I’m getting used to online comedy – but miss everything about doing live stand-up

This week I took part in a documentary about Ian Cognito, the comedy club legend who died on stage last year. Sadly, it was the sort of death you can’t make up for by smashing a gig the following night.

Cogs, as he was known to us all, and his gruff, rambunctious style embodied the punk spirit which made stand-up comedy intoxicating to me when I was young and desperately wanted to be a part of this boozy, wayward world where you threw yourself out on stage and tried to make a crowd of strangers love you. It was terrifying and exhilarating and a world away from real life where there was small talk, restraint, and conformity. 

Later on in my career, I toured lovely medium-sized art centres where there was a nice bar. Families and couples on their anniversary came to see me, or a whole row of young people on their mate’s 21st birthday. None of it exists at the moment. The world I have called my “work” for 25 years has disappeared, for now.

During lockdown, a comedian friend of mine said: “I suppose we’ll all have to learn how to do this online?” I thought mournfully, “I’d rather learn how to be a plasterer.” I meant it too at the time. What was the point of stand-up without the buzz of walking into the club or the theatre, nodding hello to the door staff who usher you in ahead of the queue? 

Standing in the wings listening to the audience, coming into music you have chosen for them, feeling the venue fill up. Knowing that this was their night out, they’d paid their hard-earned cash to come out and have a great time and it’s your job to not to stink. I’d rather learn a trade. Plastering is a pretty Covid-19-proof profession.

Now that I have stopped sulking, I have started to do some online gigs. Technology enables a “front row” of ticket holders to actually appear on the screen as you perform. It’s not too bad, I’d even go so far as to say I’ve had fun. The online comedy gigs sell tickets so you can watch and split the money between the acts. We are back at the coalface. It’s a less raucous one, a more sober one, but still, comedians and bookers are gamely pivoting to adapt to our unsociable circumstances and keep our profession going. There are not enough to go around and certainly not enough to make a living, but it’s something. (And, frankly, easier than plastering.)

I used to have a ritual for getting ready for a gig. A long bath, carefully applied make-up, my “gig clothes” (black jeans, black top), a train or car journey, then other comedians or theatre staff to natter with, have a laugh before the glorious gamble of strutting out on to a stage to have as much fun as you possibly can. 

Whatever is going on in your life, heartache, financial worries, a train to catch, while you are on stage, all of it is gone. On stage is the only time I allow myself to be uncontactable by my children. No one can ask me if they can have a Twix or if I wouldn’t mind wiping their bottom.

Online gigs are very different. I make the dinner, get the children bathed, then set up my laptop in the kitchen. I then remember I’m wearing my pyjamas and dressing gown, so I pop on a clean top and leave the pyjama bottoms on.

At my kitchen table, sitting down, I perform stand-up comedy, a more chatty, off-the-cuff version of it anyway. Then afterwards, I’m alone, in my kitchen, with the dog snoozing at my feet and the cats curled up in the dog bed. There’s no danger at an online gig, people tend not to heckle you as they sit and watch you onscreen in their homes and there is no one to have a pint with afterwards.

Before masks, and the brutal culling of friends you can let into your home (“I REALLY like her, but do I ‘rule of six’ like her?”), it was bumping into other comedians around Soho and trotting off to the Soho Theatre to do our Edinburgh show. We’d shout: “The Soho Theatre Bar after? See you there!” Though these days, with young children and a deeper respect for my liver, those nights had become an occasional treat rather than my lifestyle. I miss them all the same.

Meeting new people and having a laugh backstage was a huge part of what I loved about my work. One night at a benefit gig in Camden’s Roundhouse Theatre, I found myself staying in the green room long after the Tube had stopped running. All the comics and other presenters and performers were crammed in there. Christopher Biggins was in there (do you even have a career in show business if you haven’t worked with Christopher Biggins at least once?)

Jo Wiley was there too and said comedians were “more of a laugh than any musician I have ever hung out with”. I miss that live, those evenings. And I miss Cogs.