Mainly Mostly Me.


I enjoyed tonight’s Mostly Comedy, and had fun doing my work-in-progress set.

Me, after they told me I'd have to do an hour at tonight's Mostly
The turnout for the gig was considerably less compared to our recent run of sold out dates; a point that elicited a negative reaction from just about everyone I spoke to.

“Oh,” went the standard refrain. “You usually have a lot more than that,” as if I didn’t know.

The point is though: that’s fine. You can’t sustain high numbers every time. The fact we do as well as we do consistently is pretty astounding, but that’s not to say that there isn’t room for the odd quieter date, particularly on a night like tonight, where the line-up were trying out new material. What made this evening work as well as it did was the fact that people seemed to know what they were coming to see (as regards the event as a whole) rather than being enticed in by the headliner, without considering it’s a show with a mixed-bill.

Tiff Stevenson onstage, doing her thing.
Me, sweating profusely.
While I’m delighted by how Mostly’s grown over the years, my only slight reservation is the fact the line-ups have become so big that audiences no longer take a chance. When the club started nearly nine years ago, no-one knew anyone on the bill. They were all new acts, who just so happened to be the likes of Josh Widdicombe, James Acaster and Nick Helm. People just came to see comedy and it didn’t matter that they’d never heard of the line-up; it was more of an event. These days, the club has a slightly different fame-led polished dynamic that makes it harder to do something fresh like a preview from a lesser-known act like me.

Preparing Hitchin Mostly

That said, I still felt tonight went well. One thing I learnt a few years back is you should never chastise the people who came for the people who haven’t. Everyone there tonight came with what was about to unfold before them accepted in their minds - and while I’m sure most - if not everyone - had come to see Tiff Stevenson over me, my set still went well; it will just work better in a smaller room like I had in Bath instead of the cavernous space of The Sun Hotel Ballroom. Despite this, I feel happy with where I’m at; it’s a good place to be at this early stage, but I’d better still keep the work up.

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