Skip to main content

Luddite Design.


I’ve spent the afternoon putting together a promo image for mine and Peter Broughton-Rates’ forthcoming work-in-progress gigs. I started the process with a full head of hair. Now, I’m a bald man.

Photo editing isn’t my strong point, if I'm honest. I’m not sure what my strong point is. I’m looking forward to finding out, hopefully with enough lifespan left to do something with it. Knowing my luck it’ll be a skill that’s been rendered defunct, like wattle and daub walling.

(A good name for a medieval cop show, or long-dead married couple.)


Considering my limited means, I'm pleased with the results. It’ll do the job. I used the open-source software GIMP rather than Photoshop, because I don’t like spending money. A friend of Peter’s put together his artwork, to which I did some cut-and-shut editing to fit our split-bill line-up. You'll only see the joins if you look closely; or if you’re Glyn, who’s the King of Poster Editing. Literally. He has his own poster-editing realm.

I decided to go with a different title for my half of the evening for the first few dates, rather than kicking off with ‘…and Ephgrave’. This will leave room for growth. For me, the first few shows will be more a case of trying bits out than presenting a polished whole. It might even encourage people to come back from month to month. Stranger things have happened.

The time has come to get on with writing it. Our first gig is the 28th February at 7:30pm, at The Actors’ Temple, London. Why not come along? It’s free, save a small charity donation,  so you’ve got no excuse. Unless you have got an excuse, which is fair enough. Book here.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

Comedy That's Worth a Letch.

Today, I nipped to Letchworth to meet with illustrator (and one-time - two-time - comedy poet) Mushybees, to discuss an event Mostly Comedy will act as surrogate parents to as part of Letchworth’s Arts Takeover in a couple of weeks. Months ago he got into contact to see if we’d be up for co-organising a comedy stage as part of Letchworth’s weekend of arts-based attractions in July; something I’d provisionally said yes to, before things got hectic in the lead-up to Edinburgh and we didn’t take it any further. Despite not getting down to the nitty-gritty straight away, we managed to pull a line-up together in a back-and-forth of emails yesterday, leading to me getting Glyn’s blessing and us deciding we’d officially go ahead with it (whatever ‘officially’ means in this context). In reality, it’s not complicated: from 12pm until 6pm-ish on the 22 nd July, Glyn, Mushybees and I will host four Edinburgh previews from four acts (including me), before Nor...

"Heh Heh Heh Helection Half Hour."

Thursday morning’s a time I look forward to, as the episode of Hancock’s Half Hour that was broadcast that week becomes available to listen to on iPlayer, and consequently becomes the soundtrack to my bath. Today was no different, with this week’s instalment being the frighteningly appropriate ‘The Election Candidate'. In the episode, Tony is convinced to stand for parliament as a celebrity candidate (*cough* Donald Trump *cough*) and while it’s definitely one of the best - though let’s face it, pretty much all programmes that exist have stood the test of time wonderfully - my favourite moment has to be when Hancock is asked who’ll he’ll vote for, before he’s convinced to through his own hat in the ring. “Neither of them,” he replies. “I shall show my contempt by going down to the polling booth, taking my form, crossing both their names out and writing ‘get knotted’ in”. (Some things never change.) The episode was first broadcas...