This week I kicked off 2026 with a ten-spot at an Instant Laughs gig in South Mitcham Community Centre. The promoter, Marvin McCarthy runs a bunch of gigs local to me in around south-west London, so it’s always nice to get a spot that I don’t have to travel too far for.
This monthly gig has only been running since December, and since it’s in a community centre the audience is invited to bring their own booze. This was the first time I’ve seen a BYOB gig, but Marvin does a good job of promoting his nights and despite it being only the second show at the venue, 11 locals turned out to watch, including a family celebrating a birthday.
The room we were in felt a bit sterile, with fluorescent lighting and school chairs, and it would be easy to not take the gig seriously – but 11 people is a much better audience than you’d get at most London open mics. The way I see it, they’ve chosen to come out on a miserable Thursday evening in January to watch some entertainment, and the acts owe it to them to put on the best show they can, even if it did have strong AA meeting vibes.
I had been planning to run in some newer material, but since there was a half decent audience, and I unexpectedly got bumped up from the second half to the opening spot, I played it safe and stuck with my old set.
As it turns out, that didn’t make much of a difference – I got some laughs, but struggled to really get much out of the audience. I’m pretty rusty at the moment, and probably shouldn’t have opened the show, but it wasn’t a complete write off, and it cheered me up to see most of the other acts in the first half struggling to win them over.
On the plus side, the host Gareth Neale did a great job of keeping the energy high in between our failing sets, and Jimmy Tam, Phil Green, Doug Graves, and Don Biswas all smashed it – so the audience got decent value for money in the end.
I’m on a mission to gig more regularly and shake off the rust, so I’ve got a few more gigs in January and need to get some booked in for February. Even if this week didn’t go brilliantly, it still feels great to be getting at it again.