Skip to main content

D'you What?


Tonight’s Mostly Comedy was stupidly good - insanely stupidly good - but at the same time it was a little terrifying, as I spent the whole show in a metaphorical vacuum, barely able to hear a thing.

I should explain: for the last week or so, my right ear has been purely ornamental, due to a mix of a low-level infection and an unnecessarily large wax quota. This actually started when I was in Edinburgh, when every so often I’d feel like I was in an aeroplane waiting for my ear to pop; usually it would clear eventually; that was until the last week, when it’s actually closed shop…and has done nothing of use since except hold up my sunglasses.

I went to the doctors on Monday, who gave me some ear drops to help clear things up, but sadly these haven’t quite kicked in yet; consequently I spent tonight feeling like I was using in-ear monitors, as all I could hear was my own voice uncomfortably close and nothing else.

I did a set at the top of the gig, which Glyn insisted went really well, but it was hard for me to pass judgement, as I could barely tell if I was talking over a laugh or timing things well. I guess this was where my month in Edinburgh came into play and saved me, but it was still a very surreal experience. It felt so extreme that I came off stage practically burning up thanks to the intense vulnerability of doing stand-up with one of your leading senses failing you.

Putting my aural situation to one side, tonight’s show was undoubtedly one of our all-time best. Reginald D Hunter absolutely stormed it (despite performing on crutches due to a broken leg); as did Neil McFarlane: a lovely guy and an exceptional comic, who hasn’t played the club in five years due to some sort of administrative oversight; we promise it won’t happen again. It was so good, we even had a small yet potent standing ovation, the like of which we haven’t seen since Rory Bremner in October of last year. It was all a bit surreal really but it was a lovely thing - and tonight you experienced some of this.
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