Somehow, Don't Ask Me How...

I was going to blog about how the show in Leicester went (which I will still do) but in between the last update and this one, I found out some rather excellent news regarding it.

Somehow, don't ask me how, it has been nominated for Best Show in the Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival Awards.  I haven't yet figured out a way of telling people without sounding like I'm showing off.  Probably engaging in polite conversation before blurting it out and getting rid of the banner would help.

Anyway, it goes without saying that I am beyond made up.  I wasn't expecting to get nominated at all and am extremely pleasantly surprised to be.  And I am in good company too - the other nominees are Tony Law, Ian Stone, The History Girls and Andrew O'Neill.  So hearing that made Friday a really nice day.

The show itself was a lot of fun.  Newer bits worked, other bits can be jettisoned and I enjoyed doing it so I'm very much looking forward to working more on it and, hopefully, doing it in Edinburgh in August.  Currently there are some more previews booked in and any more will be added to the gig list.

Thanks very much if you came along and laughed at my show, it's much appreciated.

More Prolific an Online Presence...

Right, that backlog?  Got quite large didn't it?  Now, along with a bit of retroactive blogging from notes I've scribbled with notebooks, it looks like for a couple of days I'll have to update more than once.  Because I've only covered a bit of January so far, I'm not going to let that stop me from becoming more prolific an online presence in 2012.

I've already forced myself to use Twitter more often and while I have started to use it more frequently, I'm still woefully inept at it when compared to some of my fellow comics.

Currently, with the show at Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival done, I'm back to gigging and working on a script I've been playing with for a while now.  Until the end of March I am supporting Pete Firman on his Jiggery Pokery tour as well as doing a couple of other gigs around and about so there'll be a lot of miles covered.

There is now a new page on this blog for gigs and where I will be, should that interest you.  I've tried to spruce it up with start times and ticket prices and, where possible, links to where to buy tickets.  It's not something I'm good at, self promotion, but it's necessary innit?

I thought I'd end this update with a photo of what was looking down on me in the dressing room in Bromsgrove yesterday...

A Nice Image

I found out yesterday that on the same day as my show for the Leicester Comedy Festival, the EDL will be marching in Leicester.  Also that day Unite Against Fascism will be doing a counter march.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

That's right - passing trade.

I'm sure the show will have elements that will appeal to both groups.  The EDL can sympathise with the character of my manly uncle and UAF will probably quite like my bit about the crying unicorn.  They will see their differences through laughter and all will be alright.  Isn't that a nice image?  The English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism laughing together?

The utopia is near.

Tweets Calling Me a Paedophile

Got a bit behind again with the old blogging, increasing the backlog of updates I need to do but I'll get there.  I've got until 31st December after all.

Today was an odd one.  For the show in Leicester I've been compiling a slideshow of the screen grabs of the tweets calling me a paedophile and such like which was an odd way to spend an hour this afternoon.  Here is an example of one of them;

I also got sent through the copy of the poster for the show on the 4th, which is as follows;

Spammy Comment 2

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Looking Forward To & Dreading

Tonight is definitely for the unfamiliar bits of the show and trying to get to know them better.  I'm hoping I'll find new jokes along the way too.

The last one of these I did at the Frog & Bucket was a lot of fun and extremely useful.  Tonight I'm running through some of the Uncle Keith stuff (including a few newer bits I want to throw into that section of the show) in preparation for the Leicester show.

Which, by the way, I am both looking forward to and dreading.

And Mine, Obviously

In the interests of actually getting people to come to the show on the 4th February, I decided against doing the more unfamiliar bits at the Other Preview Show last night, so named because this was the preview show that was in a much smaller venue with more obscure names.

It seemed like a scenario to play it safe so I just did the bits I know well, indeed bits that are in my set anyway, in the hope of coming across good enough for people to come and see the show when the time comes.

I enjoyed the gig a lot, and if you are about Leicester during the festival I'd recommend going to see the shows by these acts;

Fergus Craig
Matt Richardson
David Morgan
Jonathan Elston
Sara Pascoe

And mine, obviously.

Plug Away

Tonight I am previewing some of 'Napkins' as part of one of the Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival preview show and am both nervous and curious to find out how some bits will go.  I've done them before but not for a while and the actual show is getting closer and closer so I'm excited about getting certain bits out at the same time as being anxious as to how they will go.

As uncomfortable as I am doing it, you've got to plug away haven't you?  So, for what good it will do, you can get tickets for the show by clicking this link.

Updating in 'Real Time'

You may have noticed, Kenneth, that I have been going back and updating what happened on days where I did not blog.  I've been filling in the gaps so to speak.  With a backlog of four days still to get through, I'll be doing them piecemeal at the same time as updating in 'real time'.

I've also been trying to dip my toe further into the Twitter waters, just because it seems like a useful tool.  And also I like to get screengrabs of 'Chris Stokes is a paedo' tweets for use in the stand up show.

The whole thing still amuses me though.  Social networking is supposed to bring people closer together by facilitating ease of communication.  But because it's done on a keyboard any warmth to the sentiments expressed just come across as hollow.

For example, somebody on Facebook posted how irritated she was that her job interview today had been cancelled.  Cue friends offering sad faces and 'awwws' to help make it all better.  Because reading an 'awwww' will make you go, "Ahhhhh... Everything's going to be alright!"  Scientists have proven that.

Then an elaboration that she has the worst luck with jobs and is actually quite down about it.  Somebody 'liked' it.  Is that insensitive?  I think that's insensitive.  Further, another friend then decided to try and arrange a cheery-uppy meeting.  These arrangements went on for over twice my computer screen, what the best day would be, where would be best, maybe they could go to the gym etc only for the friend who suggested it to say, "Oh, no, actually I'll probably be at work."

Way to twist the knife, eh?  "Can't get a job?  Never mind, let's have a coffee and some baby talk and... Oh no, wait.  I have a job unlike you.  You'd better be miserable alone because I have a job."

Casino Royale (1967)

I've been reading up on, and watching, the 1967 version of 'Casino Royale' for Gag Reels at the end of the month.  I'm hoping I've made the right choice.  There is definitely some comic mileage in it, especially when contrasted with the novel, and the story of its genesis is fairly amusing.

Plus there's the odd apocryphal tale from the making of it that may or may not be true but are funny all the same.

Watching it though it interested me to note (I'd not watched it for ages) that despite it being made to discredit and ruin the official Bond franchise by being utterly and completely ridiculous, it sticks closer to the source novel than, say, the film of 'You Only Live Twice' does to Fleming's novel of that name.  This oddity starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, Woody Allen AND BERNARD CRIBBINS is arguably a more faithful adaptation than 'You Only Live Twice', 'Diamonds Are Forever', 'The Spy Who Loved Me', 'Moonraker' or 'Octopussy'.

And that's even taking into account the flying saucer and Frankenstein's Monster.

Shattered and a Bit Cold

Reassuringly, the gig last night was fun.  There's always the worry that having a gap might make you forget everything.

Getting back wasn't so smooth.  Yes, it was cheap (£6!) but the announcer came on to tell us that the train would be delayed as, "This evening a customer was struck by a train."  In the same way a match is struck I suppose.  Or a Terry's Chocolate Orange.  But then it would have been insensitive to have said, "Obliterated by a train."

I was travelling early in the morning anyway and got back at 8 completely shattered and a bit cold.  I slept for a fair bit and when I woke up I noticed that I had somehow managed to take a phone call and note down in my diary the date and time of a casting for a sitcom pilot.  I'm glad I managed to do this as it would have been irritating to have missed out on it through being asleep when I should have been awake.

An Actual Train

First gig of the new year tonight, and it's down in Lon Don.  I actually quite like London, but then I'm not there very much so don't really get the chance to go off it.  What's more, I've fairly recently discovered how insanely cheap it is to get there from where I live.  £12 return.  And that's on a train and everything, not a Megabus or bale of hay being towed by a tractor.  An actual train.  £6 one way, £6 back.  It's crazy!

With this discovery I decided I'd try and gig there more often.  Judging by how good I am when I decide to blog more it will come as no surprise that the next time I am in London is a month and a half away.  

Having not gigged since before Christmas it will be good to get back on the horse.  

Spammy Comment

I do like a bit of spam and this spammy comment left yesterday on a post from exactly a year ago made me chuckle.  Maybe we've mad it through to the other side?  Can we all now laugh at these?  I mean, obviously ones with links make me want to kill, but these ones are sublime aren't they?  I particularly like 'contradistinction.'

Choosing amongst a myriad of great things was not my strong point, so when I had to preferable my exceed ten computer games, I was definitely faced with a challenge. After some thinking (and I norm in fact judgement middle of), this is the list of games that I feel are praiseworthy to be mentioned in my top ten computer games article. Lately, innumerable people from playing video games on consoles such as Ps3 and Xbox 360 because of alluring games and the forward of use. Sundry consoles involve with a advance graphics index card that allows for deeper gaming experience. So does this technique the completion of PC gaming era? Plainly not. Computers gave birth to the video match industry. In contradistinction to the consoles, computers bring into the world been about instead of more than 25 years. All the years of experiences combine up to haler games and it conveys the message that pc gaming will be about for a long time. Still today, computer gaming leads the gaming activity because most gamers are PC gamers.


Quite so.

Sobering Thought

The Leicester Comedy Festival (now Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival) is fast approaching and my show there is only a little over 4 weeks away.  This is a sobering thought.  Officially, it's the first real performance of it.  Despite it not being the finished article, it's not being promoted as a work in progress or as a preview.  Though I do feel confident with the bones of the show and am looking forward to doing it more than I am worried about it.

But I am still a bit worried, which I suppose is normal.

I have my first gig of the year on Thursday and am chomping at the bit to get back on the saddle to ride the horse of comedy through an analogy.  It's been longer than I'd like since my last gig so it'll be good to blow away the cobwebs of doubt by soaking up the sunlight of stage time in an analogy.

I've also resolved, almost totally, to do the 1967 version of 'Casino Royale' for Gag Reels at the Frog at the end of the month.  Admittedly, it breaks one of my self-imposed and superfluous rules by being a comedy itself but it is famously quite a bad one so I'm hoping, with what I've got planned, it'll all be fine.

You notice that?  I do a lot of hoping.  You'd think I'd be best off working hard to ensure it is fine.  And you'd be right.  But you'd be wrong in thinking I don't do that.  I do.  But the level of confidence I have in my endeavours is sufficiently low that I end up hoping on top of it.

I hope this post was OK.

Sunday Resolution 2

Which I suppose is technically Bank Holiday Monday Resolution 1 is to clean the porch out.

Not before I've worked out what film to do for Gag Reels at the Frog on 31st of this month.  I thought it would be better to pick a film that

a) I know quite a bit about

b) I dislike

c) Is not a comedy, as making jokes about jokes, believe it or not, is not something I think I'd be good at

So I thought I'd pick one of the worse Bond films.  Contenders for this when I asked on Twitter were;

Licence to Kill - I dismissed this as it happens to be in my top 3

Octopussy - This is one I had in my mind as it amused me to contrast this film, with set pieces such as Bond dressed as a clown, by reading out some particularly gritty passages from the original novels.

Never Say Never Again - Not an official one, or one I'd choose, but it did make me think I could do the 1967 Casino Royale, despite it being a 'comedy'.  

A View to a Kill - This was in the lead for a while, and was - alongside Octopussy - at the forefront of my mind.  This is the film that, among other shit bits such as Roger Moore's stunt double snowboarding to an 80s cover version of the Beach Boys 'California Girls', sees James Bond cook a quiche.

Die Another Day - The winner (or loser) with most 'votes' (people replying to me on Twitter) on account of its invisible car, Madonna theme song (and cameo as a lesbian fencing coach) and, as Maddie Barton said, Brosnan's seediness.  Because he is seedy.  It is not suave to hint at mutual oral sex after narrowly escaping death.

If I'm honest, I'm still stuck with which one to choose.  

All this I guess makes this Bank Holiday Monday Resolution 1 and the porch one Bank Holiday Monday Resolution 2.  Unless I have a think about it while cleaning the porch out.