Why being a comedian isn't always a bundle of laughs

People often ask me – what's it like being a comedian?

There is nothing else you can do in life that will hit with you such euphoric highs – and such depressing lows. Sometimes in the same week.

It's no wonder there is such a strong link between comics and mental illness. It's a constant rollercoaster of emotions.

Take my last year for instance.

In January I came off stage at Stourbridge Rugby Club having done the opening section as compere or MC, warming the crowd up before bringing the first act on.

I thought I'd done OK.

As I walked towards the bar an old geezer grabbed hold of my arm. Ninety-nine times out of 100 when this happens, the words are kind. Not this time.

"That was absolutely dreadful," he said.

"You what?"

"Terrible. Awful. You're the worst act that's ever set foot on the stage in here. You're a disgrace."

Shell shocked doesn't even cut it. It was like being punched squarely in the jaw, and I had to get up on stage twice more that night watching his eyes boring into me with disapproval and rage.

It was a minority opinion. He was a prat. The kind you meet in workplaces all over the place.

But it's the opinion that stays with you, unless you are tough.

If you haven't got a thick skin, forget stand-up comedy. It's not for you.

I put it to the back of my mind quite quickly, and by the end of the year I was third in a public vote for Best MC in the region in the Midlands Comedy Awards. The highest placed non-professional act. Lows to highs.

You're the worst act that's ever lived in one person's eyes – and one of the best in someone else's. Such is comedy. We all laugh at different things.

There is no other job where your office can go from being a sold out 1,000-seat theatre to the back room of a dingy street corner pub with one man and his dog.

In July I performed in my biggest show to date – hosting a gig with Doc Brown, Paul Tonkinson and The Fizzogs on the bill in front of more than 500 people at Brierley Hill Civic Hall. It went great and it was magic.

Three months later, I walked off stage after four-and-a-half minutes of a planned 15 minute set at a snooker club in Kidderminster when it became clear the audience – despite all paying for tickets – weren't interested in listening to the comics and just talked through the whole show.

I wasn't hanging around.

A lad from the crowd was talking to the opening act at the break after he had come off, and an old woman came storming over to him and said: "If you talk through the next act, I'll cut you!"

Jeez, I thought. Where the hell am I?

"Alright," he said. "Sorry Mum". Mum! I made a sharp exit! (pardon the pun, can't help myself)

People always want to ask you about the hecklers. What's it like being heckled?

Truthfully?

Being heckled is terrifying for a new comedian, it's the last thing you want to happen.

Once you've been going a while, hecklers aren't a problem and can be easily put down. They become an easy way to get a laugh and establish yourself as the man in charge.

Hecklers aren't the big problem in comedy. No, that crown belongs to the talkers.

One thing I'll never understand as long as I live is anyone who has the mentality to pay good money for a ticket to a show – and then just sit there and talk all the way through it. It happens – a lot. Asking a comedian to try and perform against a backdrop of a wall of noise is like asking a surgeon to perform an operation with both hands tied behind his back. They are impossible gigs to play.

Luton was the worst one for me. Three years ago now and I'll never forget it. Lovely venue, packed out, more than 100 people in.

Should have been a great gig – but it was wrecked by five blokes who stood at the bar talking at the tops of their voices all the way through. There was even a separate bar at the venue!

It's a lot harder to deal with someone who is being completely indifferent to you than it is to deal with someone confronting you, as a heckler does.

But when it's right, there is nothing else like it.

To stand on a stage, to have a crowd in the palm of your hand, hanging on your every word, killing themselves laughing at something you wrote or came up with off the cuff.

You come off stage feeling a hundred feet tall. That's why I love being a comedian.

And that's why I keep doing it – with 'Worst Act Ever to Play Stourbridge Rugby Club' now displayed proudly on my comedy CV.