Carmen Ali aka April Fiasco

Open mic gigs are gigs where pretty much anyone can get a spot. You don’t need to send a video or comedy cv. You don’t even need to be funny. It’s for anyone who wants to try 5 minutes of jokes in front of an audience. When I say audience, I mean room full of other comedians. Comedians are the worst kind of people to try jokes in front of because sometimes they either won’t laugh (so you can’t tell if joke actually works or not) or they will laugh at things that real civilian normal people won’t just to screw with you (giving you false hope in your new jokes).

Last night was different though, I turned up at an open mic gig I had booked a spot at, and there were several members of the public already keen to watch the gig. I couldn’t believe it. The last time I was there, there were barely a few real audience members and tonight there was a full room. The first comedian on even mentioned the fact that it’s not usually that busy.

One of the other comedians was doing his second gig after his comedy course showcase. I told him not all open mic gigs are like this. I’m sure he’ll soon find out anyway.

We found out as the gig went on some of the audience came from a meet-up group, some came to support friends performing and some had just wandered down from the bar. The best thing about them was that they were laughers. Not smilers. Not the sort that hold it in and then vaguely acknowledge a joke. They smiled louder than I’ve heard other people laugh. They clapped at jokes they really liked. No bitchy resting faces either. They genuinely looked happy to be there.

Everyone on the night was well received, but not in a pandering way either, the audience still had a compass on which jokes were better than others. I did 3 of my older jokes, a few new bits and some audience interaction/improv/chatting. I had a good time.

I think a few things helped the night along as well. There were only 12 acts on, as opposed to the usual 15 – 20 at other open mic gigs. The MC (Sonia Aste) spoke directly to audience members and got them involved, invested and laughing from the beginning. (It astounds me how many MCs don’t do this and then wonder why the audience are not as relaxed).

Generally, open mic gigs need to be better promoted and the length of the night reduced. It’s counterproductive to have too many acts on and you can’t get a true gauge of how funny your new jokes are if the audience are too tired to laugh (or too self-conscious if there’s not that many of them). Plus they won’t come back again if they haven’t had a good time.

The logic that more acts equals more people and therefore more audience doesn’t work, as performing only to comedians is both unhelpful and soul destroying. Hopefully more open mic gigs will make steps in future to make them more enjoyable experiences, but probably not. I’m off to guest MC an open mic gig now. Or maybe just a room full of comedians.