Manchester-based stand-up John Bishop is a hugely popular comic UK-wide, but he rarely plays London. Now is your chance! In the next week he performs his solo show Elvis Has Left the Building at the Bloomsbury Theatre and at the Arts Depot. Here, he recalls his first ever gig, and how his route to becoming a comic was, erm, unorthodox.

The Frog and Bucket, Manchester. October 2000.

I got into comedy completely by accident. When I went along to the Frog and Bucket for an open mic show, I only meant to watch. I was going through a divorce and was drinking a lot and I thought I'd go to a comedy club instead of having a drink.

Then I found out it was free entrance for performers and £4 for everyone else... Even then I had no intention of getting up there and telling jokes. I thought the room would fill up and I could slip away whenever I wanted. But the crowd never came – there were only about six people there in total – and my name was read out second by the MC Mick Ferry, so I thought, sod it, I've got nothing to lose.

I'd never been on a stage before and I was shocked by how bright the lights were. I couldn't see anyone. And I only had one joke. 2000 was when the French farmers were barricading the roads with bails of hay to protest about fuel prices, and I said, "I can understand why the farmers are angry, I can see that barricading the roads achieves things – but it'd be handy if they'd done this in 1939. Would've saved us a lot of problems."

At least four of them chuckled. That first laugh, it's like losing your virginity – it's not perfect and you know you'll get better but you're completely bitten by the bug.

Pearl and Dean

Then I just started talking about my divorce. I was supposed to do seven minutes, I think I did 35. I didn't know about things like time so I just stood there waffling on, getting it all off my chest. They had to start playing music to get me off. Pearl and Dean, it was. I was so ignorant though I thought somebody had pressed a button by mistake – "It's alright everyone I'll just wait for this music to stop...!"

I came off-stage and I just knew I would do it again. Mick was really gracious and gave me good advice – it surprised me how nice comedians were, if they were nasty I would never have gone back. I was so ignorant about comedy though – I'd only ever been to two comedy nights and I had no idea that people made a living out of it. I was a sales marketing director for a pharmaceutical company – a good job – and the comedy started getting in the way.

I got my first headline slot three months later, and I did a warm-up for Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, but I had to turn down the opportunity to do a second series as it was clashing with sales meetings. So I was looking at sales graphs instead watching Robbie Williams being interviewed.

The Frog and Bucket was where Peter Kay and Johnny Vegas started but I was ignorant to all of that as well. I got booked to support Johnny Vegas and I thought he was a singer because of his name. He came backstage and I asked him if he worked there – he thought I was taking the piss.