Nothing beats the giddy flutter of excitement before facing an audience – I’m lucky to be back gigging

Reliable jokes are like custard, writes Jenny Eclair – ideal for covering up the dry and tasteless bits after a year off-stage

The return to live stand-up has been been scary and exhilarating (iStock/Getty)

It’s been a long time, and I’m rustier than an old tractor left to rot in a shed, but I have gigged again, and it was both terrible and delicious in equal measures.

Terrible because I decided, in typical masochistic fashion, that I must only perform new material. As most comics know, the hit rate of new material is perniciously low – and yet also delicious. Just as swimmers need to swim, stand-ups need to be in front of a live audience.

As I said as I walked onstage: “Zoom is great for stuff like Christmas with the family, but not for gigs.” I like to see my audience and I like to smell ’em. My crowd, incidentally, tend to be top notes of Sauvignon Blanc crossed with Deep Heat.