Bar the intro I completely rewrote the routine, I feel it is safer and even funnier now, though that is up to you! Feedback is, as always, massively appreciated.
I enter with a broken noose round my neck holding a chair leg in one hand and pause before saying
Until very recently, I didn't think I'd be performing tonight.
Pause and look at the chair leg
Everything just broke really, I mean... shit.F**king chair.
That's the last time I go to IKEA- I mean I thought it was anyway but...
Well shit, what do I talk about now.
I'm not joking I have no material here. Maybe this is hell...
Ah, you may be in luck. (I search my pockets frantically, producing a penguin bar)
There we go. Prepare... to be amused.
(reading the joke on the back)
How do penguins get to penguin school?
On their icycles.
pause
On their icycles? What? You see, I have a problem with this. Okay right, so imagine you're riding your bike down a normal, tarmac road, yeah? Pretty easy. Hold on, suddenly the road is ice, because you're in the arctic! Bit more difficult, yeah? Then, as presumably an icycle is a bicycle made of ice, you bike turns to ice. You're having a pretty f**king hard time now aren't you.
Then, as if it weren't difficult enough, you turn into a penguin.
That's where the problem is, really, it's implausible for a penguin to ride a bike made of ice on an ice surface to get to school.
They should do a rewrite.
I know, how do penguins get to penguin hospital?
God, it must be pretty f**king depressing to be the person who writes the penguin jokes mustn't it? An MA in English Literature. An for what? Nobody approaches you and says oh, I really love your work, do they?
(at this point I begin to eat the penguin)
Nobody has your stuff on their headstone if you write jokes for penguins.
Imagine the office, I mean personally in my head it's a super team of failed cloning experiments Tim Vine volunteered for before he made it, but whatever your head conjures up is fine.
Imagine the banter of this miserable office, who can write the best penguin joke, who can write the longest penguin jokes, or who can write the most penguin jokes...
In their suicide note.
(reaching in my pocket)
I've actually got an example here.
(I pull a piece of paper out and unfold it)
Shit that's mine.
(I return it to my pocket and retrieve another)
Right here we go.
(reading from the paper, awkwardly stressing the terrible jokes)
To my friends and family,
I've officially had enough, and have experienced what can only be described as the polar bear minimum of happiness, joy or love for the past year- my sadness however, grows endlessly. I'm in a bad place right now, so forgive me if a don't arcticulate my feelings well. My life as an extremely overqualified pun writer for chocolate bar market leader 'penguin' is dissatisfying to say the least. 3 years of detailed study and a masters, warljust for nothing but writing terrible jokes that children and adults hate alike. This state of affairs in conjunction with other factors, iglooding the worsening of my bi polar bear disorder, habit of recycling jokes and the broken relationship I share with my daughter. It feels to me I am destined to achieve nothing in my personal and professional life, and when Andrea left me... inhuit. So I have opted out. Snow going back. Thank you to my friends and family for tolerating me, and sorry mum for leaving you to p-p-p-pick up the pieces one last time.
Goodbye.
End.