So I was checking my mails in the morning as everyone of us does and I see this mail from Marc Ellis with no subject. I almost dismissed it as spam and was about to hit delete when it stuck me that maybe it's better to open it and read it, so I did. The first line was the intro and I read Toby's name (who happened to be old pals with Marc), so I knew it was genuine and it turned out that Toby had referred my name to Marc as someone who could pull off a 2-5 minute standup piece for the launch of Marc's new book '
Good Fullas: A guide to Kiwi blokes'.
Marc sent an image of what he refers to as a 'Pandabear' and I pissed myself laughing and agreed to catch up for a coffee and at the meeting read the detailed description and was besides myself. It is a pisstake on stereotypes and a good way to laugh at ourselves, so I agreed to it. This was a couple of weeks back and the big one was last night.
This was my first standup comedy sketch and I know too well the feeling of dying a complete death on stage when nothing you do goes right and was slightly nervous from unrelated stints on stage. I wrote up a 3 paragraph sketch and then went about learning the order of the things to talk about. The thing that made me nervous was that with standup you never know how the audience is going to react to your stuff and it's also about the timing.
The launch was at Toto restaurant and the location was beautiful and had a lot of character. I was one of the early ones as usual and ended up taking some pics with the camera phone (with a different paid app though) and got some cool shots before people started arriving.
It was hard to just mingle with people coming in as I didn't really know anyone and it'd have been hard to just stay in character the whole time when you don't know how long before you are going to be up on the stage. Luckily, Greg - one of the actors I've known from Meisner classes was there as well - playing a 'Bogan' and we chatted for a long time and then had our sketches drawn by the sketch artist Donovan - who did the sketches for the book.
Donovan sketching Greg
It was hard to get a feel for the crowd as it was pretty fragmented. Toby and Kelly were there at the launch as well. And after an intro by Marc - we were off. First up was Greg and he did an amazing standup piece and it went higher and higher till he said the word 'cunt' towards the end of the piece and he lost a good chunk of the audience because of the offensive nature of the word. But it was still a very tough act to follow and I was next up.
Marc with Greg
It is always slightly disorienting when you seperate yourself from the crowd and getup on a stage to speak because suddenly you are the centre of attention. Well - I used my nervous energy to fuel the sketch and once I got going it was a blur with some distinct moments I can remember as I decided to interact with the audience and keep them involved. The order I had prepared went out of the window and I jumped from one topic to the other based on the audience reaction. And I still managed to keep the audience with me till the end and got huge amount of laughs throughout.
After the sketch I got to talk to almost everyone in the room and apparently the thing did go down very well based on the number of pats on the back and broad smiles whenever they saw me. The other 2 acts straight after me were funny as well and overall it turned out to be a very enjoyable night.
Me as 'Panda bear' with the kingfishers
Donovan finishing off the sketches
Take a guess as to which one I am
Got to talk to a lot of interesting people during the mingling session and I came back home bouncing off the walls with such a positive reception to my first comedy schtick. Apparently I had good comic timing - who knew!! :-) You learn something new about yourself some days.
It was a big confidence booster after missing out on 2 TV commercials this year after being on the final shortlist.
Amit
