Category: Blog Post
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Gig #17 – Bramall, Stockport
As a comedian (and for reference I still feel very uncomfortable using that term to describe myself) you get to perform in a variety of towns and cities. You also get to play in an array of spaces – from the back room of a pub to the well-prepared, well-run comedy club, from a student…
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Inspiration and tiny steps
I’ve noticed that recently my blog posts have gone from witty, hilarious anecdotal, nuanced pieces and become rather predictable – while keeping gig notes is, for me, really useful, I appreciate that outside the comedy community is can be quite dull. It’s been remarkable how people go from “please tell me more about doing stand-up”…
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Gig #15 – Vinyl, Liverpool (Compere)
Usually when I have a gig in the evening I spend the entire day worried, feel sick and have the urge to flee, extremely quickly. So it works to my benefit not to know about a gig until late so when Binty let me cover him as compere for the Pros and Coms gig down…
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Writing songs about Panda’s
I was bored this evening so decided to write a song. It’s below so you can have a listen but it’s 2 part harmonies, bass, piano and guitar, recorded and the video made in an evening. So yeah, let me know what you think!
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Gig #14 – Comedy Balloon, Manchester
To be honest I wasn’t sure how to write this gig up – it was, to steal a terrible phrase used regularly on Match of the Day, a game of two halves. I’m going to start with the dull stuff. I opened the gig and it was fun, a quiet and quite difficult room I…
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Getting out of a rut
(This is just my ideas and what’s currently going round in my head, you may disagree, but please let me know your thoughts) Sometimes it can feel like I’m getting in a rut with theatre marketing. There, I’ve admitted it, I’ve said what arts marketeers should never say and I fully expect to be spurned…
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Fear Of Flying – 4
They sat in silence for nearly two hours, the only sounds the slamming doors in other parts of the police station and the faint hum of the air conditioning. Simon pondered that it seemed ironic that in the middle of winter the air conditioning was still on and that surely opening a window would have…
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Gig #13 – The Abbey Inn, Oldham
Two gigs in a week is really unusual for me – it’s not that I don’t try and find gigs, it’s just I feel uncomfortable trying to sell myself – I don’t like saying I’ve done X, Y or Z gigs unless telling other people how good the gig was… Anyway, this is besides the…
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Gig #12 – Hot Water Comedy Club, Liverpool
I was thrilled (if very surprised) to be asked by Binty to perform at Hot Water’s 6 of the best competition night – I’d only just done 10 gigs so felt like a bit of an imposter next to guys and gals who’ve done many more. The section is 8 mins long but penalised if…
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Gig #11 – The Millstone, Bolton.
I’d never been to Bolton before so when Nigel Needham asked me to play his gig I was excited for two reasons. Firstly I had no gigs lined up and it would be great to get some practice in before Hot Water Comedy Club, and secondly I’d never been to Bolton and wondered what it…
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Fear Of Flying – 3
Simon had never been a big fan of change. He liked the safety of knowing what was happening when, consistency and a timetabling of his life that bordered on obsessive. He wouldn’t feel terrible if change occurred, it’s just he tended to shy away from it, someone who’d never throw away a sock with holes…
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Fear Of Flying – 2
The old police officer’s morning had been, he could safely say, pretty poor. He’d not slept well the previous night and had awoken in a cold house with ice on the insides of the window to see his frosty breath in front of him. The previous day had been stressful, the temperature plunging as snow…
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Fear Of Flying – 1
This story starts, as all good stories must, on a Tuesday. At a railway station, waiting for the working week to begin with a torturous journey to the city centre, the morning passengers are assembling in the same way they had for the preceding days, weeks, months, years and in one case decades. In their heavy winter…
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Surviving a seeming arts apocalypse… (part 1)
It seems not a day passes without further signs in the decline of British Theatre in the regions, from the liquidation of the Byre Theatre in St Andrews to Taunton’s Brewhouse moving into administration it seems clear (in the media at least) that the arts are enduring a torrid time of uncertainty, fear and closure.…
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Gig #10 – Rawhide RAW
I really didn’t want to do this gig if I’m honest, I think I’d had a rough week at Beat The Frog where I got my bi-monthly assassination and was losing the love for stand-up a little. I’ve never been particularly good at dealing with disappointment and tend to beat myself up when something’s not…
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Gig #8 – Beat The Frog, Preston
It’d been nearly two weeks since my last gig and I was feeling kind of nervous about my next outing. Firstly gig #7 had gone so well I was wondering whether to give up on a high and also my previous encounter with Beat The Frog in Preston had been pretty hideous. So it was…
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Prestogigaphobia – The fear of gigging in Preston
Guess what this blog post is about… Yes, you’ve guessed it, I’m heading back to Preston to see how I get on at Beat The Frog. Me and Preston have not had a good relationship since we first met nearly a year ago. Well actually it started long ago when I decided not to go…