, barista and would be writer. We had an "Uncle Buck" like character and three who really want to make standup comedy a career. The gender balance is nine men and three women.

The course Director, Keith Palmer, is a clearly capable black gentleman - he made the major point of highlighting that he was black, as a way of illustrating both the power of first impressions and the importance of honesty. He has worked with the National Youth Theatre, been a standup around the same time Lenny Henry was on the circuit and is now directing life theatre. He founded The Comedy School in 1998 and uses comedy in a variety of settings, including young people and prisons.
It was readily obvious that he know how to handle an audience (us in this case) and some testing audience members (no names, no packdrill) while using out input to amplify his.

I won't go through the evening blow by blow, but it was a relatively gentle way to see how ready people were to explore new ways of learning and also clarify the importance of self awareness if one is to build a rapport with others and deliver a (damn I have forgotten the word I wanted, but I know it begins with "S") performance.

I confess a little mischief on my part during one of the exercises. Each person had to lead an element with the others copying/echoing it back. A number of people had been very "safe" in their contributions so the door was open. As I said there were nine men, three women and Keith. I was standing next to a lady, but not all the men were or could be, so my "lead" was to kiss the back of the hand of the person beside me - not hard for me, but it did startle the others. To be fair everyone after their inital WTF moment followed suit and in fact the next person too it a little further (enough said), but that was where our line was last night. I did mix things up a little and I cannot promise I won't try and do so again.

More seriously the showcase has been moved by one day so I CAN now attend, previously I had a clash with a theatre outing with my daughter. I sense I am ata  disadvantage over a few others who seem to have a more interesting background and naturally funny demenaour. Jack Dee has already cornered the dour delivery, Dave Allen had the avuncular and John Cleese has done the City Gent. I am not yet sure who I will be in my five minutes of fame/infamy but I am sure that will emerge over the next few weeks.

Keith's assessment is that on average one of our group will become a recognisable name. I have put my three bets in a sealed envelope and it will be interesting to see in a year or so's time if I was even close.

Homework this week is to observe and note funny happenings that we spot as we go about our other lives.