Dalai Lama: "Sam Brady's New Newsletter is Crazy!"

The Dalai Lama likes a good laugh as much as the next man.

That's why he is delighted that I'm going to be doing a new monthly newsletter starting this month. Probably. 

But you don't have to be a great spiritual leader to enjoy my home-spun brand of boob jokes and nob gags. Anyone can do it. If they can read English and they have access to the internet. Which I'm guessing you do.

Anyway the newsletter will include a review of what I've been up to over the last month, plus maybe some bits of video and other stuff that isn't on the blog.

It's handy if you don't have time to be visiting the blog every day - ideal whether you are busy fighting the credit crunch or simply trying to get your country back from the Chinese.

To sign up, just type your email address into the form in the right hand margin of this page. If you get fed up with me sending you my half-baked ravings, you can always change your mind and unsubscribe later.

Have a good week.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

Surviving in the Bush

Last Thursday (4th December) I played the Holly Bush Tavern in Cradley Heath for the first time.

The Bush is a smallish pub in the Black Country with a tiny back room where comedy legends are born. I hope.

I really enjoyed the gig and my stuff went down very well. 

This was not a crowd of middle-class "chin strokers". To be honest it was hardly a crowd at all - there were only about 20 people there. But what they lacked in numbers they made up for in good down-to-earth feedback. 

I came out of it well. At the end of my set, one audience member rose from his seat and raised his hands in the air cheering as if he was at a Birmingham-West Brom derby match. I wasn't sure if he liked the material or if he was cheering because I had finished. To my relief he later informed me that I was a top bloke and funny as f*ck. He was my favourite punter ever.

I had been worried because I only had 5 minutes of tried and tested material. I was planning to tag another 5 minutes of new stuff onto the end of this. In the end, I decided just to add something new into each section of the existing set and stretch it out to 10 minutes. It worked!

Everything went down well apart from the routine about "our Sheila's boob job" which flagged a bit. It usually goes really well but I made a mistake - I said the word "darkness" when I usually say "shadow". I've found that this simple detail makes an unbelievable difference to the effectiveness of the joke. I need to rehearse it and rehearse it to embed the word "shadow" in my brain for next time.

I haven't got any more gigs planned until 5th January - but I aim to do at least 50 gigs in 2009. There's also the chance that I might get asked to stand in for someone at the last minute at the Frog, which I find hard to resist.

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

Coming Out of the Comedy Closet

Since I started out on this comedy lark I've been really chuffed about the way that friends, family and colleagues have got behind me.

Standing up in front of strangers and trying to make them laugh would be a whole lot more daunting if I didn't feel that somebody somewhere was on my side.

Generally, when people who know me find out I am doing stand-up, their first reaction is one of disbelief. "Comedy? What? You?"

But the initial shock is usually followed by, "I'd love to come and see you do your stuff - when are you next on?"

At this point, I usually freeze and make excuses. "Well maybe you could come and see me in a few months when I'm a bit funnier," I stutter.

But maybe I shouldn't keep hiding from you all. It's time to come out of the comedy closet. OK so a professional comic advised me to wait a year before inviting friends to come and watch me - but since when did I listen to good advice?

So I'm inviting you - no, entreating you - hmmm, I may possibly even beg you - to look at the gig list (there's a link on this blog) and find out when I'm on near you. 

OK so you might come on a bad night when I'm total crap and I die on my arse. So what? That's part of the adventure.

If I become a comedy legend - you can say "I was there at the start!" 

Or if I end up a lonely old  drunk, sleeping in a gutter somewhere, you can say "I always said he wasn't funny." Either way you're a winner!

Hope to see you soon.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

The Gigs Come Rolling In

Yesterday I got four new bookings for 2009.

By pestering Hannah at the Frog & Bucket persistently over the past month, I got 3 bookings for the Beat the Frog gong show. One of my goals for 2009 is to get into the Beat The Frog World Series, which is a fairly prestigious competition for new comics and looks good on the old C.V.

Feel free to come and support me at Beat the Frog. Even though I've survived the gong before, there is no guarantee that I'll do it again. But it's a great night out and, even if I die on my arse, you'll be sure to have a good time.

The other booking I got yesterday is for the Smirking Room in Leeds. I think it's a ten minute open spot (i.e. no gong) but i was so excited I forgot to check. I've never done that one before. Will the Yorkshire people hate me? Of course they will! Should be fun.

All the dates of my forthcoming gigs are here on the website, listed under the ingenius title of Forthcoming Gigs. Let me know if you need more info.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

I need jokes - now!

So, three days to go until my 10 minute spot in the Black Country, and I still only have 5 minutes of material.

Help!

I've been a bit busy recently getting married and doing my day job. Haven't had much time to weave comedy magic.

I'm thinking of doing some stuff about positivity. I'm thinking about talking about a retreat I went on in the US where I learned about being positive and full of self-love. I came back to Britain and thought: Imagine a Britain where everyone was full of love and positivity, where a person could stand up on a train and declare "I am a good and worthwhile person - I'm a talented and beautiful human being" - and everyone on the train would clap and cheer. 

That would be really annoying wouldn't it?

British people don't like that sort of thing. We're not keen on celebrating success. But failure - there's a real cause for celebration - especially when it's someone else failure.

We all want to be good, kind people. I'm very keen on empathy and compassion. But when I see someone trip and fall on their arse I laugh my tits off.

Like I said...

...help!!

Sam Brady's Video Podcast Adventure Thingee

I've been thinking recently about ways to develop material by sharing new ideas with friends and fans on-line.

The best (in fact only) way to develop material is to perform it for an audience. That's why stage time is so crucial. But you can only cram in so much stage time - especially if you have a day job.

So how would you feel if I presented some of my blog posts by video rather than text? Or what if I performed some stuff in development to camera and posted it? Or what other ideas should I use to help you to help me to become a comedy legend? Your ideas would be very welcome.

Yesterday, Stuart Morrison, who runs The Gag Factory comedy club in Guilford, started Gag Factory TV - an online channel for comedians, comedy promoters and comedy fans. He is thinking along the same lines as me and is trying to come up with ways for new comedians to interact with the world. Check out his first video here.

The Second Five Minutes

My next gig is a 10 minute open spot. No gong. Hooray! But it means I need to build another five minutes onto the back of my current 5 minute set. I'm wondering what to do.

My first five minutes is fairly gag-intensive - mainly because I developed it at gong-shows where you've got to keep people laughing the whole time.

But I'm thinking that it might be good to have a change of pace after the first 5 minutes, as gag after gag after gag can get boring. So maybe I could try a longer story that builds to a punchline.

One format I have tried in my previous incarnation as Tony Cannelloni, was to use an embarrassing story. I once did a gig for a Buddhist audience where I told a story about a woman who had collapsed in the shrine room. Tony gives her the kiss of life and then asks her how she is feeling. "Wonderful!" She says, "Just let me finish my prostrations and we can do it all again!"

OK so that joke might need some explanation. 

When a Buddhist is prostrating, they throw themselves down on the floor in supplication to the Buddha as an act of worship. However, Tony, not knowing this, thought she had fainted. By leaping on the woman, loosening her blouse and giving her mouth to mouth, Tony was making something of a faux pas. With that punchline, the Buddhist audience were suddenly aware of the toe-curling cringe-worthiness of the situation and howled with laughter. Job done.

However, I doubt that a crowd of drinkers in a pub in the Black Country will get the "prostration" reference. 

Anyway, the point is I am trying to come up with an example of an embarrassing misunderstanding on which to build a new story. 

Any thoughts?

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian