Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #49

This week I did a gong show.

I don’t mean an awards ceremony; they employ proper people for those sorts of dos.

Honestly, can’t even get a look in. One year I applied to BAFTA in the hope of getting the presenting job but yet again it went to Stephen Bloody Fry!

The least they could do would be to give my audition tape the award for best editing. It took me twenty minutes on Windows Movie Maker – I bet 12 Years a Slave can’t say the same.

A gong show, for those not in the know, is effectively the comedy equivalent of getting picked off by a lone gun man.*

A handful of enthusiastic/desperate comedians (delete as appropriate) work even harder to gain your acceptance by trying to last five minutes on stage.

If they succeed then they are crowned victorious, if they fail then they get lovingly cast aside by everyone in the room. It’s natural selection of the funny bone.

I won’t lie – sometimes it’s utterly grim.

You can travel miles for a gig in the hope of impressing a room full of people who may only be there to knock you down a peg or two.

If it’s the abuse you’re after; just stay at home. That’s if you live in an abusive home.

But even then, the perceived wisdom is to try get out when you can.

More often than not; audiences are lovely. They’re willing to support you so long as you provide a laugh at least once a minute.

What could be a horribly alienating experience can have a sense of ‘we’re all in this together’ meaning you have a lovely time.

In the worst instances you still get that togetherness-feeling only it’s more in line with groups of people who have to survive in the wilderness; if you’re not bringing any skills to the group, you’ll be the first to be fricasseed.

The reason I did the gong show was, in part to be seen by a promoter – and there is a real speed dating feel to the proceedings – but secondly because gong shows can be very good for helping you improve your act.

I’ll be honest; I’m not the biggest lover of gong shows. Sometimes I think an act needs a full uninterrupted five or ten minutes to establish themselves.

Making a roomful of people laugh is hard enough as it is without a Jack Bauer-themed edge to evening.

Nothing can curb your concentration like seeing specially designated audience members showing their disapproval.

However, gong shows are quite common when you’re starting out and I learnt – maybe not as quickly as I would have liked – that the most useful bit of the process is self-editing.

If your first big laugh doesn’t come within the first 10 to 20 seconds; it’s probably something to address.

If you can’t set up who you are and what you’re about just as quickly, then that might need a bit of work too.

If you can tweak these things they can vastly improve your chances of keeping people entertained for longer stretches.

This was something I was particularly focussed on when I was doing character comedy.

Coming on stage and reassuring the audience that you’re funny is the first step, but with character comedy you also have to set up the fact you’re not a normal stand up and where the joke lies in the character.

So, in my case, it was establishing that Jerry was a protest singer but one that had little to no knowledge of current affairs. This was always a sticking point in the early days.

How successful I was at getting that across quickly determined how the rest of my set would go.

Gong shows helped me to see where the sticking points were and forced me to come up with a solution that ticked all those boxes for the audience. Eventually I think I achieved that.

That was part of the reason I did the gong show the other night.

Since starting stand up as myself, I haven’t really put my act through that rigorous boot camp, so it was interesting to see where the peaks and troughs were.

I even found myself rewriting my set just before going on stage because I could sense where they might be.

It worked. I managed to cut some excess flab from my set whilst increasing the gag rate.

All of these things can be achieved in longer sets but nothing forces you to solve problems quicker than watching the bored-looking woman in the front row raise her card.

Gong shows aren’t for everyone and sometimes they’re no fun at all, but every experience on stage is a valuable one; so it’s always worth a shot.**

And if you’re wondering – no, I didn’t win. I got Best Supporting Comedian.

*Note to editor: If this happens the same week a lone gun man starts picking people off then probably best move it to next week.

** This too.

Rob can be seen next at The Back Room Comedy Club in Cottingham, Hull on Sunday 30 March, then at Rib Ticklers third birthday on Friday 4 April.