So last night was the third Tombola of Fun. Yesterday afternoon, just before setting off for the venue I got a text from Sara Pascoe. She’d come down for a nasty chest cold and was unable to perform. She needed to save to save her voice for her three Christmas shows tonight, tomorrow and Saturday. Go see it. I’m sure they’ll be ace. Hopefully we’ll be able to get her on for one of the shows next year. Until then you can see her at any of her upcoming gigs.

I’d taken on an extra act this month, and the shows tended to be pretty packed anyway. I figured this meant that it’d be so packed that it would be pointless me writing any new material because I wouldn’t really get much chance time-wise to say any of it. So I didn’t bother. Well I say I didn’t bother but actually I did make some notes late on Tuesday night, just to be on the safe side. Sara’s absence meant that I had good 20 minute gap to fill now, and only a vague set of late night scribbled notes to guide me. Or so I thought. After rummaging through my bag I realised that I’d forgotten them too. Like so many things in life all I had left were my memories. Memories of me tapping out some notes at 3am that morning. Misty at best but certainly not “water-coloured” in any way. Despite this intro seemed to go fine, the audience even seemed slightly charmed by my claims of “having written no material”. Perhaps they thought it was a clever joke. My compering is lo-fi and shambolic at best, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably not the best person to infuse the audience with much energy, and didn’t want to bring on the first act until I felt I’d warmed up the crowd a little. I pretty much went through every Christmas related half-idea I could remember before I felt confident enough to bring an act on. So far so good, but it left me then with nothing.

Luckily the first act was Richard Sandling, a proper comedian, so I needn’t have worried. The crowd were on his side immediately. You can find a list on Rich’s upcoming gigs here, or better still go and see his sketch show (with Stuart Goldsmith) Kiosk of Champions on the 12th January.

I managed to fill the next bit with the now familiar “Better or Worse” game show. Rich even returned to the stage to play it. He won. This month’s prizes were Alastair Sim’s version of Scrooge and The Muppet Christmas Carol on DVD.

Next up was Tom Crowley who showed me up with his pre-prepared material. It was almost as if he’d thought about what he was going to say before he went on stage. I could learn something from this kid. Tom is one quarter of the sketch group Four Sad Faces who’s new radio series is starting on Saturday at 11:30pm on BBC Radio 7. Eagle eared listeners can probably even hear me laughing in the background. Maybe I’ll be able to get the whole gang down one day. Tom is also a talented cartoonist. See his poster for Four Sad Faces’ Edinburgh show below and check out his cartooning blog here.

At the interval comedians Michal Grobelny and James Mason turned up promoting their new show Double Penetration!! Had they turned up an hour earlier they could have replaced Sara, but I’d already told the other comedians that they could do longer. I’ll try and get them both on next year. Funny people both of them.

Next up was Jake Moore. If I was a clever man I’d have written some notes in the interval. Turns out I’m not clever, but Jake was fantastic. I’d never actually seen him before but I’d heard nothing but good things about him. Go and see him at one of his upcoming gigs. I struggled through the rest of the show relying on raffles and (I’m ashamed to say) reading out jokes from the Christmas crackers that I’d provided for the audience. I say Christmas crackers but these things were the cheapest things I could find (a pound for ten), smaller than actual crackers, and calliing themselves “Foil Bon-bons”, presumably for copyright reasons. They contained no prize, but stickers, a hat and a joke. Classy.

Josh Widdecombe was next and is a natural born comic. I love his ideas and where his flights of fancy take him. Check out his upcoming gigs here and here.

Richard Sandling returned to close the show with a mixture of comic songs he’d written, alongside a selection of sing-a-long children’s TV themes including Postman Pat, The Raggy Dolls, Fireball XL5, and The Muppet Babies. Right up my street. It even highlighted how much I actually really like the Postman Pat theme. The “Letters through your door” bit gets me every time.

Finally I returned to the stage with Tom to do the one bit of the show I had pre-prepared; a recreation of the Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy video with Bing Crosby and David Bowie, including the brilliant sketch at the beginning, just with the names changed. I played Bing’s role. That bit was good. I enjoyed that bit. The moral of this tale is “Always be prepared (you stupid half-wit)”.