Brit tries standup on holiday

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 30th, 2007

A first-person account in the U.K. Telegraph by Kieran Falconer tells how he handed over 600 British pounds for the privelege of flying to America, being trained in standup for two days and getting onstage at Gotham:

Clicking through websites recently I discovered a company in America– Vocation Vacations– that allows you to try out jobs for a couple of days, partly as a holiday and partly as a possible career change. You can try everything from alpaca farmer and coffee-bar owner to ringside announcer at wrestling matches. But I chose to do stand-up comedy, and to do it in New York in one of the city’s biggest clubs, The Gotham Comedy Club, which accommodates 326 punters.

We’ll be flying to London next week to try our hands at alpaca farming.

Vanessa Hollingshead is the one who does the tutoring. According to his account, the bloke does okay:

The Gotham Comedy Club now seems like the size of Wembley, and although the crowd is no more than 150 people, they don’t look happy and I’m sure they’re armed. (Richard Pryor once said that if they’re laughing, they’re not shooting.)

These Brits gotta stop reading the Telegraph! (They all think we Yanks are constantly dodging bullets. That kinda thing hasn’t gone on in NYC since the Dinkins administration!)

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