Pressing Matters.


I spent most of the day writing and sending out press releases for my Brighton Fringe show.

I’m pleased to say I got everything done that I wanted to. It's satisfying to set yourself a task and then complete it. Part of the problem with having no outside help is your attention is split. You're constantly changing hats, in a metaphorical sense; one minute you’re the writer and then the next you’re the producer. The minute after that you’re the technician and then you’re the performer. That’s four minutes’ worth of show prep and I’m not prepared to do it. It’s also makes for a clunky paragraph.

The next step will be to prepare for next Thursday’s preview at Hitchin Mostly Comedy. I intend to sprinkle a few new bits into last month’s Soho Theatre set, bringing the running time up to about forty minutes. I don’t want to cross that time limit; if anything, I may do less. I’m very aware that I’ll be a physical barrier between the audience and the two acts they've come to see: Phil Nichol and Barry From Watford. They may also not be in the mindset for work-in-progress, so I would like to keep my performance reasonably tight. I have another preview two days later, where the atmosphere will be more conducive to taking risks.

I’m doing a five-minute spot at an open mic gig this Wednesday. I’d like to try something untested, but I’ll see how I feel. I’d like a confidence boost before next week’s gigs and I won’t get this by doing something that may fall flat. Every gig is a mind game at the moment. I’m like a boxer training for the big fight; I'm less a featherweight, more a paperweight.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
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...
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...
Read more

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...
Read more