Bobby, Barry, Arthur and Me.

Today was another day of note for Mostly Comedy, with the mailing list pre-sale for Bobby Davro's appearance at the club on 23rd May - sharing the bill with work-in-progress from me - beginning at 9am this morning, with me keeping an eye on proceedings, as always, making notes as I watched.

I'm often tense on these occasions, particularly when it's a slightly unusual line-up, as you never know for sure if it will grab people's interest; our pre-sales are quite a good indicator of how an event will do, so when thirty tickets were snapped up in the first ten minutes today I relaxed a little bit. It's still selling healthily as we speak.

I quickly knocked together a press release for our first St Albans date too, which I've included below; hopefully the more I can clear the decks of any admin over the next few days, the sooner I can devote time to work on new material, which is very important to me. My life feels like a sea of press releases and pre-sales and I'm a little bored of it.

Press Release – 10.03.18

mostly comedy

a monthly comedy club at maltings arts theatre in st albans

The duo behind Hitchin’s successful ten-year-old monthly show Mostly Comedy (DOGGETT & EPHGRAVE) spread their wings to Saint Albans to present a new, regular version of the club at the Maltings Arts Theatre, starting on Thursday 3^rd May with ARTHUR SMITH and BARRY FROM WATFORD.

ARTHUR is best known for his work on BBC's Grumpy Old Men, QI, Have I Got News For You and The One Show, and for hosting BBC Radio 2’s Smith Lectures and the majority of BBC Radio 4 Extra’s comedy output. He’s a Spirit of The Edinburgh Fringe award-winner, who also wrote the Olivier-nominated An Evening With Gary Lineker.

He started his career as a member of the 1980s’ alternative comedy scene. In addition to stand-up, he wrote and performed the critically acclaimed Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen (later broadcast on Radio 4), returning to the theme for his 2013 Edinburgh Fringe show Arthur Smith Sing Leonard Cohen (Volume Too).

82-year-old lifestyle guru and BBC Radio 2 favourite BARRY FROM WATFORD joins Arthur on the bill, fresh from his successful national tour & Soho Theatre run of ‘Angelos and Barry: The New Power Generation’, ‘The Angelos and Barry Show’ - the cult comedy podcast he shares with ex-‘Shooting Stars’ score-keeper Angelos Epithemou - and his role as Noel Edmonds’ sidekick on Channel 4’s ‘Cheap Cheap Cheap’.

Barry gained a staunch radio following, thanks to regular appearances on BBC Radio 2's 'Steve Wright in the Afternoon', eliciting name-checks from the likes of Tom Hanks and Ringo Starr. His episode in Sky Atlantic's mockumentary series 'Common Ground' caused The Guardian to exclaim: 'Joyous and such skilful character work; full series please'.

The actor behind Barry, Alex Lowe, has appeared in countless popular comedy series, including BBC1’s ‘Still Open All Hours’, BBC2's ‘House of Fools’, 'Saxondale' and 'The Thick of It'. In 2015, he reprised his role as Clinton Baptiste in ‘Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights Live’ at the Manchester Arena, in aid of Comic Relief.

The gig is emceed by the “polished, natural comedians” (Camden Fringe Voyeur) DOGGETT & EPHGRAVE, with the first act on at 8:00pm. Tickets can be bought in advance via www.mostlycomedy.co.uk, where you can also book for 5^th July’s show with REGINALD D HUNTER and Red Dwarf’s HATTIE HAYRIDGE.

Date: Thursday 3rd May 2018

Venue: Maltings Arts Theatre, Level 2, 26 The Maltings, St Albans, AL1 3HL.

Time: Doors at 7:30pm. First act on at 8:00pm.

Admission: £13.00. More info at www.maltingsartstheatre.co.uk and www.mostlycomedy.co.uk

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...

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...

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