Category: Blog Post
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Gigging with a famous comedian
So tonight I was on the same bill as a famous comedian. Regular readers will know that my general choice of gig usually includes at least two of the following elements: audience of less than 6 people audience casually eating food unaware of comedy happening, sometimes celebrating anniversaries compere’s begging people to not leave, or…
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30 mins thoughts: 5 opinions I have about arts marketing
I have, recently, found myself writing fewer blog posts about arts marketing and my work. This is for a few reasons. Firstly I’ve started a new job so spare time has dissolved into a thing of the past, along with worry-free sleeping and relaxation. Secondly I’ve found myself struggling to know what to write about.…
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Cologne
We came to Cologne for three days as part of a “let’s visit Germany” trip, otherwise known as “where are the cheapest flights this month”. We flew from Manchester to Cologne, then get the train to Berlin tomorrow and fly back four days later. It’s the first time we’ve flown during school holidays (normally the…
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Gig Report: Hot Water Comedy, Liverpool
Sometimes you make a mountain out of a molehill and build things up to a ridiculous degree in your head until you find yourself driving to Liverpool wondering if you could persuade your car to break down on the way so that you don’t have to do a gig. Now. I appreciate that is an…
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Resolutions 2017
Regular, loyal readers will know that every year I write 10 New Year’s Resolutions, then, at the end of the year, mark whether I’ve achieved these resolutions and make 10 more. It’s been my version of motivation all-bran – keeping me doing things productive in a world where I own a PS4 and Fifa 17…
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The Scarborough Boxing Day Tradition
Boxing day in Scarborough always seems slightly different to many places. Not for Scarborough the simple consumption of excess chocolate and the remains of Christmas dinner. Instead we’re all seemingly lured by the call of the sea to walk around the seafront in sub-arctic conditions as lunatics paddle home-made rafts around the harbour. As hypothermia…
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Gig Report #3 – Pros & Coms, Liverpool
I was back at my old stomping grounds* down Liverpool’s Lark Lane to do a set at Pros & Coms. It’s a gig I have a long history with having compered it regularly for 2 years and it being my home gig. It’s moved venues since I performed there regularly to a bar called…
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Gig Report #2 – Comedy Asylum
There are some gigs where you arrive and you think, “this is going to be fine”. There are other gigs where you accidentally take a wrong turn on the way there forcing you to drive through (and pay for) the Mersey tunnel twice despite there being no need, to arrive, in Birkenhead, at a bar…
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Gig Report #1 – Tiger Lounge, Manchester
So I’ve started again. I realised the other day that it’d been 12 months since I did a proper set, what with the excess MCing I’ve been up to, so I approached this gig at first with trepidation. I’ve put this as gig #1, in reality it’s probably gig #180ish, but it feels like I’m…
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When Ideas Come Thick & Fast
I’ve just got back from a week at Edinburgh Fringe, supposedly a holiday, but, invariably the combination of sprinting venue to venue in the driving rain, up flights of steps, shoving teenagers flyering their student production of 4:48 Psychosis out of the way and into the path of oncoming unicyclists advertising their one man Lord…
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Edinburgh Fringe 2016
I thought I’d write up a little about some of the shows I see this year! Chris Stokes: The Man Delusion A nice show by a comedian I really rate and admire, he has a real like-ability that comes from avoiding the cliches of the ego-driven stand-up and instead being low key and incredibly humble on…
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To EU or not to EU (that is the question)
This last weekend I did the usual things people like me do. I went to Waitrose wishing I’d brought my Aldi bags so people would regard me as “dangerous” and “a maverick”. In my new found capacity as a garden-renter I pulled up some weeds, watered some inexplicably expensive plants I’d been forced to buy…
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Navigation for a 21st Century Man.
Today I went for a drive to Wales with my better half. It started fairly certain enough – the same roads I go along each day for work – then a slight mistake and then a single lane track with grass intermittenly growing out of the centre, dubiously small “passing points”, clammy sweaty palms on…
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Three weeks later… Eggs, theatre and badminton.
I realised on my drive home today that it’s been a while since I wrote anything, or indeed saw people. For those wondering, I’ve started a new job in lovely North Wales at Theatr Clwyd. I think it’s important to say that as years ago I went off radar for a few weeks and a…
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A final(ish) gig report.
On Friday I did, what will be, my last gig for probably the next 6 – 8 months. I’m taking a break while I get sorted in a new job and have also been struggling with my confidence to apply for gigs so it felt like a break might be good to reinvigorate me too.…
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A new job and a new city
Tomorrow I start my new job in the Marketing department of Theatr Clwyd. It’s been 3 weeks of “changes” to say the least. I’m usually relatively risk and change averse so to find myself living in a new city, starting a new job, where I’ll be driving for an hour each day is pretty galling…
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Clubbing and other inherent evils.
Memories are strange things. They are neither truth nor fact and are all, invariably, tainted by what came before and after. In House of Card’s Frank Underwood’s memories must be very different to the reality (often mistakenly mixing necessity with cold blooded murder). Memories are also, it would seem, Facebook’s new favourite thing to plague…
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The art of the season brochure
Today I signed off Unity Theatre’s season brochure – the last of my six year tenancy as Marketing Manager (I’m going to Theatre Clwyd and am dead excited as you will undoubtedly discover over the next 6 months!) – and I felt a wave of emotions briefly as I said “yes, print it”. The first…