GSOH: The laughter-math

Last year, there was a point where I was running five regular comedy nights across Northamptonshire.

Now, I'm down to about... zero.

Tavern A Laugh in Earls Barton was my favourite one to do. A few weeks ago, the venue told me they'd be cutting back, my night was no longer needed, so I was properly gutted at this. If it was still continuing, well this Wednesday would have seen the excellent Alfie Moore (from Radio 4's It's a Fair Cop and ITV's Show Me The Funny) headline.

Tavern A Laugh at the Saxon Tavern, Earls Barton

I'm in no way angry at the venue. The Saxon Tavern is a lovely real-ale pub and even though this was one of my many free-entry nights where I'd put on four open spots and a paid headliner, we usually got the atmosphere of a dedicated comedy club. It helped that the clientele was engaged with it.

Sure, the first two months this year had a rather reduced turnout, but Tavern A Laugh was back on fine form last month in front of a highly appreciative crowd.

Comedy nights don't tend to last long in general. When I began my first night - Beerhouse Comedy in Market Harborough - I was warned that these things tend to fizzle out after three months. Well, I notched up two and a half years running that one, which spurred me into establishing comedy nights elsewhere in the Midlands.

Almost all of them were free entry affairs. One notable exception is the one I ran in Long Buckby. That's where I got a healthy budget and usually faced a sell-out audience. It was the only comedy night held in the village, held in The Old King's Head - a brilliant pub with an attentive audience. That's only come to an end because the husband-and-wife team have left the industry.

How not to run a comedy night

Before I get too big-headed, I should briefly touch on the disasters. Any free-entry comedy night run on a Friday or Saturday night is pretty much on a hiding to nothing. In the right venues you can get away with that, but early last year a couple of pubs contacted me to establish regular comedy events.

One of them just plain didn't work as half the locals decided to ignore it all and just loudly natter amongst themselves, spoiling it for everyone else.

Then there was a pub in the west midlands with a much more raucous clientele. The first Saturday night was a struggle, but we managed to get some laughs out of it. The subsequent event took place on a boiling hot evening, and one lager'd-up regular tried heckling the professional headliner, albeit slurring whatever zinger he had in his head.

The headliner just batted it away with "sorry, I don't understand, you don't come with subtitles". This enraged the intoxicated consumer, who was furiously muttering about the put-down being racist in nature, completely unaware that his speech pattern was all over the place.

You can't really win with drunks, although myself, the other comedians and a few regulars did what we could to ensure this pissed-up idiot was restrained from hurling a barstool at the stage. Fortunately, we succeeded, although I would not want to return to that place, even for a quick drink.

The literal micropub

Wellingborough is home to two small real-ale pubs, and when I say small, I'm talking 13.5 foot square. The Little Ale House opened in the town centre a few years ago, followed by a sister pub that sits right next to the town's railway station in a former munitions room. The close proximity to the train tracks earnt it the name of The Little R'Ale House.

When the landlord asked me to put on a comedy night there, friends were telling me that I'd be insane to consider it. The entire pub is smaller than the average front room, quite a bit of the space is taken up by the bar and barrels. Somehow, I thought this could work. I was right.

Ewan Kershaw spreads the laughs to commuters at Wellingborough Railway Station

One of the things about marketing is turning a negative into a positive. I used the name 14 Foot Of Funny for this free-entry comedy night, and dubbed it 'The Smallest Comedy Club In The Midlands'. That way, not only would potential visitors know what to expect, it also signposted the very nature of the gig to open spot acts who'd apply. If we had twenty people in, it was rammed and this intimate set-up just added to the comedy. Quite a few times we went over that figure.

Landlord Jim Wiltshire had the idea of taking the live comedy outside for the summer months (and 2018 was certainly scorching). Being where we were, train passengers and commuters would often get to see and hear what we were doing. This grew in popularity, to the point where we did a few slots on the pub's charity fundraising events on a Saturday afternoon.

At one point, Northampton's Ewan Kershaw used the freedom of the wireless mic to wander around doing his act to passengers sitting inside the carriages sat on platform 1. I love unconventional comedy, and the unusual setting for this gig really made it a breath of fresh air, plus the donations bucket was always doing alright. We put on Edinburgh Fringe previews, right in front of passing commuters using the station's cash machine and astonishingly it always worked (unlike the cash machine).

14 Foot Of Funny was tremendous fun. I have to give credit to local comedians Donna Scott and Chris Harris, who I appointed as co-hosts/bookers on a rotating basis. The success of this night meant that two other pubs got in contact with me to start regular comedy events. One of them was Orlingbury's Queen's Arms, the other being The Saxon Tavern, where I set up Tavern A Laugh.

Not fade away

At this point last year, I was effectively unemployed for a few months. I'd been made redundant in late 2017, yet my former employer did something of a U-turn when they realised they needed my services "for a few weeks", for which I instantly agreed, with a very nice freelancing rate. Those "few weeks" became a few months, and it was only by late spring that work had dwindled to the point that I had much of the day to myself.

I guess this is why I ended up running five regular comedy nights. I had the time to devote to poster design and booking, as well as coming up with some crazy ideas. I still kept up job hunting, I wasn't earning enough from comedy to give that up.

The thing is, I work in a niche field and there are only a handful of vacancies open for what I do. I'd do about two interviews a week and then sift through a load of emails from recruitment agencies offering me interviews at places where I'd already been interviewed.

After some temping at a world-famous ad agency, I had landed a couple of healthy job offers, both of which eclipsed my previous salary. I wasn't running out of cash and I quite enjoyed the time I could devote to running in the heatwave, but I couldn't be complacent. I took up the best offer and, well, it's been manic.

The side effect of all this is that I don't have that much time to run comedy nights, nor to gig at other people's. I had the luxury of being able to apply for gigs pretty much any time of day in 2015-2017, but my new role is quite tightly focused. Hence I've dialled back the comedy antics.

Also, I'm wanting to showcase my comedy and creativity in other ways. One of the job interviews involved me having to do a presentation on a favourite subject. Rather than try comedy, I opted for talking about old computer games and felt pretty refreshed about it.

This has spurred me onto launch a retrogaming YouTube channel, called Reheated Pixels. The idea was to launch it at some point in 2018, but things have been too hectic. After doing some filming in November for the pilot episode I pushed the launch date to New Year's Day, but I still hadn't the time to make the episode to the quality I'd be happy with. I'm nearly there, I've invested in an autocue and a MacBook to make all my presentation bits go that much slicker. It should debut within a few weeks.

What next?

I seem to gig about once a month, mostly as my dim-witted barmaid alter ego Trisha Timpson. (She's out on Thurs 11th July at The Freemason's Arms in Market Harborough, across the road from where I started my first comedy club.)

The only comedy night I've got planned is an October one for a charity. However, I've not declared retirement from comedy promotion. I've been given a couple of leads for venues in my county, and I have this crazy idea that I should really move to the point where I charge people to attend and book line-ups of semi-pro and pro acts. This'll probably happen later on in the year.

I've had a wonderful time on the 'nursery slopes' of putting on open spots. I can't look down on that, because open spot nights give you a sample of the weird and wonderful comedy that'll never get homogenised by television. I love seeing new routines being tried at for the first time, and yeah, if an idea doesn't work, you can have the satisfaction of identifying the intention and pondering about an improvement. Live comedy in small venues can be an utter delight.