Polly Goes Public

It started when I was seventeen and I asked my mum to sign a disclaimer stating in the event that I was killed doing a parachute jump, she would not take legal action. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done – (asking my mum, not the jump!) – but I knew at the time it was a milestone and would mean that I would never be afraid of taking a risk.

I was working as an assistant producer in television up until last summer, a career with a definite path, but I felt unfulfilled. Some of the TV projects were great but mostly you end up doing a ten week contract in six weeks, and after a while I felt like I was chasing someone else’s dream instead of my own. I knew it was time to take another leap of faith, so I decided to bite the bullet and jump again!

I had been secretly writing comedy for about 5 or 6 years, but when I went to the Edinburgh Fringe last year and hung out with all the comics, I knew I had found my tribe. I enrolled on a stand-up course with Amused Moose and was spat out last February with a reasonable seven minute set.

I am now on a mission do to as many gigs as I can in six months – 18 and counting! When I have done 100, I’ll have earned my stripes.

It’s anything for stage time right now, so this weekend, I am off to NYC to do some open spots. I have managed to get myself a gig at The Living Room in Brooklyn on Friday, but they have made me promise not to use the f-word! F**k!!

On Monday I am hoping to do 5 open spots in one day at different venues. It will literally be a case of run in, grab the mic, puke out some jokes and run off to the next venue. Some of them could me just me, a mic, one man and his dog… but it still counts as a gig!

I’m still an embryo in the stand-up world and this hasn’t been done by a rookie London comic before so I hope it works out, otherwise I will be crying all the way home, singing that Foreigner (or was it Cutting Crew?) song, ‘Aah, I just died on my arse tonight. Must have been something I said. Shoulda just walked off the stage! Shoulda walked off the stage!’

But the bad gigs are just as important as the good ones, so what’s the worst that can happen? Well, you’ll soon find out.

Polly Pyne xx

PS Did I mention I’m staying with a rapper, whose mum used to be a porn star? Everything I do is research..