Review: The Corporate Gig

Terri Psiakis bites the hand that feeds her, clothes her and pays most of her bills.

Stand up comedians usually perform at comedy nights in pubs but every now and then you’re booked for a corporate gig. Translation: you’re asked to sell your soul.

Corporate gigs are always a gamble. They’re terrific bill-payers but you’re usually performing to people in suits who are thinking: “I didn’t ask for this. Who’s responsible for this? Was it Gary from marketing?” Either that or they’re all really drunk.

I’m not kidding. I once did a gig for a bunch of midwives. And I know what you’re thinking: “Come on, Tez. Midwives are pretty cool, calm and collected. Surely that was an easy gig.” And you’re right: midwives are cool, calm and collected – when they’re at work. But when you give 342 midwives access to an open bar it’s a different story. Some of those midwives got so drunk they were trying to deliver babies that hadn’t even been conceived yet. Don’t think about that for too long.

At my first ever corporate gig, the first question they asked me was “Did you bring your own microphone?” It went downhill from there. At another, they started serving lunch from a bain marie ten minutes into my half-hour set. The entire audience got up to join the lunch queue and there they stood, mostly with their backs to me, while I tried to figure out why I’d ever been born.

After a corporate gig attended by very wealthy, well-to-do women where I did material about living in suburban Watsonia, a woman approached me at dinner to ask “Do you really live there? It’s funny – sometimes I get so used to living in (insert name of hoity-toity locale here) that I forget suburbs like that even exist.” In retrospect maybe I shouldn’t have done that material. In retrospect I’m also glad I wasn’t carrying a gun.

At a corporate function hosted by a well-known TV weather girl, the organizers thought it was a good idea to keep her standing on stage while I performed because that’s where she’d stood during all the corporate speeches. Don’t get me wrong: I like this weather girl. But you don’t see me hovering over her left shoulder while she does the four-day-forecast.

Corporate gigs aren’t all bad. I met my Bloke because I was booked to perform at a financial conference he attended. Hence the reason he often introduces me to people as “The entertainment.”

- Terri Psiakis