As a strong, enviable figure of a man, there aren’t too many things I’m afraid of. Heights? Nope. Stand me atop a 200-floor building and order me to peer over an unledged edge onto ant-filled streets, sure I’d get a bit of vertigo, who wouldn’t? But I can stand at the top of a ladder as good as anyone. Flying? Nope. I used to really enjoy and get excited by it. The ultra-strong air-con, the food tray with little compartments for carefully organising your meal, even the moveable window cover, giving you the option of open or covered... it was brilliant. Now I just find it... not boring, just a bit... normal. Like getting the bus. What about Public Speaking? Nope. I don’t get nervous standing in front of a crowd of people, presenting myself, awaiting their judgement on whatever it is I have to say. I’ll do it if I have to (or if someone has to, I don’t mind volunteering). But I’d never be able to perform stand-up comedy, I just wouldn’t have the material. One thing however, that does fill me with the dread of a Japanese Businessman at a Reptile House, is being pointed out by a comedian, as part of his/her set. This fear has managed to serve my self-protection sensibilities only too well in the past, but was about to come to an end.

I’d never been to a comedy gig before. Not for a household name at a stadium or theatre, nor a dirty underground club for political satire and casual homophobia, nor even a local pub’s Tuesday Comedy Night for a chancer with a couple too many bubbles inside him, and a couple of gags drunkenly scribbled on the inside of a cigarette packet. It was this fear of Stand-Up Comedy, which had so far encouraged me to keep my distance. Theatre gigs aren’t too bad really, you’re not as likely to be seated in the front row, and even if you are the comedians entrusted to fill entire London theatres are usually good enough not to need the audience (unless they heckle). So I enthusiastically agreed to join Gazz (as did Nick) at a new show from his and my favourite comedian Stewart Lee (of Fist of Fun and With Richard Not Judy... not fame, but you know). £20 well spent for a couple of hours of laughs.

Thankfully Lee didn’t halt his tirade against Adrian Chiles (speaking of the middle-aged morning television stalwart as a ‘Piss-filled Toby Jug’), peer across at me – all the way over in row F, point with a clenched fist and trembling, sharp finger, and scream some humiliating taunt such as ‘Look at that Berk in the shirt! What a Plank! Or some other such witty remark. At the other comedy gig I was at this week... I wasn’t as lucky. This was one of those dingy dirty, underground clubs you see illegal immigrants sign-holding and flyer-forcing for on Thursday nights, and it was exactly the type of gig I am piss-myself scared of. But... the tickets were free (some mix up at a previous gig Claire was at – free tickets to an upcoming show) so what do you want me to do, burn them? Fuck off. Sadly, it turns out because the tickets were ‘free’ you couldn’t reserve a seat. Which when you arrive, the only free seats are either in the toilet, or in the first row, even if you get there an hour early. We of course, arrived 2 minutes early, and so didn’t have a leg to complain on. The front row beckoned.

Within 30 seconds of the compere’s warm-up act (after he’d run through an amended gag about the front row being bare), he turned to me, like a hawk spotting Earthworm Jim on a sun lounger in his back garden, unassumingly reading the Guardian on Sunday. “Let me shake your hand son!” he screams at me, “takes some BALLS to sit there!” – I didn’t bother correcting him that it was actually Claire’s idea. He might have seen that as a type of heckle, and either gone to town on me with his no doubt superior wit and intelligence, and power of a microphone; or just sheepishly skulked across to the other side of the stage and stumbled into the remainder of his already overworked routine – which would have been worse. Then he continues to notice I’m sat with a lady on each arm, and thus congratulates me for being a player. I reveal, when asked... which of the ladies is the Mrs, and he legendises me again, for having the compassion to allow Claire to join us on what is obviously a romantic date I’ve bought and paid for. Again, revealing that it was Claire who had invited the two of us, and who was allowing us to join her would have only been seen as a heckle. And so intelligently, I chose not to mention it myself.

After that guy had said his goodbyes, we had the stock Fat Comedian. Who did jokes about fat people (luckily I’m not fat – So says I), so he didn’t mention me. Plus I was sat so close to the stage, I don’t think he could see me over his belly. The second was a girl (with a guitar). This meant she did jokes about men and how shit they are – I am one of those things, so again I received brunt. Brunt in the form of her stopping mid-song and screaming, one inch away from my face. The third, I felt the most likely to receive a well-oiled, professional ribbing. He started talking about Des’Ree, asking her name... then bringing her in, as an aspect to most jokes.

“Des’Ree was there!”

“Des’Ree’s first in the queue!”

‘I bet Des’Ree knows what I’m talking ‘bout... BAM!’

My narcissistic mind assumed he was building to something, about to bring me in to play by accusing me of looking pissed off with him overtly coming on to my girlfriend. So in preparation I made certain to laugh un-commonly loud after every single mention of “Des’Ree”, just to make sure he knew I was cool with it.

In the end it was simple. The guy lost all interest in me (if he ever had any) and Des’Ree, when he made some simple gag, suggesting he had recently woken up on the bus, with another man’s penis in his mouth. For the next 20 minutes, the poor lad couldn’t get another joke out, because the man sat behind us was bellowing his Youdman laugh across Leicester Sq for all to enjoy. I could, and perhaps should have been pissed off he was ruining the rest of the set for everyone. But truth be told... it’s impossible not to enjoy a fat man laugh. To hear someone enjoying themselves that much, it really helps you out, puts you in the right kind of mood more accepting of jokes, good or bad.

It’s clear that the audience, are what makes good comedy good. And this is why you pay up to £100, or even £200 for some of the bigger shows, as opposed to £10 for the DVD. It’s easier to laugh and enjoy whilst in a room full of other people laughing alongside you. But there’s another end of the scale, as I found out later that week. I’d found a taste for the comedy, and thought I’d treat myself to some proper, professional stuff... £20 gets you a ticket to a Saturday night, at a larger theatre, in the company of Mr. Stewart Lee. This was sure to be good. Surrounded by loads of people, they’d all be laughing... I’d be laughing too right? Wrong.

I might have had a chance, had I been sat next to a jolly fat guy, giggling himself into a frenzy at a mere turn of Stew’s facial muscles. But Gazz was two seats away, and to my right was ‘Dick in a Scarf-Man’. From the moment he sat down – five minutes late, interrupting everything, with what I can barely allow myself to assume was his inexplicable girlfriend, he was banging on about hating American comedy (she was American) because it wasn’t dry enough; and how he LOVED Mock the Week because it was perfectly ‘his sort of thing’. He spent the next two hours performing tricks of increasing annoyance. Guffawing stupidly – not in a fun, childlike, infectious sort of way, more like an infectious STI; giving away what he thought was the punchline to every single gag and story, then smugly making smug noises the one time he’d guessed right; scoffing, and saying “Ya Ya Ya, I HATE Mock the Week also!” in the queue for the gents; and explaining every single joke to his poor girlfriend, assuming she had the intelligence of a garden pea. My good God he was a dick, and he ruined the entire experience for me, if I’m honest.

Best stick to DVDs, at least you know if you get some twat sat next to you whilst you’re watching it you can always stop it, and watch it later, when your housemate’s out.