Peaks and Valleys?

When your performing should you worry about peaks and valleys in your routine? As in funny joke followed by hilarious joke followed by funny joke etc. Should you have this or is it better to simply have all great jokes. Failing that though is the peaks and valleys method an acceptable way to perform?

For instance I'm currently doing mainly 5 and 7 minute slots and I know I easily have enough material (be it tested or not) to fill 15. I've been wondering about approaching a few promoters who know me quite well and asking to do 10 minutes but although I have enough good material for a solid 7 if I wanted 10 then not all my material would be as good as the rest of the set (although I like to think that it would still work and not kill the room), so should I wait till I have enough material for a solid 10 or just go for it now with what I've got? Cheers

I think it's Jimmy Carr who grades his material into one of three categories A) Gold, straight in the set, B) Okay but needs rewriting and C) Duff stuff that needs dumping or serious reworking.

The aim is then to have a set with as much "A" material as possible with, perhaps a few "B" jokes which can be cycled out once you have more "A" grade stuff.

Ultimately though, even if you have a set full of killer lines there will still be peaks and troughs as audience will react slightly differently to different jokes, as long as you can have a peak at the beginning and a huge peak at the end of your set then you'll be doing well.

As you become a better comedian you might find that instead of having more, you have less material as your standards become higher.