(No) Help!


I’m probably being hypersensitive, but I often feel on the outside of the comedy community or clique.

What triggered this thought today - though it comes up a lot - was seeing someone I know who's performing in Brighton this month (and whose promotional tweets I regularly share) tweeting about someone else's show, and then clicking on that tweet to see it had been shared multiple times while remembering what little interest was given to my show earlier this week. I know I shouldn’t be this petty, but it’s hard not to correlate your popularity against others around you to find yourself lacking; I sometimes feel my role is to offer other people gigs and present reasonably high-profile line-ups myself while getting nothing back.

I know I shouldn’t put so much emphasis on what happens on social media when it’s fickle in nature at best. However it seems some people are permanently on broadcast mode and would never consider thanking you for helping promote them, or - God forbid - returning the favour.

After all, you should always BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WHO YOU LINK YOURSELF WITH. YOU MUST LOOK EACH WAY BEFORE SHARING ANYTHING YOU’RE NOT CONVINCED WILL REFLECT ON YOU IN A GOOD LIGHT. WHY DO ANYTHING YOU DON’T STAND TO GAIN FROM YOURSELF? OF COURSE PEOPLE WILL SHARE STUFF ABOUT YOU; THAT’S THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS; WHY ACKNOWLEDGE THIS WHEN YOU RECEIVE A NOTIFICATION ABOUT IT? IT’S THE WAY IT SHOULD BE; IT’S ALSO CALLED 'BEING A CUNT’.

I’m well aware I sound bitter. I’m just tired of how one-sided things can be. I always go back to a particular act (who has a reasonable TV profile these days) who I once tagged in a handful of great photos taken at Mostly Comedy by my wife. He didn’t feel the need to make it clear he’d seen or liked them; of course people take pictures of him; that’s the way of the world. Call me old fashioned, but there’s no harm in just being nice.

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

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane ...
Read more