Frank comedy

Set the scene, May-ish, 2006. I'd been performing stand-up comedy for the best part of a year. Whilst I was beginning to get the (very) occasional (poorly) paid gig, I still considered myself a newcomer, and could mostly be found at open-mic nights. For the uninitiated, or uninterested, open-mic is a night, at which new acts are allowed to perform, unpaid. The audience rarely has to pay to see them. The moniker "open mic" is a bit misleading, as it suggests anyone can clamber up on stage and have a go. Whereas these days, acts need to book themselves a spot on the better open-mic nights up to six months in advance.

May 2006 I was lucky; I was regularly working in Edinburgh, and was flying up every couple of weeks at RBS' expense. This seemed a brilliant opportunity to book myself an open-mic spot at The Stand, a famous comedy club in the city. Also, my Scottish colleagues could come and see me perform for the first time. It turned into something of a team night out. Now, this Plog isn't about the gig itself (which actually went really, really well - probably one of my best gigs ever), but about what happened before the gig.

Anyone who thinks stand-up comedy is in any way glamorous is wrong. As an open-mic comic, it's very rare even to be offered a free drink, let alone anything else. Some promoters will only give you work if you are able (unpaid) to drive other (better) comics to the gig!

So The Stand was a delight... on arrival I was shown into a Green Room, with a water machine on tap (geddit?) for comics. Three or four other Scottish comics sat around, chatting. They clearly all knew each other (much like I probably would if it'd been a London gig), and I knew no-one. Still, everyone was very friendly to me.

There are two standard questions you ask other open-mic comics. 1. What is your name? 2. How long have you been gigging?

The answer to question 1 is always forgotten almost immediately and is really to pave the way for question 2. Question 2 is where you figure out how good the other comedian is. Less than six months, they'll be shit. More than three years, they'll be shit. The idea being that if they haven't got themselves off the open-mic circuit onto the paid gigs in three years, chances are they never will. Hence if anyone ever replies, "Four years," they tend to preface it with, "Well, I've started and stopped a lot, and I was in a coma for a year..."

The guy sitting to my right looked friendly. "Hi," I said.

"Hi," he replied.

"I'm Laura," I said.

"I'm Frank," he said.

"So, Frank," I continued, "how long have you been doing stand-up?"

"About ten years," said Frank.

Ten years? TEN YEARS? This guy was clearly beyond shit. I couldn't even believe he'd admitted to it. An entire decade on the open-mic circuit? What a loser!

"Well," I said, admittedly a bit patronisingly, "the main thing is that you keep enjoying it."

Frank went on first, and actually, wasn't that bad. I suppose he'd had a lot of practice, but maybe the crowd was just up for it that night.

"Good gig," I said, when he came off stage. "You definitely ought to keep it up - it's so nice to have a hobby you enjoy."

He smiled, gratefully.

A couple of other comics in the green room said something about the night being like a Who's Who of Scottish comedy. Still, I didn't recognise anyone, so let it wash over me. Fast forward about a week and a half. I'm watching a fairly new show called Mock the Week. One of the panellists looks vaguely familiar. Horror dawned on me like the slow realisation that the dark shadow on your curtains is in fact a giant spider. You can guess where this is going.

I had spent my pre-gig time giving Frankie Boyle career advice.

Turns out he was at the open-mic night testing out material for Edinburgh, when some condescending new comic basically told him to hang on in there.

Still, look where it got him. He's doing alright for himself these days. And he'd be nothing if it wasn't for me.