The 15^th Instalment Of The ‘From Zero To...Somewhere Slightly Higher Than Zero Chronicles’

Well 2010 is well and truly amongst us now. The time of procrastinating and telling myself that I will start working on comedy next week is but a distant memory. It is now time to do.

The start of the year has been interesting for me to say the least. I have been working on some new material. Well I have been trying to. I have written a fairly rough draft which I am trying to develop into something but I am really struggling to find time. My new job that I started a couple of months ago is an absolute killer. Working any less than 20 hours of week overtime makes you look like a lazy bludger and this is not really helping me at all. I guess the question that I have for fellow comedians and writers in general out there is how do you ensure that you spend enough time writing each day? Do you have allocated times each day where you write or do you just do it whenever you feel like it? I have been trying more of the latter of late and I am finding that I am very quickly running out of time to give my comedy the amount of hours it needs to develop.

I have to say though that this time of year has been a great time for comedy. I had originally expected it to be a quiet time of year but I have been lucky enough to secure a few gigs at the Laugh Garage and at the Raglan over the ‘Festive Month” and it has truly been a fun and fantastic time of year. The Laugh Garage had some amazingly big crowds over the Christmas period with the 23^rd of December springing to mind as a night that had well in excess of 100 people in attendance at the garage.

The Nelson twins who were up from Melbourne headlined the event. I had a good chat with them on the night and I am happy to report that they are both very nice guys. In my experience with twins one is normal and the other one is a closet serial killer so I was quite disappointed that neither of them seemed too interested in my neck and throat area.

Other comedians on the night included Ray Cashman who did Ray Cashman type mole inspired jokes, Nick Capper who was on his best behaviour s as his parents were there watching him for the first time I am happy to say for him that he was one of the best on the night. His retelling of the time he went into space had the entire crowd in complete hysterics. Damien Smith was at his exceptional best and the night all in all was a lot of fun.

It has been an interesting time as it appears I am not the only person who is trying to start of the year with some new material. It is nice to hear a few of the comics that I see frequently around the circuit trying some new material. I think it will be very interesting to see how people work on and develop their new material week after week.  Hopefully I will discover some valuable pointers from my comedy peers and will be able to improve my current material dramatically. I am at a strange stage with my material at the moment. I will do it one week and be met with a good dose of laughter and the next week I will receive nothing but a deafening silence. It is hard to know whether or not it is because the material is terrible or the delivery is terrible or whether it is a combination of the two things. I often get on the stage and think to myself maybe the whole thing is terrible, maybe I should just throw it in the bin and work on something else.

It is tricky but that is what makes it fun and that is why I love growing as a comedian and trying to evolve into somebody that can be classified as at least remotely funny.

I have a gig this Wednesday at ‘Stand Up Get Down’ (World Bar- Bayswater Rd, Kings Cross). This should certainly give me some information on my new material one way or another I will be back with more next week.

With any luck 2010 will be a year where we go from zero to somewhere slightly higher than zero!

Joey Del

This was originaly written for GaggingForIt.com.au . To keep up to date with what is happening on the Australian Comedy Circuit check out GFI today!!!