I had roughly two friends in London when I moved to the city in 2016. We would meet up for a drink every couple of months or so. The rest of my social circle was made up of colleagues and a cat, Toby, who lived in my sublet. Toby and I had a nightly routine: I would return from the office, feed us both and drink steadily on the sofa while watching First Dates.
Toby was good enough company, although he was perpetually ill and prone to sneezing fits that would leave globs of mucus on the walls and upholstery. Human friends were harder to come by. How had I even made any of my existing friends? I couldn’t recall a moment when we made it official. Until now, as a recent graduate, I had more or less relied on others to arrange my social life.
This wasn’t how I had envisaged city life, a year in. I had arrived from the rural West Midlands, where I was brought up amid cows, mud and not much else. I didn’t want more quiet; I wanted some bustle. Instead, I was wallowing in silence most days, which I filled with online gaming and comedy podcasts.
A turning point came during a chat I had with an old university coursemate, Ali, about standup. Ali had been gigging on the open mic circuit since we had graduated, which I found impressive. I told Ali that I would quite like to try it myself – and then I realised I meant it.
I signed up for my first open mic in late 2017, at the Cavendish Arms in Stockwell. The Cav runs a so-called bringer gig, meaning performers have to take a friend and stay until the end of the show. There were 16 other acts on the bill, who were each called to the stage in a random order; I was 17th. Conditions didn’t seem ideal for whimsy. The room was hot, I was sweating and the crowd was made up of hostages. I checked my notes for the 50th time that day: I had written a lengthy routine about how I had once struggled to open a jar of gherkins. By now I was having serious doubts about it.
I was called to the stage. Details are hazy, but I remember telling everyone shakily to “give it up for my 16 support acts”. You had to be there, possibly, but it got a polite chuckle, which was very exciting. Buoyed by my first ever laugh, I delivered my script without further incident; even the gherkin thing went down well.
Months passed between the gigs that followed. It took a lot of energy to psych myself up for each show, partly because I no longer seemed to be making anyone laugh. The gherkin joke never really landed again. But I never felt like quitting. It was around this time that Toby died, his weak immune system having caught up with him. After losing my snotty friend, I resolved to get out more. I developed a new evening routine: three or four times a week, I would slope off after work to comedy nights in pub basements and function rooms across the city to hone my “tight five” (the five-minute routine every standup has in their back pocket).
Standup is a craft that takes people many years to master. This was disappointing to learn. But, after nearly 100 gigs, I think I am starting to make progress. You develop coping mechanisms for the bad nights, for instance. For me, this involves blaming anyone and anything but myself. “Weird room,” you will hear me say, after dying a death. “I think it’s the high ceiling.”
As I spent more time on the circuit, I found a community of generally nice people with whom I could share the ups and downs. Nowadays, there are plenty of gigs at which I have already met someone else on the bill. The camaraderie outweighs all the nerves, stress and occasional embarrassment that comedy brings. The adrenaline is addictive, too. I once heard the comedian Stuart Goldsmith compare the lifestyle of a professional comic to that of an extreme sports athlete. This sounds about right, I reckon, although I have yet to earn money doing either. Sometimes, during a good set, I notice that, rather than reciting jokes, I am building some momentum with the audience. When the timing and chemistry are on point, it is like how a surfer must feel when they catch a wave. But I doubt a surfer has ever been derailed mid-session by a screaming drunk man.
I wouldn’t say that performing standup has been a remedy for loneliness in itself. In many ways, it is the worst thing you could prescribe a socially alienated person. It doesn’t get much lonelier than inviting 30 strangers to delight in your wit and having all of them reject you. Still, to anyone feeling invisible in a new city, I would highly recommend standing in a spotlight and yelling at people. It worked for me, anyway.
