James Allen, the General Manager of the Glee Club in Cardiff, speaks with Luke Owain Boult about working in comedy, hecklers, and how to get into stand up.
Could you just roughly describe an average day at Glee if there is one?
Well, on an average day, we do shows here at least three times a week, sometimes they’re fully booked, and it’s my job to be here all of the time that we are open to get things ready for the shows, so I spend a lot of time in here. There’s obviously people who make sure we have fully stocked bars and kitchens and stuff like that, and obviously making sure that the shows run well.
How did you get started doing this sort of thing?
I started working for the Glee 11 years ago, when I was working part-time behind the bar here in Cardiff. I’ve obviously been working for the Glee for the entire time, for that 11 years. I’ve worked with three or four of the venues that we have, I’ve worked on the bar and then I was the bar manager here, assistant manager at Nottingham club, and then co-manager at our Birmingham club and now I’m back here as the venue manager.
What’s it like to work with so many comedians?
Generally, they are a joy to work with, they are you know, not particularly diva-ish as performers go. I’ve generally found them to be absolutely lovely to work with. Some of the funniest things I’ve ever heard are from comedians backstage, most are naturally very funny witty people, I’d love to be able to capture some of the moments sometimes backstage, they are sometimes just as funny backstage as they are onstage.
Have you ever done stand up yourself?
I haven’t no, it’s never been something that’s particularly appealed to me, I’m quite happy being behind the scenes of it all, I get to do the voiceovers on the shows but that’s about as far as it goes in terms of performing.
Are there ever any issues with hecklers there?
It’s always a perennial issue. You might get someone who thinks that they are as funny or ever funnier than the act on stage so they’re going to get involved, normally here I think that’s something that fairly short-lived incident. Usually the act that we have will make them feel very uncomfortable and sort them out. The way that we set our rooms and our shows actively discourage heckling really, and unless the act on stage wants the audience to get involved, that’s generally the way it stays and we’ve worked out that the act is the one producing the entertainment.
How do you decide who performs?
We have quite an incredible range in terms of styles, we have acts all over the world. We are always looking for something a little bit different, the standard at the moment is observational humour, for example with Gary Delaney, who has one liners. We also have the absolutely un-shamefully silly, and fantastic acts, which are very different from our normal stand ups. It’s a real mixed bag and we like it that way, we try and get the biggest range of acts that we possibly can.
How can people get a slot at Glee?
Well they can contact us, the best thing to do is send us a little bit about themselves, the things they’ve done, the amount of time they have been doing stand up for and preferably a little video that we can see them in action. Now all of our Thursday night shows are Comedy Carousel shows, which feature three five minute shows most weeks so we can get through the quite considerable amount of applicants that we have so that they can be seen on our weekend shows.
The Glee Club, Cardiff Bay. Info: 0121 693 2248 / www.glee.co.uk
