Headliner

Last night I checked a major goal off my checklist of stuff to do at some stage by headlining Happy Yess Ccomedy. When we put the program for the year together earlier on, we decided a musical comedy night would be fun, and the committee (which at that stage consisted of a few friends sitting around in a pub thinking about what we wanted to do (actually, it still does)) immediately suggested I headline it, and we locked it in for August. I was flattered at the time, because I can think of at least two other local comics who are a) better musicians and b) arguably funnier than me. But I definitely grabbed the opportunity with both hands and set about putting some material together. I really didn’t want this one to be the sort of gig that I threw together at the last minute. I’m done with that lifestyle, remember?

So I finished writing my material the afternoon of the show. Yeah, well I’ve always maintained that the last minute is the most powerful moment in all of time and space. Deal with it. On top of that, I also realised that I hadn’t really written an appropriate song to finish with, as the song I had managed to compose that afternoon was not sufficiently uppity. So I resolved to write an extra one between the start of the show and when my set came up. No biggie.

Actually, I had plenty of time in the end; Happy Yess Comedy is usually done by nine, but we kept on rolling until nearly ten o’clock, mainly due to extra set-up time and a few acts with a creative interpretation of ‘five minutes’. But I finally got up, did my set and got down again, without causing too much damage to myself or anyone else, so that was an achievement.

Happy Yess Comedy has really come a long way this year, to the extent that we’re now looking at shows in other venues and have rebranded ourselves “Top End Comedy”. We’ve got shows, gigs and maybe a trip to Adelaide in the pipeline, so make sure you keep an eye out for us.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs