At school when I wasn’t beating books and trying to be the best I can in the classroom, I excelled at table tennis and cricket.

Occasionally I would act in films, both independent and mainstream, but I really couldn’t say I was an actor. I was more a chancer because I only acted when the chance came. Thus I found myself acting as an American GI in John Schlesinger’s Yanks starring Richard Gere back in the day.

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Last year, however, I got the chance to be a comedian courtesy of an IT contract I was doing at the BBC which ran a comedy course for staff. Technically speaking I wasn”t staff (I was a contractor!) but I managed to persuade the organiser to let me on the course.

The condition was I had to subsequently be a media mentor for any other Black and/or ethnic people wanting to enter the media profession. It was a no brainer really! I took my chance and got some training as a stand up comedian.

I then had to give a performance at the BBC Club in White City, London, in front of a live audience. It was both agony and ecstasy rolled into one. The upshot is I now possess an additional skill which I only wanted for fun.

Did I mention I was blessed?

For starters there was no microphone and my opening act depended on there being one. So, I had to project my voice across the intimately small but full room, to be heard. It was a good experience but one which was at first a little daunting!

Another thing that was different was that no alcohol was served so the crowd was as sober as could be, so if they laughed it mean they really wanted to laugh. What I learnt from this was that alcohol not only lowers audience’s self-consciousness factor but it loosened their inhibitions too. This translates to them being more susceptible to laughing and/or applauding your act, even if it was only moderately funny.

The third thing that was different was that the DJ, a really talented guy called Mr. Gee, had over sold me as a “professional comedian” which raised the audience’s expectation of my output. The “professional” title was also patently not true so when I took to the stage I had to explain to the audience that this was in fact only my second performance. Lesson learnt here was to always provide the MC/organiser with your bio beforehand.

Overall it was still a good performance and I did manage to make them laugh, but not necessarily in the places I actually expected them to laugh. This threw me initially, but I didn’t let it distract me. It made me aware that I needed to get more experience knowing how to know my audience and adjust my material according to them.

Definitely a learning experience!