One Hour. 12 Comics. Only made it through 4.
Last night, I went to Dan Bialek’s new show “Twelve Shiny Nickels” at The Gardner Theaters. It’s a new concept show where 12 comedians do their best 5 minutes of material so that the audience is in and out in one hour. Sounded interesting given that I think stand-up comedy line-ups should have no more than 6 or 7 comedians at the absolute maximum because no one benefits from a long show with a lot of comedians. No one. Dan’s idea was intriguing because he was going to get us in and out in 1 hour.
The show was scheduled to start at 11pm. It didn’t start till about 11:40pm. Really? 40 minutes late? I would have skipped the audience interviews and went right to the show once I saw the clock hit 11:15pm.
In general, starting 40 minutes late will pretty much kill the experience for anyone who is a casual fan of live comedy and just wanted to go laugh on a Friday night after a long week at work. I normally try to be very forgiving with how a show is run, especially the first time a show is put on like this one…things happen. Mics go out, speakers go bad, people put on plays before your show…it happens. However, it’s just not a good practice to make an audience wait 40 minutes past the scheduled start time. In general, underground shows like this (and I mean literally underground - like basement time - might be cool?), are not for casual comedy fans.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you if the 12 comics in one hour thing is a good idea. I only made it through the first 4. I wanted to hang on to see the great Tom Segura (even the greats do the small shows), but I was tired. I work all week like regular people. I would venture to guess that it’s probably a better idea to keep the line-ups smaller. Also, if you are choosing shows to go to, go to the ones with 6 comedians or less, you’ll appreciate the experience more.
I will go back to this show soon to see if it has improved. There may be good comedians, but it’s important to experience good comedians at a well run show. Otherwise, you won’t appreciate their talent.
Tags: Dan Bialek, Live Comedy, stand-up, Tom Segura, Twelve Shiny Nickels, Underground Comedy
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
sounds like a great idea - dan has always put good comics on his shows and doesn’t cater to putting the crappy “TK” comics up because they bring a crowd. I like the audience interview thing; it sounds interesting, almost like this is an event that has some buzz to it.
but starting on time is something of a pet peeve of mine as well. at least push the interviews to after the show so the people can comment on how much they liked it.
it’s good to have dan back in la.
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Speakers never cause issues at shows . . .
July 25th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
[...] each perform their best five minutes. At least, that’s the idea. As mentioned over on Live Comedy LA the show tends to start late and run long, but when there’s free beer and only $5 to get in, [...]