It's been over a week. Wow it's gone past quickly.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, that was it I was about to head off to the Frog for the start of a weekend of great gigs. well this is what happened over the course of my week.

THursday night I get to the frog quite excited, it's sold out, nearly, well it's standing room only, so that means over 250 people will be in there and that's a lovely number to play to.

I remember seeing a piece on the Granada News about the Frog when Johnny Vegas was resident compere, must be 8 years ago now, and it, by virtue of being on the news, and from later watching and loving Johnny Vegas and Peter Kay started to hold this special place in my mind. I remember about 5 years ago going to manchester to a sewing Machine shop on Oldham Street and walking past the Frog and being excited to even see the building.

I'll explain now, I'm one of those people who gets really excited about seeing things in real life if I've only seen them on TV before, this goes as far as seeing people who I've only seen on TV, and it also works the other way too, I'll be sat watching TV and someone I know comes on and I get quite giddy and tell everyone in the room. Which is why in a couple of weeks I'll be annoying my flatmates after Dr Who telling them that "I've slept on his couch!" after Ray Peacock's been on. After Dr Who, obviously, there's no talking while that's on.

So the Frog's got a lot of history for me, I remember the first time I went there was on a Monday for Beat The Frog in September 2004, and it was terrifying, I lasted 3.10 in the competition dying on my arse and then banging my head off the side of the stage as I tried to leave.

I look so young and pale there, not like now after nearly three years of sleeping on other people's couches.

I kept going back and the history of the place eventually gave way to a feeling of foreboding as apart from six months after I first appeared there when I won that competition three times in quick succession I've never done particularly well there, but I've progressed through to doing the Thursday, which is one step down from having a paid weekend. All I need to do is have a couple of good Thursdays there. But I've jinxed myself against having a good one there, it's one of the few gigs wehre I get genuinely nervous before I go on stage any more.

This Thursday was no different, but before I went on I managed to compose myself. Stepping into the spotlight it was all going well the fist joke got a big laugh, the second line got a laugh and a round of applause, then suddenly for no reason that I could tell on my third Joke people all started talking in unison. I tried to quieten them down by switching from material to banter and it worked a little bit and then they just couldn't keep concentration. After ten minutes of this I left the stage, having at one point said the silly thing of "you know this is quite funny if you'll listen to it." Never plead with an audience, you need to assert authority. I wouldn't have minded if they'd been heckling, heckling I can deal with but chatting is horrible.

As I said to Sarah after our fight, when I tried to blame her girlfriend for it happeneing saying that if she'd just said that she hated me rather than saying that she didn't feel anything for me and didn't care about me, my greatest character flaw is my inability to deal with anyone's indifference towards me.

After I left the stage I headed upstairs to the green room and started to get changed, thinking, "Why do you even bother doing this, you'll never be able to do this proffessionally, there's really no point, you should probably phone up and cancel all your other gigs."

I sat there for a few minutes smoking a cigarette and thinking. The act after me wasn't doing too well either, then Pierre Hollins came up to the green room and we had a chat about it. I was slowly feeling better, Colin the sound guy wandered through muttering "fuck 'em they're idiots." I went down stairs and got a drink and collected my money, whilst I was waiting a guy walked over to me and sad "Wow, Clitler! I'll remember that for the rest of my life that was ace." which was enough to salvage the gig. I've got used to the fact that there will always be a portion of the audience that hates everything I say or do, and there's a slowly growing number of people who absolutely adore what I do.

After the show I stayed for a drink with Pierre and Colin and then made my excuses and headed down to Vanilla, a lesbian bar in Manchester's gay village where I run a comedy night (fourth monday of the month, next one's 23rd April with Sarah Millican and Vince Atta in case you're interested). I popped in to see my friend who works there and to just chill a bit after the gig, but post-gig adrenaline was still running through my veins and I was bouncy and far too loud. when asked what drink I wanted I initially Joked "Red Bull! And coke! in the same glass! pint!" Bex asked if I'd had that before and that it was quite nice, well faint heart never won fair and all that so I had one and it is lovely. Not drinking alcohol anymore means that my drinks on a night out are fairly limited so that was a welcome addition. one of the other bar staff, Alex wandered up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder and said "Hey, it's Bethany Black!"

Suddenly I felt like I was in Cheers, or some lesbian gangster film (Hmm that's a good idea, I should write that down.) So I had a chat with the staff and stood at the bar looking out over the sea of bad dancing and extravagant haircuts, feeling like I belonged somewhere for the first time in ages, I realised I was getting stared at by a couple of people and I wasn't entirely sure why. See there's this idea that with gay couples there's none of the same courting ritual that there is with straight couples, like they just walk up to each other say "You're hot, wanna fuck?" which isn't the case, well it is with some gay men, especially in certain clubs. The truth is that you end up with Male and Female courting rituals squared. So you do get that thing with gay guys where they'll walk up to a guy they fancy and then they'll leave with them a few minutes later, but lesbians are slightly different, that's femal courting ritual squared, so what you tend to get is two groups stood at opposite ends of a club, one member of each group fancies a member of the other group and so they all keep periodically looking over and then huddling together to talk, and if you're lucky the one who fancies you from that gropu will match wtih the one from your group who fancies her and then in lesbian terms you're married. I often think the real reason for having to wait for a couple of months wiht civil partnerships is due to the fact that lesbians would be getting married every week otherwise, whereas under the current terms even the most loved up "This time I've found true love" type lesbian if they apply after their first date, will have moved on through that girls ex to her best friend to her ex in the couple of months it takes for the paper work to come through.

Anyway I'm watching and trying to figure out if that's what's going on with different groups in there, and then I hear a voice in my ear "Are you Bethany Black?" This happens three more times over the course of the nightthe last girl who asks me I get talking to and we chat for a couple of hours, and she invites me to a heavy metal lapdancing bar in a couple of weeks, so I accept should be cool. The weird thing is in my own small way in that bar on that night I'm like some kind of micro-celebrity and I quite like it, I could get used to it.

As the night finishes I call up Michael J Dolan Britain's Favourite Funnyman(tm) He's just had a gig too, and between us we're not going to sleep for a while, but Dug's in London, so we've nowhere to hang out. I did offer to housesit but I'm sure Leanne and Ruth his flatmates have seen enough of us whilst he's there without us turning up when he's gone. In the end we head down to Rusholme and chat about stuff until the curryhouse closes and throws us out, his new opening bumbling style seems to be really working.

As I eventually crawl into bed I don't care about the gig that much anymore as I've had a great night, and tomorrow I'm doing the Comedy Store in London and I can't wait.

Friday

I fill up the car and head on down to London for the gig, I drive slowly and it's great, the weather's hot and the roads are fairly clear I'm making great time and then have some trouble finding somewhere to park, but eventually do just off Regent's street, and I walk down to the Store finally getting there about 10 minutes before the show starts, I normally like to get there well before the show starts but this wasn't possible tonight. So I get ready and start pacing, Karl Spain is compere and he introduces James Dowdswell onto the stage whilst I'm finishing off my make-up. Then I start getting my head together.

A year or so ago I came here for the first time, it's another place that holds so much history, I know it's not the same venue where Ben Elton adn Alexei Sayle and all those other earliest heroes of mine started out, but it still is in my mind, growing up I thought it was the only place where live comedy was performed in the country, it was also the first comedy club I ever went to in 1999 for my then girlfreind, Michelle's Birthday, it was a Wednesday So the Comedy Store Players were on, and it was great, even though I'm not a big fan of improv. I've just read that sentence back and that makes me look like some sort of idiot savant, Hmm, 19th January 1999 was a Wednesday, and quantas never crashed. I don't know how I know that I just do, though maybe I'm wrong, if you actually go to the effort to check out if I'm right and then find that I'm wrong that makes you weirder than me so why would I take any notice of you?

So you know, This place means a lot to me and when I did my first 5 minute spot on a THursday there just over a year ago I was terrified, me Playing the Comedy Store was like a sunday league player getting to play Wembley. But after I'd done the gig and not done particularly well, but not badly Paul Byrne gave me some great advice:

"You've played tiny gigs in rooms above pubs in front of three people who've not paid to get in and done well, there in a venue where everything was against you, a microphone that doesn't work, an L shaped room, too much light and a disinterested audience, here's a purpose built venue where the audience are all facing the right way and the venue's perfect, they've all paid to get in they're expecting you to be good. And don't think that you don't deserve to be there, by virtue of the fact that you are there you deserve to be there."

After that I came back in September and wasn't scared, wasn't nervous at all, I knew what I wanted to do and I tore the arse out of the gig for my five minutes, adn Now here we go 8 months later ready to do it again.

I'm ready, I can handle anything, whatever they decide to throw at me I can deal with, I'm going to set this night on fire, I'm going to put to rest the demons of last night at the Frog. James is off the stage and I'm in the drop zone I'm psyched, I'm ready for it I swig more water, I think of everything that's led me here and I know that it'll all come together in the next 10 minutes, Karl calls my name and I step through the door, forgetting that there's not a step there I stumble a little but catch my balance. and strutt to the microphone.

Opening line, big laugh, Next line big laugh, heckle. I manage to deal with it in a way that really works and then move on to the next line, laugh and applause break, now onto the second joke gets a big laugh but not as much as I'd have expected, then...

The wheel falls off the gig. I do a joke and rather than the response it's got all round the country for the last six months I get booed. Booed.

This is strange, I assume it's because I mentioned Kit Kats, as the one month performance date since the Revel's Chortle student of the year competition is passed I'm out of contract and feel free to slag off Nestlé for being baby murderers, but that's not what the crowd want.

There's a really strange thing about booing, it's odd, it's apparently the worst thing an audience can do to you short of throwing stuff, but I started out MCing rock gigs I'm no stranger to having things thrown at me. as a sound goes, 200 people going "Booo!" is acutally quite soothing, and I settle in and enjoy the reaction. I move on into my next bit, there's a little bit of chattering started so I slow down my speech pattern to stop it, and in my head I'm thinking, "well that's it, that's the worst they can do, you know what, fuck it, you can get them back, you know you're funny and whatever they do it doesn't matter." and that not caring calmed me right down and helped me get my composure back. I finished, though I was looking for the red light I always manage to miss it there, I assume I've hit my time.

I wander Back Stage and Andy Askins smiles and says "Well done" though I still don't know what happened I know that this should have been a great gig and it wasn't I can't figure it out, Craig Campbell heads out onto the stage and from back here I can hear how on form he is, it's absolutely amazing.

James pops his head round the greenroom door and says "You know when they booed, well it seems that we've got an overlap in material." I'm normally good about this, I've dropped loads of material when I've found that it's too close to someone else's material, this particular piece was word for word the same, the only difference being he'd said his ten minutes before I did. If I'd heard it then the gig would have gone entirely different but it's too late for that now.

I hang around and talk to Jeff Innocent and the other guys for a while and head off before the late show happy that even though it didn't go to plan it'll all be alright, There's always tomorrow.

Saturday

After an hour and a half drive from Ian's, just north of London I get to the gig and park up on a single yellow outside, it's gone 8:30 and so I know I'll be fine. I walk in and get a bad feeling, it's above a pub and it's above the sort of pub where I get stared at even before I've got my stagewear and make-up on. I head upstairs and it's quiet, but not for long as a huge stag party turns up who'll make up most of the audience.

Oddly enough for a slithgly different comic than the usual "Men and women, they're different aren't they?" type I actually love stag and hen parties as my blend of filth and whimsy seem to go down quite well with them, but tonight wasn't to be my night.

They were rowdy and joining in but not really laughing, it was like they were unionised "One laughs, we all laugh" and they were more than happy to join in, until I got on stage when they lookid visibly shocked and stayed quiet.

It was work, but it went ok. afterwards I was just feeling tired, I've been doing too much driving and too little resting and writing recently. and this weekend hadn't gone quite as I'd hoped, tired I headed back to my car only to find that I'd got a parking ticket. The Bastards!!! I was still fighting one from last summer that Camden council decided to give me even though I'd bought a ticket and parked in a designated bay and got back in time. (a ticket that meant I had to pay bailiffs £300 this morning so that they wouldn't take my car)

To cheer myself up I stopped off for some junk food on the way home. And the Sprite I ordered was just soda water.

The weekend had beaten me and it reminded me of why I moved away from London, well I moved away because I went mad, but it was constant things like this that made the place unlivable for me.

after that the rest of the week goes like this... (I've been sat here trying to write this for hours now and I'm getting bored so Christ knows how you feel, I'm one of the most self centred people I know I love talking about myself.)

Sunday night was Dug's birthday which was a party that was messy and had people thrown out for being twattish. Monday was a day of rest, whilst we sat round in Dug's flat as the recrimination merry-go-round delivered doses of paranoia to team come-down every 20 minutes or so. To cheer things up I went to blockbuster for a video and KFC for a Lesbian Happy Meal (AKA the Deluxe Boneless Box)

We then watched Wedding Crashers (ace) and Roddy Piper in a cheap actioneer called "Tough and Deadly" watching one of his before we realised that the most entertaining way to watch any of these "Maveric cop who does things his way and the DA can shove it" is if you imagine that the main character is delusional and only thinks that he's a cop and that all the other characters are humouring him. It's especially good when he goes to show his badge just from the other actors reactions. Watch out for that.

Eventually sleep comes to us and Tuesday I'm out of the flat and back down to Crewe to look at the house I'm moving into for next year. myself and Cat decide to take it and later our landlady tells us that the other flat mate, who she'd said to me before we'd decided to take the place is "Foreign, but she's nice", is "A black girl, from Namibia, is that alright with you?"

Which leads me to think that either she's a massive racist, or she thinks I am, and I'm not sure which is worse.

Oh and my parents finally sold their house this week, so they'll be moving in less than 6 weeks to France, I think I mentioned before that I was conceived on the day they moved to this house, I'm still paranoid that I'll die on the day they move out. But fingers crossed.

As the week's drawn to a close things are ok. It's my birthday on Christmas Eve, but today's the day I celebrate it, and it's been a bit of a washout. All my friends who said, on Christmas Eve "well your birthday's too close to Christmas for us to celebrate it, I tell you what we'll celebrate it in April." seem to have forgotten that, as two of them when I mentioned celebrating today said "But it's not your actual birthday is it? No that's Christmas eve, well at least I didn't forget about it."

Sometimes you just can't win.

anyway I'm off out now. until next time, I love you all.

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