Skip to main content

Best Foot Forward.

Today, I finally finished compiling my 2017/18 tax records (with my wife as my unpaid assistant), which makes for depressing reading unless you're a fan of minus figures.

(If so, then get ready for this: -4922.679232)

(I know: phwoar)

I find myself at a crossroads over what to do next. The past four years have been primarily about performing stand-up to fringe audiences to work up my solo chops, having always performed comedy as one half of a double-act up to that point. While I've taken shows to London, Brighton, Bath, Leicester, Hitchin and Letchworth over that time, there's no doubt Edinburgh was the biggest underlying factor, with the other dates being either a warm-up for or a cool-down from three consecutive Edinburgh Fringes, with me writing another solo show in 2015 that I didn't take to Scotland, but was still put together with going there alone as my motivation.

There's no denying the experience has been challenging, both creatively and financially. You could argue I'd had it fairly easy career-wise up to that point, with my musical ability bolstering my acting work from the get-go, propelling me - if you can call it that - into large-scale tours of the UK & Ireland (and a handful of stints in the Netherlands) and then the West End, with my keenness for comedy resulting in eleven seasons with a reputable writers' group at The Soho Theatre and to co-running Mostly Comedy, where I've played host to many of the industry's biggest names. Whether this was ever reflected in my bank balance is up for debate, but I've certainly been able to scrape a living as from acting, music and comedy since graduating from drama school in 2002.

Performing stand-up was something I went into through the backdoor accidentally, after co-hosting a comedy club and seeing the acts that came through underlined that it might be a good way to be more self-sufficient; potentially carving a career from who I was specifically, rather just being an easily replaceable jobbing actor / musician going from short-term contract to contract, always waiting for the phone to ring; consequently, I began looking for an agent who could secure anything bar the actor / muso work I could easily get myself and had less interest in doing over time.

If I were to summarise my thoughts on the past four years of working alone I'd say it's been a slog, but that I've produced some of the work I'm proudest of within it. The culmination of this period was filming last year's Edinburgh show where I came out with a record that's representative of what I'd set out to do, which was to tackle the subject of depression along with my more petty frustrations with honesty and humour, getting laughs from my backstory while trying to normalise the things I would have buried in the past. Whether it's led to a phone constantly ringing with opportunities is by-the-by - that's not the sole mark of success - but while I've already committed to some work-in-progress dates this year with a few more in the pipeline, I can't let 2019 be another year of retracing the same steps; something has to change for me to feel I'm moving forward (or at least in a different direction) before I stagnate.

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...

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...