The year I left teaching, I decided to tick something off my bucket list: performing stand-up comedy. I researched the art, learnt the discipline, and finally stepped on stage in front of seven people and one canine in a small pub in Nailsea. After stuttering through my lines for ten minutes, I retreated from the stage undefeated but also an exhausted, sweating, nervous wreck. But it's remained a subject that fascinates me to this day, and what I learnt that night still inf