Angie Belcher on the joys and japes of producing a stand-up poetry gig.
Running a stand -up poetry night always seems so easy on paper. Select poets, invite punters. Mix. Yet I always shudder a little when asked to run a Stand-up poetry night because of my unflinching obsession with creating the best possible variables to encourage the most investment, inclusion and permission. This while sounding like a banking equation is basically the creation of ways to allow your audience to shut up and laugh, each in the right place. I imagine that most people think that this is a given, yet I spend a shockingly large amount of time worrying that this wont happen. When I run Music events this is never quite as important as I don’t need an audience to pay perfect attention to the band, yet with comedy and poetry it’s integral. Investment is a person’s belief that they have given up something so that they believe they will miss out if they don’t pay attention to the performer. This is often pseudo-controlled by over zealous compers but one of the simplest ways of doing this is to charge a nominal fee on the door, this creates a feeling that they have invested in the show and therefore they will want to pay attention. The same effect however can be achieved by having a burly bloke on the door who looks like he eats Jack Russels for breakfast.
I have often found my self in free gigs where the audience roams in and out not quite registering that the lady in the corner is doing her bestest poetry, whereby I compete for attention with the fruit machine. I wonder what the pubs intention was in having invited stand –ups in the first place. It’s difficult to feel confident on stage while the land lord of the pub makes it quite clear that you’re not quite as important as the football score he loudly announces to his punters while you’re on stage. Therefore at my gigs it’s essential that I make my acts feel welcome, often to the point of psychosis. When I started running nights I was just so grateful that my acts had turned up and that I didn’t have to fill 2 hours with me that I would practically force my tongue down their throat on arrival.
Secondly, I have a Tetris like obsession for creating the perfect physical space so that absolutely no-one can sit at the bar, or sneak off and have (god forbid) a private chat. This means that everyone gets crammed into the front in a vice- like system which means that everyone feels like they are in the front row, thus confusing all the people that promise themselves never to sit in the front row at a comedy night.
I must say though that recently I have been broadening my stand-up poetry environment. Last year I performed in a run down area of Bristol in the middle of a traffic roundabout on a Sunday morning at 9 am in the pouring rain while the only audience was a collection of local heroin addicts who were most amused that a bunch of poets had come to entertain them. Strangely enough though I found the whole thing quite liberating. I couldn’t control the variables, my mascara had run down my face and the threat of violence loomed large in my shaky stanzas. It was a hoot however and funnily enough got asked to do a really good gig in the warmth and in a proper building and that off the back of it. The moral there is never turn down a gig, unless you think you can compete with stoke beating man city 2-0.
Angie Belcher
To book Angie go to http://www.dragon-pm.com/
To learn more about Angie’s day job go to www.angiebelcher.com
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