Eva Bradley: No laughing matter

Humour is a little bit like making a good pav - we've all tried it with varying degrees of success at some stage but essentially it is mastered by few, a flop for many, simple and delicious when done right but one bit of bad egg in the mix and it falls flat and fails to rise.
When you write a nationally syndicated humour column there is a not unreasonable expectation that your funny bone is constantly on point, that witty quips and quick amusing retorts are all part of the package, all the time.
But being funny is a relative thing and for me, at least, it is something which, if I can do it at all (and glorious vitriolic hate mail would suggest some certainly don't think so) it happens in the privacy of my own home, an intimate process between me and my keyboard and involving frequent re-writes and constant stabbing at the delete button.
Standing on stage with a live audience paying for the privilege of spontaneous amusement is about as appealing to me as finding myself naked and rolled in cat food in the Colosseum right before show time circa 80 AD.
Despite this fear and loathing of public performance, this was exactly the situation I found myself in last Thursday night when a favour was called in and I was put in the hot seat for a charity shin dig sculpted around the rapid-fire Kiwi comedy show, 7 Days. With two teams comprised of local personalities who, like me, were not known for any particular talent for stand-up comedy, we were put on the spot and tasked with entertaining a large crowd by responding to visual cues and questions in such a way that our audience might within a short space of time respond in kind by rolling about the floor in uncontrolled mirth.
As the sea of faces stared back at us expectantly and the MC tapped on the mic, I could tell right away the most amusing moment of the night would without doubt be watching the blood drain from the contestants' faces as the reality of what lay ahead for the next 60 minutes dawned on all of us.
As is the way when people are nervous and expectations are high, we all immediately went to the fall-back position of any flailing humourist and made inappropriate, sexually-charged side swipes at the opposition which drew some sympathetic sniggers but essentially highlighted the fact that we were floundering.
Never in my wildest dreams or nightmares did I foresee a moment in time when I would be forced through sheer desperation to make inappropriate public reference to the size of a well-respected Member of Parliament's ... eherm ... member.
That he took my grubby quip and expanded on it shows he, too, was feeling the heat.
Being funny is (a little like singing and solving long multiplication without pen and paper) something inherent that we either have or we don't.
And yet while all of us know without doubt if the singing should be kept strictly in the shower, few of us have any real gauge on that elusive sixth sense: humour.
Everyone has that unfortunate friend who can't be taken anywhere for fear of the wildly inappropriate mother-in-law jokes and lots of us come up with hilarious responses to situations and events several hours after the moment has passed.
"Must have a sense of humour" is a pre-requisite for so many people when searching for their ideal mate, and yet just what sort of sense and how we measure it is anyone's guess.
For my sins, I am grateful to have had the opportunity this week to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that "funny" is not a switch I can flick on a whim.
What we each find amusing is entirely objective but what I know now is that for me, a stage, a mic and a live studio audience really is no laughing matter.