Category: Comedy
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A tale of three gigs
It’s inevitable over the course of doing something that you will have moments of great highs, moments of great lows and long periods of bumbling around in the middle desperate to achieve the former and avoid the latter.
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Gig Report #43: Bottletop Comedy
When I was around gigs 5 – 15 I went through a stage of recording how each gig had progressed – inspired by the brilliant Ste Price. I lost touch a bit and became a little more infrequent, mostly because I felt for a while I plateaued at a certain level – enough to be…
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Charity Ordeals & reaching 40
Just a quick post tonight after I reached two milestones in my comedy career. Firstly I just did my first charity gig. To be honest I’d heard a lot about charity gigs being often the worst and hardest gigs to do and approached this one (Help the Heroes) with a degree of trepidation.
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‘Tree’ by Daniel Kitson
I always find it very interesting in how artists, be them comedians, playwrights, actors or musicians progress over time. I think about the changes that maturity brings – Ben Folds moved from aggressive geek piano rock to a mature writer of occasionally sentimental ballads, while the Red Hot Chili Peppers went from cock rock funk…
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Three gigs
I’ve not written about stand-up and how my gigging has been going for a while so I thought I’d write some of what I’ve been doing for you my avid readers. I say avid readers in the broadest sense, I have google analytics so know where you live and who you are (apart from the…
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Edinburgh 2013
A quick note about some of the shows I’ve seen this festival with a short review – please do not regard these as definitive, every show is worth seeing and this is almost entirely subjective.
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An Edinburgh Hour – Part 2
Hello and welcome back. This is my attempt to put some rough ideas down for new material and potentially a new show. It’s really really VERY rough stuff… The finished article will be slicker, more coherent, funnier, more poignant and generally just less shit. But if you don’t hate this then do stay tuned. So far the…
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An Edinburgh Hour…
Last week I got a bad review. A very bad review. I know what you’re thinking, “I bet it wasn’t that bad“, “i bet you startled them with you linguistic ability, surprised them with wit and poignancy“, maybe, just maybe you’re thinking, “I bet he’s being modest and at worst it is a mixed review“.…
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Kitson and Kirk
This week has been pretty good so far. I say pretty good, I mean on the one hand I’ve enjoyed it, I’ve had some great experiences and seen some great work, but at the same time and perhaps paradoxically as a direct result of those very same great experiences I have felt an overwhelming sense…
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When will I be on Live at the Apollo?
Recently I had two gigs back-to-back that weren’t terrible. Hardly a ringing endorsement, but when I told a mate i’d had two average gigs he asked me when I’d be on Live at the Apollo. Now this is terrible for a few reasons, firstly it suggests that my ambition rests with being on TV rather than…
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Gigs #20 & #21 – A tale of two gigs
I’ve decided to roll gigs #20 & #21 together as they are good examples of how life doesn’t always work in your favour and sometimes you have to search for positives. Gig #20 was a competition, my first, for Bottletop Comedian Of The Year, Heat One. The gig went really well, I had chance to…
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Gig #19 – The Holly Bush, Dudley
I’ve not blogged for a couple of gigs and had no real intention of doing many more, however, after talking to a few comics at gigs who seem to read the shit I write on here I thought I’d continue. In a weird way I am taking pride from writing this pretentious drivel and knowing…
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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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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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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…