Skip to main content

Today's Itinerary


I’ve spent the last few hours running the material I plan to do at Monday week’s SohoTheatre Comedy Project gig, plus working on a couple of new bits I might try out at Thursday’s Hitchin Mostly Comedy.

I’m pleased with how it's coming together on the whole. I’m making a point of running the stuff for the Soho show at least once a day, to get comfortable with it. If I can make the meat of the material second nature, I’ll be more relaxed on the day. It’s still very new. While there are a few weak links between set pieces, it’s beginning to feel cohesive. I’m looking forward to trying it in front of an audience. More than anything, I’m looking forward to the Actors’ Temple Work in(Hope of) Progress gig at the end of the same week, as it’s likely to be a more relaxed and receptive environment. My approach can be looser. I can risk doing unfinished stuff, to see how it lands.

Once the Soho show has past I can switch my attention to writing more for Brighton. While I’m conscious of needing to speed up my productivity to meet the May deadline, the fact a few new bits and pieces are coming together that excite me eases my mind. I plan to try out five minutes of new stuff at Mostly this week. I’ve also got a five-minute open spot at a gig in London on Wednesday. I’d like to do the same set there, but it involves projection. There are a few niche references which will be helped with a visual prompt. I may blow up a couple of key images to A3 and take them with me. I’d rather try it out two days in a row to get a better idea of whether it works. Anyone know a quick, cheap printing company? Ideally someone I don’t need to explain my need for a print of Grotbags to. I could do without that.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Not The Bayeux One.

The Carole King album Tapestry has been my 'getting-ready-in-the-morning' soundtrack for the past few weeks.  It's been a favourite album ever since I was a student, which makes for a pleasantly gentle way to usher in the start of a day. I've always been a fan of a well-crafted song, which is something of a Carole King hallmark, ever since she started writing with her first husband in the early Sixties. Tapestry may be an unimaginative choice for a favourite LP, as it suggests I haven't delved that far into her career, but it's still an undoubted classic; anything with '(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman', 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' and 'You've Got A Friend' on it can't really fail; if nothing else, it proves she likes writing songs with long titles.  Next month, she's set to perform the album live in its entirety for the first time at a gig in Hyde Park, which I would have loved to have gone to, if it weren...
Read more

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