Spalding’s South Holland Centre Charity Open Mic Night show gives school teacher opportunity to take to the stage in comedy debut

A school teacher will be taking to the stage to perform stand-up comedy for the first time tonight.

Glenys Dawkins, 64, who teaches at Spalding Grammar School, is joining the Charity Open Mic Night Show line-up at the South Holland Centre.

The Spalding theatre show is giving an opportunity for newbies or experienced comics to try their luck at making the audience laugh – with MC Zeph Churchill hosting proceedings.

Glenys, who lives in Gorefield, said: “Zeph mentioned it and she is MC-ing and I have been meaning to do one for ages.

“I had a captive audience with students and always enjoyed having a bit of a laugh with them.

“With teaching I was talking for six hours a day so I thought ‘how different can it be to talk for 10 minutes?’.”

The show will be raising money for two of South Holland District Council chairman Andrew Woolf’s chosen charities – Blood Cancer UK and Mencap.

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It features professional headline act Keith Farnan and performer Dan King, along with a line-up including Michael Hayward-Salvadori, who is also taking the mic for the first time.

Ms Dawkins said: “I have thought about what I will do it on – when I was off sick I spent a lot of time on social media and local internet community groups.

“Occasionally I will put a post on a group local to the area and sit back and see what happens.

“I will talk about social media and the types who go on – the one who is always on, the one who doesn’t say anything – and I will go from there.”

Citing Dara O Briain and Miranda Hart as her comedic influences, she added: “I am not feeling nervous but I probably will be more when I get there.

“I love watching Live at the Apollo.

“When we are looking at issues it is important to be able to laugh at ourselves.”

So what advice would the have-a-go debut comic give to others?

Ms Dawkins said: “If you are sitting there thinking ‘I’d love to do it’ – just do it.”

Visit the South Holland Centre website to purchase tickets.

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