Gig 1. `If it wasn`t nailed down he`d covet it.`

If this blog is going to plot my course as an aspiring comic (meteoric rise to stardom) I might as well start at the begining- so on days when I can`t think of anything new to report I`ll think back and try to remember the gigs I`ve done so far. So here we go...

Gig 1. Me and Rich. Cumberland Arms. August? 2005. - Pearly Gates.

Rich is a friend who agreed to help out by playing the other roles in sketches. He`s great- usually funnier than me, but he has no ambitions to write or make a career out of it. Usually I have a pretty fully formed sketch and in rehersing it we chop and change so Rich might add a fair bit to the finished product.

The Cumberland arms is a pub in Byker - Near the Cluny, overlooking Ouseburn, great in the Summer- It has various music and poetry nights. We always performed at Home Cookin` a free for all the first Sat. of every month. It`s a good room and the crowd and acts are nicely mixed- there`s usually not much comedy on - so even if you`re not too good you`ll still be warmly recieved if you`re following a busker with 3 Bod Dylan rip-offs.

The sketch was one I`d written on holiday after finishing a Peter Cooke biography. It`s about a mild old man who dies and goes to heaven- and wants to be a pirate as reward. I think the christian idea of heaven is a bit weird- we vaguely imagine a place where we can do whatever we want, but for most people this would include a lot of the stuff we`d resisted doing in order to get there. As Mr. Atley says to saint Peter...

"I stayed off the piracy in life you see- I kept a budgie. I could have had a parrot- only I thought it might set me off."

I was really pleased with the sketch, but I think it may be too long- we`ve done it a lot since and I think it`ll have to be shelved or we`ll try a 3 minute version. Still, it always goes down pretty well, people like the stupid beards if nothing else.
Anyway- the sketch worked and we were on our way...