Inside the mind of an unknown comedian

Small Compliments

Hola. Hope you are well.

I’m going to start this week’s blog post by mentioning an upcoming gig.

This Fri 4th May I will be compering a Comedy Poetry night called John Hegley and Some Other Poets (it does what it says on the tin). It’s at the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone, London NW8 8EH, nearest station Edgware Road. Time 8pm, Price £8. For more info.

On Friday, I went to see Prong 2, from 3 Prong Attack (the double act I belong to) in Othello. Not to spoil it for anyone but his character died. It was weird being in the audience watching him die on stage, as usually I’m stood next to him when this happens.

On Friday and Saturday the only flesh that passed my lips was one portion of fish. It did make me think that I might be turning into the new Linda McCartney, although on Sunday I did have Cottage Pie, so I’m probably not. Plus Paul McCartney is my least favourite Beatle. (No offence if you’re reading this Sir Paul).

Also last week, I had to send an email on ‘Her With One Permanent Job’s’ behalf, so I cc’d her in. Later on she said, “I’d written a good email” (or words to that effect). I’ll be honest, I will take any compliment where I can get them and even if I’m not sure if someone is being complimentary or just sarcastic, I take it as a compliment, but it did make me wonder what small compliments other people have had. Feel free to let me know of your small compliments via the comments button.

Last week Rupert Murdoch was speaking at the Leveson Inquiry (how long is this enquiry). It’s seems that the accepted view of Rupert Murdoch is that he is the devil, or if not the devil, the devil’s representative on earth. Yet, The Sun is the biggest selling paper in Britain and The Times is basically propped up financially by him. The former fact shows that people are prepared to buy his products and the latter would appear to show he’s not just motivated by commercial factors. With this in mind I wondered if there are people out there who like Rupert Murdoch. So if you like Rupert Murdoch, feel free to let me know.

And Finally… In the last couple of weeks I’ve watched a number of films. First up was, ‘Get Him to the Greek’ starring Russell Brand, the ‘On the Waterfront’ starring Marlon Brando, then Moneyball with Brand Pitt (ok, Brad Pitt), then I watched ‘Harry Brown’, then a docu/film about Black women’s hair, presented randomly by Chris Rock, called ‘Good Hair’ and finally I watched ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’. I’m going to be bold and say no one reading this will have seen all these films (I may be wrong). Not even ‘HWOPJ’ watched all 6 films as she wouldn’t watch Harry Brown as she thought it was too violent. Maybe I should have thought this, before getting it out of the library, as the blurb read, “Makes any Quentin Tarantino film seem like the magic roundabout”. Feel free to let me know how many of the films you’ve watched.

Til next week, stay safe!

Is it wrong to re-gift an Easter egg?

Hola. Hope you are well.

I may have a 3 Prong Attack gig (my double act) this evening, Mon 2nd April. I say I may because for this gig you have to go to the venue early to put your name down for a slot. For those who will be in central London this evening, the gig takes place at the Round Table Pub (upstairs), 26 Martins Court, nearest Tube st is Leicester Sq. Doors 8pm, Show starts 8:30pm. It’s £5 in if you mention Chortle, see here and £7 if you don’t. Even if we aren’t on the bill I’m sure it will still be a good night of comedy.

Talking of the 3 Prong Attack, we had a meet up last week, where we had a chat about what’s been working and what hasn’t worked in terms of our live performances. We kind of accepted that what we are doing, a radio show in front of an audience, is a difficult concept for the audience to get their heads around. We are basically going against the norm, which is apparent at comedy gigs where every other act on the bill is doing straight stand up.  So after this chat about how we suffer by not doing what other people are doing, we did a short video for a comp, to be a vlogger (video blog) during the Olympics, in it Prong 2 thinks the Olympics are being held in Paris, and then I assure him they are being staged in Qatar. I can’t imagine any of the other participants, going to the time and effort to make a video clip, and then put something in that is quite clearly a comedy sketch. To be honest I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Onto other matters and how old I look. In the past few weeks I have been mistaken for a 6th former in the school I work in, I was also prevented from buying alcohol in a Morrisons store, due to their rule of not serving alcohol to people who don’t look at least 25, all this despite me being in my mid (to late) 30s. And then last week at school, I made the error of mentioning my date of birth to a colleague. We were discussing Chinese zodiac signs, I wasn’t just randomly telling people my date of birth. I knew in an instant that I had made a mistake, mainly because she started hyperventilating and then when she recovered significantly she asked. “Are you sure”? She then went on to say “If I look like you when I’m your age, I’ll have done something right”. I doubt any woman really wants to look like a man at any stage of their life, but I understood her sentiment. The problem I have is that I quite clearly look (and probably act) younger than my age. This is probably heightened when I’m clean-shaven and I look at my youngest. These incidents have made me think if someone ever makes a biopic of my life I could play both my current self and my younger self. There can’t be that many people who can say that.

And finally… Last week the teaching agency I work for, popped into school and left me a Easter Egg, for all my hard work, which was nice. As I’m not overly fussed about chocolate, I decided I would re-gift it and pass it on to ‘Her With One Permanent Job’. The problem with this plan, is that ‘HWOPJ’ knows me too well and didn’t believe I would go out and get her an Easter Egg unprompted. So in the end, I confessed as to where I got the egg, and she then felt disappointed that I’d not gone out and bought it. So, if you only take one thing from this blog, be careful when re-gifting Easter Eggs.

Til next week, stay safe!

Who rings a pub?

Spectator advert

Hola. Hope you are well.

Another blog post on a Wednesday, making a mockery of my claim to post on Mondays, maybe Wednesday is the new Monday. In my defence, I had a 3 Prong Attack gig on Monday night and then yesterday I was too tired to blog (diddums).

The gig on Monday took place at a Sports bar, where the acts were competing with Man Utd v Fulham. BBC 3 were also there filming, it probably doesn’t need saying but they weren’t there to film us, they were following a mixed raced (of black and white parents) , jewish, lady. That’s some good ticking of boxes BBC. To be fair she’s the what would happen if 3 Prong Attack had a daughter, assuming Prong 2 is the woman in the relationship.

Another notable thing about the night was how often the bar’s phone rang. It got me thinking, who rings a pub? And if you are ringing a pub, what are you ringing about? In the past, I’ve rung a pub, either to see if they are showing a certain football match or to find out what the pub was doing for Christmas or New Years Eve. As it was a Sports bar you’d assume they’d be showing the football and as we were only in March I doubt people are planning their Christmas night out 9 months early. Feel free to let me know what you’ve rung a pub for. (you can comment via the comments button)

On last weeks blog post I spoke about my argument with a compere, I don’t want to speak further about this as I went into it in detail last week, but one thing I’ve noticed, is that arguing with a stranger is better than arguing with a loved one. For example, if you argue with a family member, or your other-half, you have that awkward period afterwards, then the apology and the backdown, but with a stranger there is no fall-out, you’re never going to see them again. So for that reason I would recommend it, of course if the stranger turns out to be a maniac, ignore everything I’ve just said.

And Finally… Recently I’ve been seeing various Spectator magazine ads on the trains I travel on, one says, “After Brangelina and Jedward, we think we know what to call Dave and Nick”, referring to David Cameron and Nick Clegg.  ‘Her With One Permanent Job’ pointed out this was similar to something I wrote a whole two years ago. Which shows I am ahead of the zeitgeist. And just in case people don’t believe me, here is a link to my blog post dated 17th May 2010. It was so long ago, it was the days before I blogged on WordPress.

Til next week, stay safe!

Nothing comperes to you

Hola. Hope you are well.

Congrats to those who predicted I would blog this week on a Wednesday.

This week’s blog was going to be different, that was until I did a 3 Prong gig (my double act) yesterday and ended the night in an argument with the compere, as you do.

Ok, so where to start…

‘Her With One Permanent Job’ , Prong 2 and I were all sat at the back of the room, attempting to be inconspicuous. At the start of the gig the compere (the landlady’s husband) spoke about how this was a nice and supportive night, it’s the kind of spiel comperes make at an open mic night because they know the standard of acts will be variable. He then went on to talk about how everyone should be all smiles as this would help the acts. I once again assumed this was just patter and not a binding contract.

I will at this point, admit that I wasn’t at my best as an audience member. A couple of things went against me, firstly it was a hot room and I was already feeling tired after work, secondly, they had this system of not telling the acts when they were going on but randomly picking the acts. I must confess that I’m never at my best before I go on stage as I’m trying to remember my lines and the order of the set etc and with the added factor of not knowing when I was going on, I was less focussed on the comedy than I normally would be. However, I wasn’t being rude, I wasn’t chatting and I wasn’t being dismissive of the acts, I clapped when they came on stage and again when they left.

My problem came because instead of putting all the acts names in a hat (he was wearing a hat) and then pulling them out at random, the compere thought it would be better if he got the audience to choose between two numbers and whichever number got the bigger response, the act that number corresponded to was brought on stage. So he’s doing this before an act is due to come on and then starts pointing at me because I’m not shouting for either number with enough conviction and that my arms are crossed. To be honest, I half turned around unsure he was talking to me because normally at comedy clubs the compere doesn’t interact with the acts. But as it happens he was talking to me, and not content with berating me from the stage he then comes over to me to have another go at me, explaining how this is a ‘friendly and supportive’ night and that I wasn’t entering into the spirit of such a night. He then went back on stage and said something else about me (it wasn’t complimentary.

You’d think the interval might have calmed him down, but he opens the second half by saying how he studies the audience and if any of the acts aren’t being supportive enough, he keeps them waiting throughout the second half and then never brings them on. I wonder who he might be talking about?

Anyway, the second half continues and he’s drawing the acts out at ‘random’, he’s dropped the audience shouting the numbers out pretence. The acts keep coming and going, yet we have not been picked as yet. Eventually after 19 acts he says we have 1 act left, and asks “Do you want to see them”. He may as well have said, “I don’t want to put these two guys on but if you can be arsed then be it on your head”.

So the night ends and he’s at the door, cradling a bucket, collecting donations from the audience for himself, not the acts I should add. My intention was to walk past him and ignore him but then he said a sarcastic comment to ‘HWOPJ’, who responded by saying, “We won’t be back”. He then repeated this back to the people around him, this annoyed me as I felt he didn’t take us seriously, so I had to have a word with him. During our argument he kept going on about how his night was all about being friendly and supportive and me asking if coming from the stage to have a go at me was ‘friendly and supportive’, he wouldn’t answer my question. In the end I called him a “bully with a mic” because the only time he had a go at me was when he had the mic.

I say in the end, I did call him a “knob” when I was outside the pub, ironically with the enthusiasm he would have liked earlier in the evening. All this for the honour of playing 5 mins at his wife’s pub. That’s showbiz, I suppose.

Til next week, stay safe!