Evidence that Chipping Campden Comedy Club is a place of learning as well as entertainment

I learned some things while performing poetry at the Chipping Campden Comedy Club last night.  (I just realised that could be shortened to CCCC which sounds something a very accommodating Italian would say.)  I thought I would pass on my new-found wisdom in case you find yourself in a similar situation.


Lesson 1. Don't take your sister, if she resembles you closely, to any of your performances.  She will get half of the thanks for your performance afterwards and, also, you will get people looking at you strangely and thinking how much you look like that woman who performed her poetry.

As for differences between the sisters, there were nun at all.

Lesson 2.  Make sure you have planned for the likelihood that a cat will stroll into the performance space while you are mid-poem.  Have a wittier comment ready for the occasion than mine, which was 'Oh! Oh!  I can't believe this!'  (which was ad libbing at its very, very creative best).  And bear in mind that the people at the back won't have seen the cat and will wonder what the HELL you are talking about.

'Interrupt my performance again, sunshine, and you're stew.'

3. Nerves will get to you before the performance, so you may need to visit the loo in the pub you're in while waiting to arrive at the venue.  If you do, accept, the first time it happens, that the reason the loo door won't open is because someone is in there already.  Don't persist in rattling the door like an dork as though you're trying to free it from its hinges.  You will only have to go back into the pub in order to avoid being there when the person you have terrified with your rattling ventures out of the cubicle.

Esmerelda had been in the cubicle for three hours now, too scared to come out
in case the herd of wildebeest was still there.