A Comedic Night in Prague
The suspense builds…
The Open Mic Night(mare)
Well, I went to an English language comedy club. In a way it was a comedic night though perhaps not in the way anyone involved intended. I got there about ten minutes early to find a depressingly empty bar. Two American barmen served me, scanned my QR code and then stamped my hand. I drank some of my beer and then, fuck this is embarrassing, went outside and stood on the pavement for a while. Should I leave? I’d paid about £3.50 online for this open-mic night so, there was that. I went back in to finish my beer only to be spotted and thence desperately herded downstairs two levels into the dungeon basement where a paying audience of seven was augmented by an equal number of ‘talent’.
Cringe.
The Fun Starts…
The host was a jovial Italian who delivered his lines with more bravado than wit. Probably the high point. Short of material and laughs, he then did the ‘where are you from’ routine with the paying audience. I sat at the back, calculating my responses, and was the last to be asked.
“I’m Tim from the UK. I work in London,” I said simply.
“So Tom, what do you do in the UK?” asked my host.
“I’m a comedy writer,” I answered.
The host shrank back a bit. “You write for the BBC or films?” he asked, seriously over-reaching.
I dwelled on this moment of tension. This is called timing, would-be comics out there. “Nah! I’m just fucking with you, mate,” I said, eventually.
He relaxed but word got out and I wasn’t picked on all night. They even invented themselves a fantasy that I was a big-shot TV producer from the UK. Whatever. I didn’t disabuse them.
This high status was wasted with the ladies though. There were only three in the audience: two were comics who, I believe, held hands all night and the third was a stunning but married Icelandic princess. With her husband. No one was getting laid tonight. A point made most forcefully by the tubby try-out from Slovakia who, with much enthusiasm, regaled all fourteen of us with stories about masturbation.
It didn’t get better. The tropes trooped on, one by one. The angry middle aged female. The angry American black comic who fantasised that this was a white power rally. Yawn. The gay comic who asked the audience how many dicks they’d sucked before painfully transitioning into a grim riff on female oral sex. The guy from Vietnam, or somewhere, who used his ethnicity as a cloak to make incomprehensible racist jokes about Koreans. The two American barmen also made an appearance. For comics, they pour beer well. The lowlight was a torturous and unfunny five minute riff about someone’s dog which I think even the guy telling the joke didn’t understand or remember. I forgot it during it, concerned with counting the bars on my phone.
There were plenty of quotidian anti-Trump, anti-Brexit comments and - topically - boo-hiss implied - the staunch decision by the Icelanders to stay the fuck out of the EU. Bad Iceland.
Some Advice: Be Funny
Afterwards, in the bar with the comedians, I judiciously dispensed advice to each about how to make their jokes land better. After all, I am a commissioning editor for Channel 4 or something. Ricky Gervais’ best mate.
“Lose the dog joke, mate.”
“No, I think you should lean in more heavily into the man-hating vibe, love.”
I told the wanking guy to keep working on his material. It was clearly well researched. He looked like he wanted to start taking my advice then and there. Sidebar: every comedian I’ve ever met is unfunny in real life. Why is that?
Eventually, after holding court for too long, I got the impression I’d amused everyone enough - it happens and it’s always best to recognise this before everyone else does. So I let them get back to their collective post-gig, you were great, no you were great, therapy session.
The trip back across Charles Bridge was its usual tourist hell. Dodge, weave, avoid kicking the praying beggars, don’t smile at the ladies. No pimp was going to front me up tonight. Shoulders back, eyes front: You looking at me, mate? Arriving at my hotel, I noticed my daytime local coffee shop/ laptop two doors away was still open with a youngish crowd noisily spilling out onto the street. Mmm. What to do?
Blockchain and Girls
There was no decision to be made here. I walked into the cafe, possibly several pints over the edge, and ordered a Pilsner. Got talking to a guy - Daniel? - on the barstool next to me who was scribbling impenetrable equations onto his beermat. He was seriously into crypto. He liked to talk about this. A lot. He had thoughts and grand theories. He shared them. At length. We progressed to another crowded late night bar nearby when we got kicked out of the first. Drinks secured - I let him buy - he then started riffing about being an introverted extrovert or some such intellectual nonsense. Shockingly, he finds it hard to meet women.
Shushing his flow, I leaned back in my chair, tapped the shoulder of one of the Latin American girls on the next table, introduced myself and ended up kissing her.
I leant back to Daniel. “Could you do that, mate?” I asked, aware I was now his Alpha God.
Then it all got a bit messy. The girls left in a pack. Daniel gave me his LinkedIn details (soon deleted) and I walked home in the wee small hours aware it was curtain up time for the opening act of a major hangover. But that is for the morning and a queasy tram ride to an art gallery.
I go low. I go high. I am Michelle O’Trump.
Quotidian Notes and Further Reading
Yeah, I’m a bitch. You ever read any of my stuff? Read my Antwerp Bar commentary. Or, how about, The 3rd Battle of Mons. You’ll get the vibe.
I read once - probably in The Guardian - that going to a comedy show is like paying for a prostitute; you’re laying down money for a synthetic experience. Well, socialist fellow-travellers, it depends what you’re after, does it not? Fun can be found anywhere. The soulless experience is an experience. The verdict is in the re-telling.
Serious note. It takes balls or self-delusion to get up on stage and do a set. I’ve never had the cojones. But, Lady Catherine de Bourgh style, if I did, I would inevitably be amongst the greats. But, if you’re a pussy like me, and you’re in Prague, support The Metro Club. They try, they’re fun people despite my bitchiness and you should support these type of good-hearted places. Anyway, it’s cheap as fuck and you’ll have a good time.
This is part of my Prague Quintet of stories. Read my views on Prague Castle and whether it’s worth it and the previous night’s Beer and Loathing in Prague. Both excellent and required reading if you’re planning to go. Or maybe my thoughts on Prague’s Art Museum and a Baroque Concert in St Giles Church?