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The last of my little run of award events tonight as I hosted the prestigious Buy-Side Awards. As I am a bit on the Bi-Side I thought I might be up for an award, until I saw the name written down and remembered that aside from showing off and snogging a man at college I have done nothing bi-sexual in my life (when the forced puppet sex awards come up I should be in with a better chance though).
Three of the four ceremonies that I have done in the last six weeks were organised by the same company and they told me there would be some crossover in the audience tonight so I’d have to do a different 15 minutes of stand up material. This was a bit of a problem as even though I have 20 hours of stand up material now, very little of it is clean enough or unweird enough to put in front of a polite audience in black tie who have no idea who I am. Also it feels that it should have some vague connection to the theme of the awards, even if somewhat shoe-horned (I’ve been saying how the Ferrero Rocher routine is a parable for prudent financial decisions).
In fact I’d say about 15 minutes of it was just about appropriate. But I had done that 15 minutes last time. So along with editing down my TV script for the upcoming taster tape and writing my links for next week’s recording of the Radio 4 Extra Comedy Club, I had a packed day of trying to work out what the Hell I was going to talk about. At least the blind panic of all the deadlines made me do a full day’s work.
As this was about insurance partially I thought I could probably do stories about fear and thought maybe the stuff about having a baby and the voice in my head telling me the worst things that could happen to my daughter might work (though only when I was doing it did I realise how bleak and disgusting it actually is) and also the “Grand Children Spoilt Here†doormat routine was relatively clean and had a business message about the correct use of English. I got a big laugh early on for a throwaway gag about trying to write a set about insurance and risk management, but that everything I had come up with was derivative. I assumed that that was the kind of joke that would get a groan but I was like Ben Wyatt in the accountants firm in Parks and Rec. It was as if that double meaning had never occurred to them. I couldn’t help myself commentating on the fact that if they liked that then the rest of my set would be a challenge.
I got through it though. They did seem a little shocked by some of the racier stuff, but I got some proper laughs and a nice round of applause once I was done. I felt much more relaxed than I had at the other awards and though I didn’t nail the routines, they went OK.
And in the awards themselves I was much cheekier than usual. I realised that this was the most sober and probably nerdy audience I had had (they would have loved the Ferrero Rocher routine and I am fairly convinced there was no huge crossover in audience). They had assessed the risk of getting drunk at an awards ceremony and ascertained that it was too great and they’d decided against it.
I always pretend to be over excited about the result of the most boring sounding award and tonight it was the Actuarial modelling provider of the year. I said I knew who I wanted to win it and hadn’t been able to sleep all night. It was of course Milliman and the polite white-haired man who came up to receive it pretended to be delighted that he had caused so much excitement. As another recipient left the stage I said “I can’t believe I’ve met him in real life†and luckily the cheekiness was appreciated and the mickey-taking on the right side of the line. I am very good at getting though the awards quickly and consider it my major strength (no one wants these things to take a long time) but last time they had told me it had gone by too fast so I was desperately trying to slow the pace. But it wasn’t really possible. There’s only so much you can say beyond the award, the winner and some light piss taking. Tonight there weren’t even any nominees so I was also able to joke about the suspense despite the fact that they already knew that they’d won.
It went well though and I think everyone was happy. I sat in a high-backed armchair in the Sheraton hotel lobby waiting for my cab, marvelling that the chair actually had a little ceiling on it (to catch any over excited spurts - clearly designed for a younger man) and a semi circular mat that took up a good deal of the lobby.
I had been dreading this one a bit, just because of the pressure of having to do a different bit of stand up. But it was done and had gone well and now I could go home to my wife, who’d been having a little party with her friends. They greeted me with the happiness that comes from having had a bottle of prosecco each and we chatted and laughed and came up with the idea of doing a Fringe Show that was an all-female stage version of the Breakfast Club, with me playing Molly Ringwald. It seemed very funny at the time. I would be used as the main selling point. And no one would be comment on the fact that I was not red haired was much too old and was not female.
The Chris Addison RHLSTP is up in all the usual places.
