Back on stage once more

I don't even remember the last time I performed - my comedian life seemed almost like a strange dream from before I was married. So tonight, to jump back into it after 5 weeks off, felt strangely intimidating.

I remember how I used to be stressed for days beforehand, fretting over every word. And I missed that, as I've got more blase over time. So it was a little strange: partly welcome, partly unwelcome, to be sitting in a badly decorated boxroom behind the sound desk at the Fringe Club, wondering if you can call something the green room where the decor is overpoweringly flaky plaster.

Never before did I realise a fridge full of water was a luxury, compared to two jugs of room temperature water and an electric fan. And seven copiously perspiring men. You never know you had a good thing until it went.

The venue is nicer than the basement of Elgin Street: great lighting, a man doing nothing but running the sound desk. But at the same time, it was missing some things that make the basement great. The ceiling is higher, which makes laughter dissipate, and the choice of music between comedians was odd: I wasn't expecting out-takes from Paul Simon's Graceland.

So you like some things, and you miss others. So it goes. I was terrificaly nervous on stage, and it's a bit odd to have the extra separation from the audience, but they laughed at almost all the right places - no love for my Canadian joke, but unfeasibly good response for some of my Britishness material. Which was nice.

Afterwards, cause I'm living the rock star lifestyle, I had a ginger ale, and went home and made my wife cook my some soup. That's livin' alright!