MICK McNEILL

 

Today, we welcome rising comedy star Mick McNeill to the blog. A comedy club favourite who's performed at weekend slots and headlined in clubs all over Scotland and ran two shows at 2022's Edinburgh Fringe. 

Thanks so much for doing this man, let’s get right into it. What made you want to get into stand up?

Happy to do it! I'd always loved making people laugh but hadn’t thought much about it until I was 28. My friend asked me to do a filmmaking class with him, it wasn’t great and after that I did a screenwriting one which was something I’d always had interest in being a huge film lover. I didn’t find that I was great at that either. The teacher said there was a comedy writing class next semester so I thought I’d try that thinking it would be just scripts. There were a couple weeks where he got us to write and read out a stand-up routine for the class and I wrote mine in about half an hour in work before the class thinking it was terrible. When I got to the class I read it out and my set killed and I could believe it. I did an open mic a couple weeks later and did at least three a week from that point on. Sadly nine months later lockdown hit. 

You’ve recently been a headliner at clubs like The Stand, what challenges have you faced going from open spot to these professional spots?

The hardest thing was first getting to open gigs when the crowds were not warmed up. You think you have a twenty-minute set but with fewer laughs it’s down to 18. You have less fun cause the laughs aren’t what you’re used to doing middle spots and pressure is on you to get the night off to a good start. Also, I’m not a super energetic act which doesn’t help if you’re trying to open so it made me more conscious of trying to lift my energy levels and make my set more of a performance. 

With headling Red Raw, the crowd has higher expectations for you than any of the other acts and are not as kind. It’s also a much longer night than most gigs and you don’t get on stage til 10.35 and people are much drunker than I’m used to. The first time I did it people were chaotic, chatting, and shouting, and generally I found it hard to get the whole room to laugh at many jokes. The second time the room was soberer and I felt I really got them all on the side after the first few minutes and loved it. Again, the pressure is on to close the show well and make sure I get booked to headline again and don’t fail to rise to the challenge. Meanwhile, you’re still wanting to show the bookers some material or at least one or two jokes they haven’t seen as it’s Tuesday night and not a weekend.

Another thing in doing a twenty-minute set, you need to have more topics to keep the crowd interested whereas with a ten you can always get away with talking about just one or two subjects. That’s my perception anyway. I’m also conscious that other more established acts might not see me as a headliner and I want to show that I deserve the spot. 

You did two shows at The Fringe, Big Mick Energy and Talking Heads with Paul McDaniel and Fearghas Kelly. Any plans to bring these back for future comedy festivals and what challenges did you encounter doing them?

Next Fringe, I'd hope to do a 45-minute solo show at a good venue and a good time slot. The main challenges were flyering and trying to deal with the pressure and anxiety of people potentially not coming to the show on any given day. I enjoyed pretty much every performance. Doing ten minutes of hosting at the start was a learning curve, some days it felt easy and seemed to go great, other days I felt like a total novice and it seemed to be highly dependent on the audience whether or not I was able to do any funny crowd work. I’d imagine once you get better at it it becomes easier to be a funny host regardless of what the crowd is like. 

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten from a pro comedian?

Tom Segura said in a special something along the lines of ‘as long as you accept that you might not get to where you want to be, the journey there will make it worth it’

What advice would you give to someone who wants to try stand-up comedy?

Gig as much as possible, minimum three times a week, write every day but still hone a set so you get the same jokes as tight as possible