Bobby, Barry, Arthur and Me.

Today was another day of note for Mostly Comedy, with the mailing list pre-sale for Bobby Davro's appearance at the club on 23rd May - sharing the bill with work-in-progress from me - beginning at 9am this morning, with me keeping an eye on proceedings, as always, making notes as I watched.

I'm often tense on these occasions, particularly when it's a slightly unusual line-up, as you never know for sure if it will grab people's interest; our pre-sales are quite a good indicator of how an event will do, so when thirty tickets were snapped up in the first ten minutes today I relaxed a little bit. It's still selling healthily as we speak.

I quickly knocked together a press release for our first St Albans date too, which I've included below; hopefully the more I can clear the decks of any admin over the next few days, the sooner I can devote time to work on new material, which is very important to me. My life feels like a sea of press releases and pre-sales and I'm a little bored of it.

Press Release – 10.03.18

mostly comedy

a monthly comedy club at maltings arts theatre in st albans

The duo behind Hitchin’s successful ten-year-old monthly show Mostly Comedy (DOGGETT & EPHGRAVE) spread their wings to Saint Albans to present a new, regular version of the club at the Maltings Arts Theatre, starting on Thursday 3^rd May with ARTHUR SMITH and BARRY FROM WATFORD.

ARTHUR is best known for his work on BBC's Grumpy Old Men, QI, Have I Got News For You and The One Show, and for hosting BBC Radio 2’s Smith Lectures and the majority of BBC Radio 4 Extra’s comedy output. He’s a Spirit of The Edinburgh Fringe award-winner, who also wrote the Olivier-nominated An Evening With Gary Lineker.

He started his career as a member of the 1980s’ alternative comedy scene. In addition to stand-up, he wrote and performed the critically acclaimed Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen (later broadcast on Radio 4), returning to the theme for his 2013 Edinburgh Fringe show Arthur Smith Sing Leonard Cohen (Volume Too).

82-year-old lifestyle guru and BBC Radio 2 favourite BARRY FROM WATFORD joins Arthur on the bill, fresh from his successful national tour & Soho Theatre run of ‘Angelos and Barry: The New Power Generation’, ‘The Angelos and Barry Show’ - the cult comedy podcast he shares with ex-‘Shooting Stars’ score-keeper Angelos Epithemou - and his role as Noel Edmonds’ sidekick on Channel 4’s ‘Cheap Cheap Cheap’.

Barry gained a staunch radio following, thanks to regular appearances on BBC Radio 2's 'Steve Wright in the Afternoon', eliciting name-checks from the likes of Tom Hanks and Ringo Starr. His episode in Sky Atlantic's mockumentary series 'Common Ground' caused The Guardian to exclaim: 'Joyous and such skilful character work; full series please'.

The actor behind Barry, Alex Lowe, has appeared in countless popular comedy series, including BBC1’s ‘Still Open All Hours’, BBC2's ‘House of Fools’, 'Saxondale' and 'The Thick of It'. In 2015, he reprised his role as Clinton Baptiste in ‘Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights Live’ at the Manchester Arena, in aid of Comic Relief.

The gig is emceed by the “polished, natural comedians” (Camden Fringe Voyeur) DOGGETT & EPHGRAVE, with the first act on at 8:00pm. Tickets can be bought in advance via www.mostlycomedy.co.uk, where you can also book for 5^th July’s show with REGINALD D HUNTER and Red Dwarf’s HATTIE HAYRIDGE.

Date: Thursday 3rd May 2018

Venue: Maltings Arts Theatre, Level 2, 26 The Maltings, St Albans, AL1 3HL.

Time: Doors at 7:30pm. First act on at 8:00pm.

Admission: £13.00. More info at www.maltingsartstheatre.co.uk and www.mostlycomedy.co.uk

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...

'...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...

"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.

mostly david ephgrave

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