When my friend and vocal coach Mandy Bell made a donation to my page and challenged me to do stand-up comedy, I don’t think she thought I’d actually do it!

But you know me by now. I’m not one to shy away from a challenge unless it’s too expensive or totally beyond my capabilities.

I love making people laugh. I celebrate my ability to be funny, but I’d describe myself as ‘circumstantially funny’. I can make a quip or quick-witted comment about something that’s happening in the moment, and have people chuckling. I’m also not afraid to make a fool of myself in the interests of entertainment.

Mental block

All that said, I had a mental block when it came to the idea of standing up on stage and being deliberately funny. I didn’t know where to begin. If I was going to do this, I needed help. A quick google search led me to Crack Comedy, run by comedian Erich McElvoy. He runs a six week course in stand-up, of which week six is a live performance showcase.

I’d already missed week one but I was allowed to join late! “OK, let’s do this”, said I…

Then, suddenly it’s Monday 30^th May and I’m having to get on stage and deliver five minutes of material to a sold-out audience of over 60 people in a comedy club in Kingston. Gulp!

I can safely say that this was the most terrifying of all challenges so far. I would rather jump out of a plane again than get on stage and try to be funny!

A whopping 23 of my friends came along on the evening to show their support – or watch me make a fool of myself, I’m not really sure! While this was incredible, it certainly raised the stakes a whole lot higher.

People did laugh

It’s weird – I came off stage thinking that people hadn’t laughed much. In fact, I thought I kind of bombed a bit but I was just glad to get it over with and tick challenge #30 off my list. It took me four days to bring myself to watch the video back – and, much to my delight, I see that people did laugh. A lot! Yay!

My slot was in the second half of the evening, so I had to watch two pros and three of my course colleagues deliver their material before I took to the stage. I think my anxiety levels increased with each one as they all did brilliantly.

I messed up a couple of lines, but I don’t think they took away from the main story and the jokes. I also ran over time – sorry, Erich – but I got away with it on account of the cause I was raising money for.

And, Erich allowed me to have a collecting bucket on the night, which people very generously popped their loose change into. We raised a total of £65.92 on the night!

I swore I’d never do stand-up again, but I did enjoy making people laugh (now that I’ve looked back at the video and seen that they did laugh!), so you never know…

Message me for a link to view the video.