Category: Comedy
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Lift it off the page
The other week I did a gig at Downstairs at the King’s Head on the Thursday night. This is one the best open mic nights in London that you can do, as it usually gets a good audience, and there is an opportunity to eventually progress to weekend gigs there. I had a fairly good…
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How to win a comedy competition
Last week on Thursday, after writing a blog entry about creative rejection, I went to put myself up for the ultimate creative rejection – a comedy competition. I’m not sure why I keep entering them, but for some reason I do. I’ve done okay in a few in the past, sometimes progressing to the next round,…
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They just weren’t ready for you yet
Last night I sent an article, I had written a while ago and just edited, to an online women’s magazine and got an email back just a few hours later to say it hadn’t been accepted. This is the same website that I applied to work for about a year ago and was not successful,…
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Date with a Tory
On Friday, I did my first half an hour show as part of Laugh or Cry Presents Cruel Brittania, and I invited a date. I had met this person the week before at a friend’s birthday and we had some pretty good chemistry. Mainly because, well, he’s a Tory Brexiteer and I’m a Labour Remainer.…
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How to write a comedy show
The longest set I’ve done is 20 minutes, but next week Friday the 16th of September, I am doing a half an hour work in progress at Laugh and Cry at The Lion and Unicorn Pub in Kentish Town. But how to do it? Should I treat it like long set, just doing more jokes than usual,…
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Date at the Tate
On Saturday I was on my way to do Shaggers at Leicester Square Theatre when I got a message from a guy I’ve been talking to from Tinder asking to meet up that evening. I did initially invite him to the gig, although I’m quite glad he didn’t come now… He suggested we meet at…
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Living the Single Life
Just over three months’ ago, my boyfriend of one and a half years came over and said he wanted to break up with me. My response was ‘yeah I think that’s probably a good idea’. It hadn’t been working well for a while but we had been carrying on anyway, because it’s hard when you…
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Man Up
On Tuesday I did a gig dressed as a man in a night called Gender Bender. The line-up consisted of women playing the parts of men, with a token man on the night – Hollie Would (who regularly performs stand-up dressed as a woman). Charley Harrison, who organised and MCed the gig in a suitable…
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Lost my Mojo
I feel like Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me. It just disappeared. Perhaps a fellow evil comedian stole it. Or perhaps I just got bored. The problem with comedy is repetition. You have to tell a joke a certain amount of times to get good at telling it, and by the time you’ve…
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Oops I Did it Again….Forgot to Press Record
Welcome to 2015, where everyone is obsessed with selfies, ‘food porn’, videos, pics from a night out; too busy trying to capture the perfect moment to upload to the internet, that they forget to enjoy their lives. But as a comedian, recording yourself or having someone take photos of you while on stage isn’t just…
Carmen Ali aka April Fiasco 