July 2nd – July 11th 2014. Gigs No. 64, 65, 66, 67, 68. The Great Joe Hunter Laughter Famine

I’ve hit the skids. This is it. My Great Depression. My Great Laughter Potato Famine. Every single time I go on stage, I die on my arsehole. Laughter poverty. It’s the worst disease there is.

You know what a laughter famine is like? You know when a depression comes - A great crash comes, and people are unemployed. The unemployed have no wage and cannot buy things, which causes more businesses to go bankrupt and creates more unemployment? That’s exactly what it’s like. You get no laughs at one gig and have no confidence to do your jokes at your next gig, which causes more laughter voids and creates more lack of confidence. In the end, you are a broken man, travelling in an old mobile wooden shack, ruminating on the hardships of life, travelling to a new land in search of hope, dignity and a future.

Gig No. 64, Wednesday 2nd July, Old School Yard.

This is where the whole famine started. Front row, 3 girls. All three of them couldn’t stand to look at me. Literally look at the floor, at the ceiling, anywhere but at me. Even when I talked to them. I literally couldn’t do my act. Impossible to do your act when the audience won’t even look at you. Got off.

Gig No. 64 done. MC/Promoter Brian Chimombo


Gig No. 65, Thursday 3rd July, Battersea Barge

Oh, me. I followed a rather attractive Spanish Burlesque act who got her knockers out (Saving her modesty with tasteful nipple twirlers) and as I walked out they immediately took a disliking to me. Course they did. I FOLLOWED SOMEONE WHO GOT HER TITS OUT. Actually it wasn’t that kind of crowd. Not a pervy sex club. A gig on a barge. A good gig, a joyful, up for it audience. I have no excuses. I died on my hole.

Gig No. 65 done. Promoter Paul L Martin


Gig No. 66, Fri 4th July, Tottenham Chances

Now, after two rotten gigs, I’m going on with low self esteem and little confidence. Apologetic. They pick up on that, and assume I’m shit. One bloke decides to walk off right in front of the stage halfway through one of my bits. (By bits I mean jokes, not my genitals)

Gig N. 66 done. Promoter Jason Why


Gig. No. 67, Mon 7th July, Hideaway

More laughter void. I have a little Facebook rant to blow off steam. Someone suggests at the next gig I do, I say to myself: ‘I don’t give a SHIT if I die on my arse”. I resolve to try it.

Gig 67 done. MC Stephanie Laing


Gig No. 68, Thur 10th July, Pegasus

So. I try it. “I don’t give a shit if I die on my arse”. And I die on my arse. But, strangely, I feel OK about it. Maybe the Famine has turned a corner. Light at the end of the tunnel. The rains have fallen on the lands, and the seeds are finally beginning to grow. A new dawn, the smell of spring. A butterfly fluttering it’s wings in the dew fresh morn. It better not fly near me, I'll kill it.

Gig No. 68 done. MCs Matt Smith and Gary Knightley


I’ll end with a quote from the Grapes of Wrath:

“Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow. ...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

How this applies to my comedy journey? Fuck if I know. He’s talking about angry grapes. Fuck is he on about? He’s mental. Let me try another quote:

“For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man—when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it.”

Yes Steinbeck. You’re right. When everything crashes around you, as long as you keep stepping forward, you’ll come out the other side. Step forward and keep going. Keep going and maybe, just maybe, you’ll outrun the angry grapes.

July 1st, Tuesday. Gig No. 63, Bear Jokes, London Fields

This gig is in Hackney. Walking along the high street, I liked the vibe. Theatres, cafes, arts venues. A nice, cool, chilled out vibe. Even the pigeons were chilled out:



Then I walked past the Hackney Empire. Wow. That brought back memories. Back in the day, in my mid 20s, I decided to do stand up. This was it. This was my thing. So I went to check out some comedy. Which happened to be an early heat of the Hackney Empire awards. What I remember most about that gig was how nervous it made me. Watching the acts perform in front of a huge black backdrop, (A vast macro cosmic void of nothingness) with an audience comprised mainly of other acts and judges (A vast macro cosmic void of twats), it struck me how incredibly vulnerable you are up there as a performer. That made me extremely nervous. I remember my knees shaking as I walked out. What the FUCK have I let myself in for.

Fast forward to present day, and I am walking to Bear Jokes to perform gig number 63 of my challenge. I am not nervous. When I started stand up I would get nervous the moment I booked my first gig several months away, and those nerves would stay with me every waking moment until my hair fell out. Now, I don’t get nervous at all (Bollocks. But the truth doesn’t serve my joke.) Until I saw this:



The function room upstairs has been hired out (Yes, pubs always drop the comedy if they get actual paying customers wanting to give cash for the room. They drop you like a hot sack of shit) so the comedy night has been demoted and moved downstairs. And when I saw this sign, I honestly thought we’d be performing in the actual toilet. Why did this make me nervous? I can’t ‘go’ when people are watching. (It wasn’t really worth it was it?)

But no, we aren’t in the Unisex toilet. (It’s not actually a Unisex toilet, it’s a women’s toilet that’s been temporarily transformed into a Unisex toilet cause it’s the only way to get to the function room in the basement. Great. To get into the gig, you have to walk past a row of shitting women.) A rather tough little gig. A lot of work needing to be done with a girl in front who works in a Camping shop. (She heckles me. Me: ‘Go sell some fucking tents’. It’s all very good natured.)

What did I get from the sudden contrast of the memory of nerves when I first decided to do comedy, to where I am now? Basically: Existential futility. Why do I fucking bother. Nine years later and I’m doing a gig down the road for free on a Tuesday night in a basement that stinks of disinfectant and shit.

Ah, only kidding. It’s a nice gig and a decent room. The lady who sells tents was very nice too and we even swapped telephone numbers. No we didn't. Anyone wanna buy an IPHONE? I need the money to go camping.

Gig No. 63 done. MC/Promoter Andy Quirk

June 29th, Sunday. Gig No.62, Bottom Fest, Rik Mayall tribute night, Purple Turtle

A one off night, hundreds of Rik Mayall fans watching Rik stuff on a big screen, with a couple of acts on in between. Me, following the King, on HIS day, to perform for a load of his hardcore fans. Shat myself? Fuck yes. Like Richie did when Eddie electrocuted him with the cattle prod. Did my five minutes. A pleasure and a privilege.

Gig No 62 done. Promoter Mick Wood

June 28th, Saturday. Gig No. 61, Monkey Business, Sir Richard Steele pub, Belsize Park

A few weeks ago at a gig I walked on stage feeling really relaxed for some reason. And all I did was smile and I got a big laugh. They liked me instantly. Then afterwards, one of the acts said to me that ‘You have instantaneous likeability’. That stuck in my head. It stuck in my head and made me overly conscious of it. And now, every time I make my entrance, that weighs on my mind and I feel pressure. So I'm not relaxed. It’s made me overly conscious of the ‘likeability’ when I walk on stage, and it's become a mental albatross. Once it became a conscious thing, it made me feel uncomfortable, like I had to replicate it. It makes me worry about not replicating it. It's become a thing.

It's weird. It’s like when you fail to get an erection one time with a girl. It's so embarrassing, you worry about not getting one the next time you sleep her. And when you do get her back in your room, (Or dungeon, whatever you’re in to) your anxiety about it kills your erection. And it becomes a thing. Before you know it, you're actually impotent. You can’t get an erection with women at all. Every time you see a naked girl on your bed/torture rack, your penis shrivels up like wet cling film. Then you start to question your sexuality. You worry that you might be a homosexual. So you dabble in gay sex, and threesomes with young Moroccan men. And with them you don’t have any anxiety about getting erections, so you convince yourself you are indeed gay, and spend rest of your life in a loving partnership with a nice man called Donald. You live in a quiet cul de sac in Surrey, where you grow geraniums and dress up in leather bondage gear and cock and ball torture kits. Well, that’s what my entrances are like.

Those first few seconds on stage are actually crucial. They are key. If you don’t seem relaxed, and you’re uncomfortable, that transmits immediately to the audience that you have no faith in yourself and thus are probably not very good. And they lose belief in you. They have to believe you’ll be funny. If they don’t believe it, they won’t laugh. Even if your stuff is really good, proven funny, repeatedly, if on a particular night you walk on looking hesitant and awkward, they’ll think you’ll be shit and sit there, staring at you like a group of tired, pissed off haemophiliacs.

That’s part of the job. Convincing the audience you are funny. I’ve seen very, very good acts with superb material slightly hesitate when they started, or not quite commit with any conviction to their material, the audience lost faith, and they died like an anxiety fuelled penis . Conversely if someone sees a super confident young act with slick, well rehearsed delivery and who follows all the right patterns in their writing so it ‘sounds’ like stand up, and it is delivered with commitment and conviction, the audience will become subliminally convinced they are funny. Thus, we have J**k W*******l. As funny as anal bleeding, but rehearses his act so well doesn’t he? (His favourite method is to go off on a big rant that goes on forever, and then at the end round it off with a climax. He does this a lot. Audiences instinctively give a round of applause, essentially because he’s remembered a big rant and rehearsed it really well. It’s a con. J**k W*******l is to comedy what Andy Coulson is to phone calls.)

So anyway, that is my note to self: Stop over thinking about your likeability and learn to commit with conviction to what you’re doing. And con people into thinking you’re funny.

Gig No. 61 done. MC/Promoter Martin Besserman

June 27th, Friday. Gig No. 60, T Bird Bar, Finsbury Park

Gig went fairly well. Tried some new stuff. Tried an old joke I did years ago but didn’t do again. Now I remember why. Cause it hurts when I do it. Physically. It really fucking hurts. I probably deserve it really, cause it takes the piss out of epileptics. (You can see where this is going already eh? Wankers)

Basically, the joke is this:

Julius Caesar. Did you know he was epileptic? That’s ironic isn’t it? He was the most powerful man in the known world, commanded the largest army in the world. Yet he couldn’t even command his own body

“I came, I saw, I conq...” SUDDEN MASSIVE FIT ON THE FLOOR

Yes. I threw myself on the floor and had a rather convincing fit. Even one of the punters came up to me afterwards and said she thought it was real. Too real. Well, I woke up the next morning covered in fucking bruises, so yes, it was real. I’ve done it about three times now, and every time I get bruises. Bruises on my ankles, knees and elbows. I look like a model for one of those domestic abuse posters. (Imagine, you embark on a career as a model, and the only work you can get is for domestic abuse posters. Or brittle bone disease.) Here’s the one on my elbow:



So I am retiring this joke. As I finished onstage, I retired it. But I said something curious. I said: “That is the first and last time I’m ever performing that joke, so you have witnessed something special”. Or something to that effect. “The first time”? Why did I say that was the first time I said it. It isn’t. As I said, I’ve performed it maybe three times. But the last two times years and years ago. It was one of the first jokes I wrote. I accidentally kicked a woman’s leg in the front row when I first did it. She was really REALLY angry with me. She came up to me after the show to complain that it was deeply offensive to epileptics. I argued that I had tested it to AN ACTUAL EPILEPTIC and he thought it was funny. (Though to be fair, he has a chillingly sick sense of humour. He came round our house once and showed us a website of dead people dressed up as characters from South Park and laughed like a drain. It still disturbs me) Anyway, I retired it. I apologised for kicking her in the leg - you know, assaulting her - and to all epileptics vicariously through this sanctimonious witch. (She wasn’t pissed off for epileptics, she was pissed off for her leg. To be fair though, she probably had a big bruise too. See, I’m not the only one who gets hurt doing this joke. The audience gets hurt too)

So I retired it after her, I retired it after the second time when I woke up with more bruises than someone with a congential bone disorder, and now I’ve retired it again, this time for good. But with a lie. Why did I lie? It wasn’t the first time I performed it. I’ve done it before. The lie just popped out. Onstage. Afterwards, when I spoke about it to an act, he asked if that was really the first time I performed it, and without any time to think, I said “Yes”. I MAINTAINED THE LIE. Why the fuck did I do that? Why is it even worth lying about? The lie popped out impulsively, and suddenly I was forced to maintain it. I bet that’s how compulsive liars and con men start. With an innocent lie. The lie gets reinforced in some way, and they’re obliged to maintain it. Then another lie is need to prop up that lie. Then another. And another. Before you know it, 5 years later, you have no idea who you are. You’re on the run from the police, you have several false identities, and you’re plotting to fake your own death by pretending to die in a canoe. Then escape to Peru to live a new life as a peasant. Well.

IT STOPS NOW. I’M COMING CLEAN. I HAVE PERFORMED THIS JOKE BEFORE AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS ABOUT IT.

“I've got to break free
I want to break free, yeah
I want, I want, I want, I want to BREAK free...”

AND I LIED ABOUT IT. I DO CARE SLIGHTLY WHO KNOWS ABOUT THIS, CAUSE IT’S FUCKING WEIRD.

“Save me, save me, save me
I can't face this life alone
Save me, save me, save me...
I'm naked and I'm far from home...”*

*Queen lyrics. Always good for a laugh

Gig No. 60 done. MC Gwilum Argos

*Picture to be uploaded as I forgot to take it. Will get it sorted ASAP

Meanwhile, here is a picture of a Chihuahua that sat on my lap at Hideaway last week:


This brings to mind one of my first Facebook statuses all those years ago:

“Joe..is forcing himself on a Pekingese Chihuahua”

This time, a Chihuahua is forcing itself on me

*Chihuahua is really hard to spell, I had to Google it. I also had to Google "Is it illegal to sexually assault a Chihuahua". Funny how a minor spell check search can wind up. (*Deletes History)

** I'm enjoying getting some use out of the *star button. I shall have to find ways to make use of it more often:

"Joe Hunter is the new star of comedy" *****

*That's going on my poster

**And so is my Chihuahua

June 25th, Wednesday. Gigs No. 58+59, Square Tavern + Pear Shaped, Warren Street

Obese people. Honestly, I have no idea how they do it. How do they live with all that weight. I’m slightly over weight myself right now, and I’m struggling. Before I set out for these gigs tonight I had a rather over large sausage and fried egg baguette. Jesus. The pain. The sickness. The sausages.

Never eat a sausage and fried egg before you do two gigs. (I say 'sausage' but I mean sausageS, plural. Several sausages in fact. If there was just one sausage in it, there wouldn't be a problem. It's the multitude of sausages that is the problem.) You feel heavy, nauseous, unwell. Not up for bouncing around doing comedy at all. But the heaviness though. Most of all, it was the heaviness. It even hurts to bend over to tie my shoelaces. It’s exhausting. And it occurred to me, obese people feel like this ALL THE TIME. How on earth do they do it? I’m not judging, it’s a hard life. I couldn’t do it. Fat people aren’t lazy. Carrying all that weight, it’s harder than hod carrying. Working on a building site is a piece of piss compared to getting out of bed and tying your shoelaces when you’re carrying 18 stone. Lugging it around up and down the high street in high heat. It’s a job.

I really do need to go on a diet. I am hurtling ceaselessly towards the tragic inevitability of moobs. They cannot, and will not, EVER happen. If I grow moobs, I shall be forced to resign from my post as a fully paid up member of the Alpha Male club. One of which I’m a very proud member. Not only am I a member, I am very high up in that chain of esteemed Alpha Males. For we are a select and exclusive group of Real Men. We are dominant and magnificent paragons of the Masculine Ideal. We are coveted by women every where. At night, the women cry, ‘But where are all the good men?’ And we say, we are here. FIND US. We are rare, and we are hard to find, but we are.here. Do not despair. We are the Real Men you crave. But that’s all fucked if I grow tits.

Gigs No. 58+59 done. Promoter Clare Plested


And Brian Damage

June 22nd, Sunday. Gig No. 57, Compass Comedy, Ickenham

I booked this gig cause I lived in Uxbridge. ‘Ooh, look, it’s only one stop away. I won’t have to do that tediously long train journey to do a gig that night. Delicious.’ Then I moved. And I had to do that tediously long train journey to do a gig that night. Fuck sake.

It wasn’t the only reason I booked this gig. Also, it is a decent gig in a nice new venue. A theatre, no less. But not in the actual theatre. In the foyer, by the tea shop. Where you buy tea and biscuits. Not how I envisaged my future as a child. I thought I’d be in big theatres by now, wowing audiences all over the world with my unique interpretations of the flawed tragic heroes of Shakespeare and Marlowe. I used to read biographies of the great British stage actors, like Gielgud, Burton, Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Lawrence Olivier. One particular quote has stuck with me all these years. A reviewer, critiquing Olivier’s performance of Richard III: “Tonight, Olivier shook hands with greatness”. How grand, I thought. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to shake hands with greatness. But tonight, I had to settle for the woman who sells the tea.

The technician there had red eye contacts. Like the Devil’s eye contacts. Creepy shit. He was nursing his baby. Thus adding to the whole general all round creepiness.The other day a guy’s got Regan on his back, this time a someone's actually made himself look possessed while nursing the head of a innocent babe. Am I missing something? I feel like I’m a comedy Wicker Man, and about to embark on some kind of occult kidnap. I’ll have to keep eyes at the back of my head. Which would of course make every thing seem even more delirious and strange. Like some kind of LSD infused fairground of the undead. Me, walking around with eyes on the back of my head. Laughing red eyed demons cackling at me as they nurse babies, amorous old tea ladies offering biscuits and enticing me into their saucy lair. Not really what I expected of Ickenham to be honest.

I have too many blogs to catch up on, I’m off. Here’s a pic of my pay packet for this gig:


This time next year, I’ll be a millionaire. No I won’t, I’ll be hanging around alleys offering to pleasure old men for snacks. I'll won't be 'shaking hands with greatness' that night.

Gig No. 57 done. Promoter Sian Doughty