Skip to main content

Eldon by the Skin of our Teeth.


I really enjoyed tonight’s Mostly Comedy.

Me, at April's Hitchin Mostly. Photo by Gemma Poole.

We had Kevin Eldon on the bill for the first time, which we were both very excited about. His CV is exceptional; it’s harder to think of the programmes he hasn’t been in than the ones that he has. I’d hazard a guess that wasn’t in Bergerac, but wouldn’t want to be quoted on it.

Kevin Eldon. Photo by Gemma Poole.


I’ve been a fan of Kevin since his Fist of Fun days. He’s someone I always noticed and enjoyed. Tonight was no different; his performance was rammed with energy, confidence and commitment. He was also lovely; we had a nice chat with him for our podcast before kick-off.

It was a lovely line-up all round. The gig was closed excellently by Bec Hill. We first met Bec back in 2008, when she manned – or womaned? - the front door of the Gilded Balloon during our first Edinburgh Festival. She’d enthusiastically announce our show through her megaphone every night, though the audiences still stayed away from us in droves.

(We know our place on the comedy food chain.)

Bec and her dinosaurs. Photo by Gemma Poole.

She's a great comic. I particularly love her Terry Gilliam-styled flipchart animations (check them out on YouTube). Eldon was tough act to follow, but she was definitely the one to do it.

Mr P(eter) B(roughton) R(ates) completed the line-up. He’s a friend and comedy promoter we first met at a gig at the Canal Café Theatre, then kept in contact with through the years. He came to try some new stuff out, which went well.

Mr PBR. You can guess who the photo was by.

He's always been supportive of our work. He also once witnessed me fall arse-first into the inner workings of a pouffe and get stuck inside it, though the less said about that, the better.

(Call me Mr Slapstick.)

We also tried out a bit of new material on the books of Jeremy Clarkson, which was loosely based on one of my blogs. It needs a little tightening but has promise.

Not a bad night, all-in-all.
Labels:

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...
Read more

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...
Read more

"Speaking Words of Wisdom, Let it Shine."

Tonight saw the second instalment of BBC1’s latest advertise-a-musical-for-months-and-then-cast-it-with-performers-too-inexperienced-to-do-it-a-thon ‘Let it S̶h̶i̶t̶e̶ Shine’ (or as I call it: ‘REAL AUDITIONS ARE NOTHING LIKE THIS’). I didn’t watch it (clearly), but being reminded of how angry seeing just five minutes of it made me last week caused me to mull over what I would call a musical based on the band’s songbook, if I was responsible for it. Here are a my suggestions: IDEAS FOR TITLE OF A TAKE THAT MUSICAL: Barlow! Dirty Fat-Dancing Orange! A Million Love-changes-everything Songs Owen! Howard's End Pray Misérables Mamma Marka! Babe (with a pig as the lead) …BUT MY FAVOURITE HAS TO BE: Jason & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. "It was Orange, Orange, Orange, Orange..." (TAKE) THAT’S ENOUGH OF (TAKE) THAT.
Read more