Have you
ever watched a stand up comedy act and thought “I wonder if they’re that funny
ALL THE TIME?”
Unfortunately, the answer
is no. A comedian offstage is trying
to be that funny and that is a different thing altogether. Mostly it comes
across as immature and makes for slightly disjointed conversation. See, most
comedians take their material from everyday stuff so they are either performing
or researching. If anything remotely amusing happens in the course of their day
they’ll immediately add it to the never ending iPhone note called ‘This Could
Be Good Material’.
How do I
know this? Another job, ofcourse. I worked for the Sit Down Comedy Club in
Paddington on and off for about a year. It was a tiny little office in what was
(still mostly is) a one bedroom apartment. No joke, my office was in the
kitchen. As was the foyer and front entrance. People regularly got confused
trying to find the place, and stayed confused after they had found it.
I was the
receptionist part time there, answering the phones, booking in the open
mic-ers, updating the facebook and twitter accounts and folding and stuffing
MILLIONS of letters into envelopes. They were big into mailing stuff. They owned another apartment down the street which travelling comedians stayed at so some days my job was folding all the sheets and towels for the next person. Over time
I also helped out occasionally on the door of the venue and eventually scored a
sweet gig managing a comedy room at the Transcontinental Hotel every Friday
night.
The Trans is
actually a beautiful old building, built in 1883 to cater to the upper class of
Brisbane and was known for only stoking the best liquor. Unfortunately that is
no longer the case and most weeks when the comedians and I were leaving at
about 9pm on a Friday night, they were already packed up and empty, having
shoved the last of the lunch drinkers out of the pokies room.
Anyway,
running a comedy room is awesome. I would arrive about 6, technically to set up
the room but after showing the staff how it should be set up on the first week,
they always had it ready for me. So I would have dinner and a drink and chat to
the staff, the comedians would arrive anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes before
they were due to go on so I didn’t need to look after them. I’d pick up my til
from the manager and, take/sell tickets at the door for about half an hour then
sit and laugh myself stupid at the show for a few hours. And that was it. And I
was paid for the whole time. Fantastic gig.
The other
random opportunity that came out of working for the Comedy Club was getting to
judge a high school Theatre Sports competition (If you don’t know what theatre
sports are, just think of that Who’s Line Is It Anyway? Show). Anyway, one
night they were short a judge and I got to fill in for them. Before the comp I
was super nervous as I hadn’t done theatre sports in ages and spent my high
school years being routinely rubbished by a particularly unpleasant drama
teacher but it was awesome! The kids were so funny and creative and scoring was
pretty simple. I was never too different from the other two judges (Yay for
panel judging!) so I figured I must have been doing alright. (Added bonus – got
to judge the horrible drama teachers team. Ofcourse
I judged the kids fairly but her face at seeing me on the judges table made up
for at least two years of soul crushing drama classes.)
Working for
the Comedy Club was at times deathly boring – weeks of letter stuffing – and at
times an unexpected adventure so all up I consider it a win. You should
definitely get along to one of the shows and if you tell them when you’re
birthday is you’ll get two free tickets in the mail for that month – huzzah!
