The comedy boots well and truly hung up!

Diary of a stand-up comedian Entry #54
Last December at the office Christmas party it was decided we were going to have a bit of a Britain's Got Talent theme, which basically meant someone was going to bring in their karaoke machine from home. At the end of the evening it was suggested that I got up and did a short comedy set, seeing as no one in the office had seen me do my comedy before.

Despite the fact I hadn't performed since June 2012, I decided a quick impromptu gig would do no harm, especially as the 30 or so people gathered in the office were fairly pissed at this point and would have laughed if I'd got up in front of them and asked them to pull my finger.

Fast forward another five months and once again I got asked if I'd put my so-called comedy skills to the test again, and this time at an actual work function for clients. Like most companies, we are trying to pull in the purse strings so getting someone from the office to step in and do the entertainment seemed like a good idea at the time.

The work event in question was a media training scheme for media agencies, media owners, and advertisers. We had 35 of the brightest minds from media - from companies such as Zenith Optimedia, MEC Global, Mediacom, Havas, Euronews, Financial Times, and the BBC- attend a two-day training course in Hertfordshire.

After the first day of training we wanted the delegates to wind down, so we put on a pub styled quiz night with yours truly as the host of the evening. Granted some of my material was out of date, but I felt confident I could pull it off. Hell, I even threw in some new material about the advertising world to try and make it a bit more relevant.

But within minutes of being back on that stage I realised my time in the stand-up comedy spotlight was well and truly over. My joke about how bad the Brad Pitt Chanel advert was was met with near total silence, whilst my attempt to describe how a Stella Artois ad campaign around the theme of 'Wife Beater' would be hilarious was anything but that.

Don't move Scaffardi! You're jokes are so bad they're illegal!

What this made me realise was that stand-up comedy requires a lot of work; work I had not put in for over a year. The fact I foolishly believed I could simply get back up that stage with jokes about the London riots from 2011 (material a good two years out of date!) was probably the funniest thing about my set, in an ironic way.

The biggest laugh of the night came when I joked that they had laughed the hardest at the fact that I had died and bombed on stage. That in itself told me everything I needed to know! Back in 2011 when I spent 12 months on the open mic circuit was great fun, and it helped me promote my book at the time, but now it is time for me to stop calling myself a stand-up comedian. I'm a failed trainee stand-up comedian at best!

I'll never forget the memories and experiences of stand-up comedy, but unless I'm prepared to put the work in then it is not fair that I continue to call myself a comedian.

Before you all celebrate, you won't be getting rid of me that easily! I'll still be working on my second novel, and writing down my ramblings on this here blog, but I'll be less inclined to reference myself as a comedian anytime soon!

But just one last thing before I ride off into the sunset with my poor comedic judgment between my legs, let me at least remember a time when I was on the verge of being funny...

You can download my debut comedy eBook The Drought for free by visiting this link and using the code WA65Y.

An audience full of art students = an audience full of *****

Diary of a stand-up comedian Entry #42
Well, that was the message I posted on my Facebook and Twitter accounts last night. Perhaps looking back I was a little sensitive. As one friend commented on Facebook: A bad workman blames his tools and all that...

So last night at The Old School Yard was not my finest hour. In fact, it was pretty awful. I have done bad gigs before. I have died on my arse and lived to fight another day. But last night got to me. The last few weeks have been brilliant, what with getting through to the semi-final of the Golden Jester, and then smashing it at Dirty Dicks last week (Dirty Dicks is a pub by the way, I obviously wouldn't smash a dirty dick - this is not that type of blog!), it was pretty annoying to be standing there (delivering material which has been doing the business for me in recent weeks) to a bunch of silent spotty teenagers.

It is the first time I have really wondered why I do this. Why do I put myself through it?

At the start of the year, and until recently, I never moaned about having a bad gig, or a quiet audience, but now - nearly a year in - I feel like I have paid my dues, and if I want to rant, then I will rant dammit!

I'm not the funniest guy in the world - hell, I'm not the funniest guy on the open mic circuit - but I have a set that works! Comedy is subjective and all that, but right now I just want to rant. I am going to see how I get on in the Golden Jester, and then after that, who knows? Maybe it is time to give comedy a break for a while...

Knob-head students.

RIP Steven Scaffardi - the night I died on stage

Dead man joking: How my tombstone
might look after last nights horror show!

Diary of a stand-up comedian Entry #13
It was awful. No, it was beyond awful. Imagine the most awkward situation you have ever been in, multiply it by 10, and then sprinkle on top the feeling of having nowhere to hide, and then you might - just might - have an idea of what it feels like dying on stage.

You know that saying You wouldn't wish that on your worst enemy? Well, that is a stupid saying because you would wish this on your worst enemy!

The horrors of last night started at 7pm when I arrived far too early at The Railway. I grabbed myself a drink and sat down and waited. The promoter, Openmic Matt, said he would put me on towards the end seeing as I had opened for him a few times in the past.

So by the time I eventually got on at about 10pm, I was pretty pissed. I had not eaten anything all evening and instead filled myself up on pints of Stella. The audience were in a good mood having been entertained by some very funny acts already including Hannah Deasy, Tom Appleton, and Mr Blair.

Now it was my turn.

I staggered up to the stage, feeling pretty confident, and cracked my first joke - to complete silence. Immediately I panicked, and broke out into a cold sweat. My mind went blank and I just started blurting out the first thing that came to me.

Unfortunately it wasn't a joke. I found myself just waffling, and after about 30 seconds it hit me - I had absolutely no idea where I was going with this. I wasn't even telling joke!

There must have been about 20-30 people in the room, but at that moment it felt like I had a 1,000 pair of eyes on me, all wishing I would get the hell off the stage. So I did the only thing I could think of which was to be honest.

"I'm not too sure where I'm going with this," I told them, shifting awkwardly in one spot. They just stared at me, hatred in their eyes. I attempted to get back on track but by now everyone in that room just wanted me to finish up and get the hell off that stage - no one more so than me!

I shuffled back to me seat after what seemed like the longest five minutes of my life. I grabbed my bag and headed straight towards the exit. Openmic Matt saw me as I was leaving and tried to tell me my set was okay. I appreciated him trying, but I think we both knew I had just stunk the whole place out, so I fled as quickly as possible!

When I woke up this morning I still didn't feel that great, but I figure this is something every comedian has to go through, so I'll just put it down to experience. Plus I did learn a very valuable lesson - don't get pissed before going up on stage... unless your Dylan Moran of course, it seems to work for him!