And the wisdom to know the difference
Stand-up comedy is a battle for control. Onstage you want control over the audience so you can deliver the funny. Offstage is all about controlling the immediate environment but also your broader career.
This coming Friday is Red Nose Day and well-meaning amateurs across Britain are organising charity fund-raisers all week. It's a busy time for comics because inevitably someone who knows you 'do comedy' will ask you to perform for free and also to recruit other acts.
Everyone's happy to help. It's for charity and it's a chance to perform to audiences that don't see a lot of comedy and that's almost always nice. For us less established acts it's also likely that you'll be on a bill with much bigger names than usual. Not only is this good for the ego but it's when someone influential might see your stuff and pass on your name. This is the upside.
The downsides are (a) everyone's happy to help means that the line-ups are usually overcrowded and (b) well-meaning amateurs usually don't get the organisation quite right.
I was booked to do this exact gig tomorrow night. The organiser, a mate, contacted me about eight weeks ago so I shuffled my schedule around to accommodate the show. It was just another date in the diary until last Monday when the emails starting flowing. Now the night has fourteen comics (each to do a ten-minute set) plus the MC, a raffle, an auction and 'X-Factor Karaoke'.
The performer in me is furious, the producer is merely resigned.
The upside is that the room will be full of happy, non-comedy regulars. The downside is that my mate has bitten off far more than he can chew and that the night will run late from the very start. He certainly hasn't factored in that his comics are free but his karaoke machine costs money. Also knowing the other comics on the bill I can guarantee that the early acts will go longer than their allotted 'ten' and so later on he'll be squeezed for time. As a newer act and a mate there's every chance that he'll ask if I wouldn't mind not taking the stage at all.
Control?
The only control I have here is to opt out now. The night will go ahead as there's plenty of comics to go round so I won't be missed. And I'd rather my ego take a battering over the disheartening fact that I'm in less demand than a karaoke machine before the show starts rather than once I'm in the room.