Stand up and deliver

I often get asked, "Do you miss doing stand-up comedy, Laura?"

And mostly, honestly, it's not something I have to think too hard about.

"Not really," I reply. "It's a lot of late nights when you're working full time. And for every lovely gig I'd do at the Comedy Café or Downstairs at the King's Head, there were twenty crappy gigs above tiny pubs in Soho somewhere, where there are only seven audience members and four of them don't really speak English. And often I'd have to hand out flyers beforehand, sometimes in Leicester Square, wearing a giant sandwich board proclaiming 'Comedy Tonight!' and sometimes my colleagues would walk past and I'd have to avoid them. Which is harder than it sounds when wearing a sandwich board. And sometimes hoodies would come up behind you and slap your sandwich board. And sometimes strange French men would hit on you. Also," I say, putting my best grown-up voice on, "you kind of have to choose between a normal lifestyle with a mortgage and taking a massive gamble on something that you may never make a living from."

Then people ask, "Do you miss the buzz?"

And I reply again, "Not really. I was never one of those comics that really suffers the highs and lows. I loved writing a perfect line, but for me the joy was more in the writing than the delivery."

"You never miss it at all?" my friends ask.

"Well," I might say, "actually, this week..."

"Yes," they might cajole, leaning forward. "Go on."

"Well, last week I was out with some friends and - of all things - we were talking about stand-up. People were listing their favourite comics, and - shockingly - Lenny Henry's name came up. I try to nod and smile mostly when people list the terrible comics that they love, but the two exceptions for me that I just can't let pass are Peter Kay (make a joke for once you lazy fat bastard. "Do you remember biscuits?" Yes I fucking do, now make a joke about them!) and Lenny Henry. So, like I said, I couldn't let this pass...

"So I said, 'Lenny Henry? Lenny Henry? I have never found anything he's done funny... apart from Dawn French.'"

It took my friends a second or two to let my (frankly genius) adlib sink in. Then of course, they fell around laughing. Why wouldn't they?

But that was it. In days of yore I'd have written it down for future use. But here the joke lived - briefly - then died. And that's what I miss about stand-up - giving jokes the gift of eternal life. Or milking, as it's sometimes called. Welcome to my Plog.