Manchester and/or bust.

So I am just preparing to leave for Manchester, for what could be a very important gig. It's the chortle student comedy awards. Not as prestigious as some, but still if I could win (ho, ho.) it would probably get me started on the paying circuit. My main goal is just to do a decent gig and hence get a review which might at least make it a bit easier to get local gigs.

They have asked for 5-7 minutes, which I think I will have to interperet as 5 minutes, which will be allowed to run 2 minutes over before you get chucked off. My routine was bordering dangerously on 7 minutes and even over - so to allow for mistakes or big laughs I have had to shave a few jokes out of it. On friday Cal and Al saw my act - a bit weird playing to two people - and suggested taking this out...

"I'm trying to look after myself now. I used to eat a lot of bad meat, but now -No food with a face, If the chef can't be bothered to cut the head off, I'm not eating it."

But I was worried it was still on the long side - so I have now removed...

"I like kids jokes - here's one my nephew told me-
How do you start a teddy bears` race?
Go on ya bastards!"

And from a bit about how a child named after Isombard Kingdom Brunel would have a good start in life I had to cut...

"Yeah. I can't see isombard getting an A.S.B.O. - unless it's an order for an Atlantic sailing behemoth."

I was sorry to see these lines go, but I couldn't risk going over 7 minutes without knowing how strict the policy would be - for all I know it could lead to instant disqualification. Anyway- I feel in many ways like this is my first pro gig. By which I mean I have to drive for 6 hours, I can't drink, I won't get home until 3.00 on Tuesday morning and I don't know anyone there. But unlike a pro. I won't get paid.

NEXT GIG:

MONDAY 27th FEB. 8.30.
CHORTLE STUDENT COMEDY AWARDS, MANCHESTER HEAT - XS Malarkey.

TUESDAY 7TH MAR. 8.00.
THE BIG ONE, THE FIRST NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.

...with footwork impec-able.

I learned recently that a kind of saying in days of yore - specifically king Arthur's round table and all that - that if you expected to be knighted, it wouldn't happen. Presumably they wanted humble, pious knights. Pride is a sin, remember, and getting all puffed up because you were sure you were a dead cert for the next open slot at the old R.T. wasn't on.

But its a bit of a weird system really. Employing only the people who think they have no chance whatever at getting the job.
-Do you expect to be Knighted.
-Me? Not bloody likely, you want good soldiers and pious, saintly men - I'm a bastard and I'm rubbish with a lance. King Arthur came through the village last week, I threw a potatoe at him and called him a wanker!
-Ah, the very man for the job!

Maybe they're after young innocent lads, not yet corrupted - as Arthur himself was when he pulled the sword from the stone.

-Ah, Squire Roland, thou fightest well, and doth honour church and king, maybe one day you might be a knight.
-Not, I sir, I am but a simple farm lad.
-But through hard work and study, you may reach any height.
-Yes! I suppse, god willing, I expect even I one day...
-Ahhhhhh! Expect it do you? No way! You've pissed on your chips there mate.

Brushing up the dog, polishing the parrot.

Another meeting to plan the future of comedy.

Cal, Al and I met at the Dog and Parrot for a chat and came up with a few more ideas. It's great having people to collaborate with, as an offhand remark from someone can lead to a further idea in someone else, and before you know it you've got 5 minutes of stage time. Here's a few of the ideas we came up with;

- a comedy magic act -'The bird from nowhere.'

-discussing intro music, we thought we could make a sketchette, from each of us having spontaneous walking forwards and backwards music. Someone walks upstage to 'Eye of the Tiger' and is accompanied by 'The Littlest Hobo' on the way back.

-Al's health and safety announcements - (He's been on a course and it's stuck)

-Foam bricks for the audience to hurl rather than heckling.

-Covers night - where the comics do 'tributes' and 'homages' - lets face it blatantly rip off famous comics. Possibly following the 'Stars in their Eyes' format.

-A spot called 'I wonder why I stopped doing that?' Where comics can re-air dusty forgotten material. The original reason for this was to allow for some audience catchphrases (though we'd have to hope they just followed our lead - we didn't think the audience would like to be prompted and prodded. ) The idea is the comic tries a bit and says 'I wonder why I stopped doing that?' We spin a lollipop lady style sign, and depending on audience reaction we make it stop on either, 'No wonder - it's chunder' or We don't know why, it's alrigh...........t.' -anyone who can be arsed shout out the phrases in unison.

I'm sure there were more. Anyway, as you can judge it's going to be a bit weird. (But not ZANY, oh no.)

MONDAY 27th FEB. 8.30.
CHORTLE STUDENT COMEDY AWARDS, MANCHESTER HEAT - XS Malarkey.

TUESDAY 7TH MAR. 8.00.
THE BIG ONE, THE FIRST NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS) -OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.

LONG LIVE COMEDY - NEW WEBSITE.

Today's news - the Long Live Comedy website is now up and running.

That's it, short and sweet. Use the link, have a look. There's not much on it now - just an introduction and an e-mail for open mic.ers to get in touch. At the next meeting I'll get some pictures of me, Cal and Al. And after the gigs we'll probably put a rundown of what happened.

Right. Off you pop.

MY NEXT GIGS:

MONDAY 27th FEB. 8.30.
CHORTLE STUDENT COMEDY AWARDS, MANCHESTER HEAT - XS Malarkey.

TUESDAY 7TH MAR. 8.00.
THE BIG ONE, THE FIRST NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS) -OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION

Student Comedy Awards.

What with all the excitement of setting up our own night - Long Live Comedy- I'd forgotten that my actual next gig is infact quite an important one too. I'm in the Chortle Student Comedy Awards in Manchester on 27th Feb. Coo.

I think the biggest challenge of this gig will actually be staying sober, as I think I will drive there and come straight back after it. I suppose this is something real working comics have to get used to, but I still can't be in a pub and not have a pint in front of me.

So far most of my gigs have been local and usually only about once a week, so I've been able to treat a gig as a night out. But if I'm going to do more professional work (ho,ho.) I'll have to treat it like a job - drive there, do the gig, drive home.

Maybe I should be worrying a bit more about what I'll say than how I'll get there. At the moment I'm torn between straight standup, and finishing on my planet of the ape song. The only trouble is, the simpsons once used the same idea, and though I'm not stealing the jokes, some people might see it as too derivative. (I did come up with it before I knew of the Simpsons version -honest!)

If you've seen me and can recommend favourite bits that I should definately keep, please leave a comment.

MY NEXT GIG:
TUESDAY 7TH MARCH. 8.00.
THE BIG ONE, THE FIRST NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS) -OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION

Plans are afoot.

So the plans for the grand opening of 'LONG LIVE COMEDY*' are ongoing, and indeed going on.

A meeting at the weekend had us planning out the format - hopefully next time it'll be a bit more of a writers meeting, and we'll work out what we are actually going to say. At the moment we've got a scribble saying 'intro - 10 minutes', that won't mean much until we actually stand up and say funny stuff for 10 minutes.

Still, we've got a framework, but I'm slightly worried that it's already beeing diluted and if we bottle out any futher it won't work. We're acting on 3 basic principles, the first of which is 'be different'. We know we're beginners and if we try to do the same thing as happens at most clubs -4 comics and a compere- we'll just be a pale imitation. So we want to have props, sound effects, costumes, characters, audience participation, sketches, interaction between acts, themes, recurring characters, jingles, catch phrases. Most of this could fall flat, but whether it works or not, it will be different.

The second principle is we want to do new stuff every week, and the third is we want to be an open night spot, where anyone can have a go. -Actually thats just one - it's open night, and we allow ourselves to be on as well. So a third principle -it's got to be funny.

What I'm a little worried about, is if in making it an open night, we can't guarantee it's going to be funny. We've agreed between us that we work as a kind of comittee as regards our own material, i've got a new character - but I'll do the piece in its finished form for Al and Cal and if they don't like it, it's out. But at the same time we've agreed that for newcomers - anything goes.

But we can't lose the open mic ethos. That's the only reason we started this - with the end of the Chilli and the Egypt we didn't have a guaranteed gig every week, so we had to make one.(Although it's currently every fortnight) Now it seems Northbynortheast are planning a gig in Newcastle - but I assume they want to duplicate the success of the royalty, so we could probably only get on every couple of months - and total beginners would still have nowhere.

I guess the answer is for me, Al and Cal to pull up our socks and make sure our bits - which should make up over a third of the show- are really good and follow the ideas we originally discussed. Then the rest can be a real hotch potch, but we'll still have an overall flavour and can guarantee some of it's going to be great.

MY NEXT GIG:
TUESDAY 7TH MARCH. 8.00.
THE BIG ONE, THE FIRST NIGHT OF 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS) -OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.


*No, we couldn't think of anything better.

The bony fun comedy parrot laughter shack.

We (hopefully) now have a night and now we need a name for it.

You need to have 'comedy' or 'funny' in the title, so most places go for a phrase - funny bones, funny farm - or a pun - funny magnet. We decided to go for the ronseal approach and have it do exactly what it sez on the tin.

We came up with 'long live comedy'. I'm starting to have doubts already. It's supposed to be like 'long live the king.' but people are used to seeing 'live (rhymes with 5) comedy' , so they might think it's 'long live (rhymes with 5) comedy'. So the comedy is live and goes on for about 4 hours. hmmm.

The other approach is to use the name of the venue. 'Dog and dead Parrot', anyone? 'The dog with a bone (which is funny) and the Parrot what is dead, like in Monty Python.' , bit long. Also we may not be there permanently, so there's not much point focusing on the venue.

And we're not actually a 'troup' - me, Al and Cal are just the people who will organise it and be there every week. And although we're going to collaborate a lot more we're not ourselves a team like 'the league of gentlemen' or 'the mighty boosh'.

Any suggestions?

MY NEXT GIG -
THE DOG AND PARROT TUESDAY 7TH MARCH.

THE SUNDERLAND ROYALTY IS STILL GOING STRONG, EVERY WED.

A venue at last?

Monday night at Agora was an absolute flop - it was a music night after all and the audience were used to just chatting with half an ear to the music. They had the same attitude to comedy - which doesn't make for a good gig.

But the good news, we (me, Al, Cal) also went to the Dig and Parrot and got a gig. I don't want to get too excited as we have to make sure it's definitely on and doesn't clash with anything else. Above all we don't want to throw a spanner in the works of Northbynortheast, who ran the Chillingham Arms and the Egypt Cottage nights. But it looks like they want to have something in Newcastle like the current Sunderland Royalty - where there are 3 - 4 good acts who've proved themselves. We want our bits to be as good as we can get them, but with a little room to experiment and sometimes fall on our arses. We'd also give anyone a slot - there has to be somewhere that absolute beginners can have a go.

So, we are tentatively planning our first gig as hosts and main contributers. One problem with this is that some weeks it might be just us three and a couple of beginners with untried 5 mins. So we have to come up with other things to do - possibly to act as links between acts, until the compere skills get better. I have previously mentioned the 'I'm sorry i haven't a clue games' as potential - but on that occasion I couldn't think of any examples. I've since listened to a great episode, including a game that might work.

New Definitions.

Dictator - humorously shaped root vegetable.
Colonnade -a fizzy enema.
intercontinental -someone who wets themselves all over the world.

The idea was that we could each do 4 or 5 examples at the start of the show, and provide paper and pencils (Thanks, IKEA.) and the audience could note down any that occurred to them during the show, and we could read out the suggestions later.

The only thing is- this will only work if it's reasonably easy. As an experiment I will now read the front page of the paper - and see if i can come up with any....

discussion - not dat cushion.
abundance - what people do during Sir mixalot's 'Baby Got Back' .

Potential? Have a go, think of 5 long words - I bet you can do it with one of them. I've just tried that too and got;

supercilious - a very silly roman.

MY NEXT GIG -
THE DOG AND PARROT TUESDAY 7TH MARCH.

THE SUNDERLAND ROYALTY IS STILL GOING STRONG, EVERY WED.

good warm up - bad show.

Two gigs this weekend - 18 and 19 if you're keeping count (I am obviously).

SAT CUMBERLAND ARMS -HOME COOKING.
THE GONG SHOW - DICKENS INN MIDDLESBOROUGH SUN 5TH FEB.

Saturday at the cumberland arms was a treat. It's a long time since I've been and I'd forgotten how good it can be. It's the first Saturday of every month and I will certainly be back. It's also where I did all my early sketches with Rich, and I remembered how some of that was a lot more inventive and risky than most of what I'm now doing on my own now.

Anyway - Al and I only went to the cumberland to rehearse for the middlesborough gong show, getting our 5 minutes sorted out. On Saturday we both did well, and as I'd run over - doing about 7 minutes - I clipped out some of the weaker laughs and was quite confident that I'd at least make it to the end of my routine before being gonged. After all, there are 3 red cards - all I needed was one person to like me of the 3 to get through - and on Saturday pretty much everyone was with me.

Well - it didn't work that way. I'd gone for the tactic of a lot of quick jokes at the start, hoping these laughs would settle the itchy trigger fingers of the card holders, but actually 5 quick jokes are 5 opportunities for people to find something they don't like. I thought the cards would go up if there was a big gap between laughs, but they were always willing to wait for the end of a bit. There's a 90 second grace period when people can't put the cards up - and I only made it through another 30 seconds or so before I was off. I think the first red card threw me, then I ummmed and arrrred a bit and the other two went up.

This seemed to happen quite often, the rules of the gong -and the power of the 3 card holders sets up a weird dynamic. Most people who were gonged got all 3 cards within about 10 seconds, which shows that the judges aren't really acting independently. And most cards went up not after a bad joke, but during a hesitation. If I was judging I think I'd put my card up after the first punchline I didn't like. But there were some people with (I thought) rotten material, but the cards went up not when the punchlines fell flat, but when this caused the comic to stall. The judges weren't looking for bad lines, but fear.

Anyway, long story short, I was shit. Again. Al got through his 5 but didn't win.

Still - two gig's this weekend when I might not have done any. One I enjoyed and one I learned from.


MY NEXT GIG:
Mon 6th Feb - Open Mic Night, Agora, Newcastle upon Tyne.
This is to scope out the Agora as a possible regular venue.

THE SUNDERLAND ROYALTY IS STILL GOING STRONG, EVERY WED.

We need a venue.

Two entries today! I realised I had promised to talk about the Monday meeting to discuss the future venue for weekly comedy in Newcastle. Al wrote about this too, have a look at his take on it.

Present were John Scott, Sarah Millican, Stef, Christian Steele, Callum Cramb, Al Dawes and me. It was generally agreed that we need a weekly spot where the new comics can try stuff out and have a regular gig, and the pros will come along and help out the line up when they can. Basically, the same as the Egypt Cottage, but in a place people actually go to.

There were lots of venue suggestions, but problems with most. At the moment the most likely options are;

Agora - see below, we're going to hijack the open mic on Monday, which is currently musical, and if there's an audience for it the management say they'd start a comedy one on another night.

A place Al found when he and Sarah went in the next day to chase up some leads-

"I noticed a sign on the pub that used to be FM's, I forget what it is called now.  It said function room for hire.  I went in and talked to the manager, and he was desperate to get us in.  DESPERATE."

And possibly upstairs at the Dog and Parrot (opposite centre for life). I forgot to mention this one at the meeting but it's where New Word Order Hold their poetry nights/slams - so they're used to that type of thing - it has a stage, PA and a bar upstairs - and it's absolutely nothing like the goth/rock shit hole that is the dog and parrot proper - it's really a different place, it even has it's own door.

So that's where. How about what?
We think there will be a weekly caretaking core of me, Callum and Al, and other, busier comics will come along when they can. I reakon the 3 of us need to generate at least an hour a week, then count on 20 minutes from a headline and a half hour of open mic and general warm up. The trouble is if we do an hour by doing each doing our best 20 minutes we're going to run out of steam pretty fast.

So what to do...

There's got to be new material every week. In fact, that's my main reason for having a weekly gig, to try new stuff. I thought an optional theme might start us off, instead of looking at a blank page we know this week I need a bit on Sci-fi, animals, politics, science etc.

We could have some set bits that recur every week - like vic reeves' novelty island or judge nutmeg - once we've got the concept its a lot quicker to do another one than write another 10 minutes of stand up. How about Al Dawe's magical mystery tours -Al has the audience close their eyes and describes how he is transporting them to a magical destination, when they open their eyes - a few crap props (possibly a different hat) give the impression of being in Spain, Russia or ancient Greece. I don't know. Maybe a film club -we do very fast spoof versions of the latest films-imagine Al growling on a stool while we chuck paper planes at him.

Another idea was getting the audience involved, and I think a suggestion box / question of the week is a great idea. The audience write and we read them out. Some should be funny anyway -intentionally or not -and we can just take the piss out of others. This could be a great bit for the compere (probably Callum) between spots.

I even suggested improv. -though this has bad connotations for a lot of people. Some of the games on 'I'm sorry i haven't a clue' might work. -I was going to give an example but i've been sitting thinking for 10 minutes and I've got nothing so they might not work. I'd love to try something like 'The Masterson Inheiritance' -this was a radio show with the comedy store players making up a 30 minute mellodrama from scratch - not that we could just 'have a go' , but if anyone else would like to try that kind of thing let me know.

What ever we do, it's got to be different - the nature of this night is a lot of new material - sometimes there will be more shit than gold, so we need something that people talk about afterwards, even when it goes wrong.

"people were doing regular stand up and we were bringing pot plants into the gig and trying to make a whole mini play in 10 minutes, people thought we were nuts."
Noel Fielding, The Mighty Boosh.


MY NEXT GIG:
-SAT CUMBERLAND ARMS -HOME COOKING.
THE GONG SHOW - DICKENS INN MIDDLESBOROUGH SUN 5TH FEB.

Mon 6th Feb - Open Mic Night, Agora, Newcastle upon Tyne
(and then every monday I can persuade them to put me on)
-I COPIED THIS FROM AL'S BLOG -BUT ACCORDING TO CALLUM ITS FORTNIGHTLY -THAT'S WHY IT WASN'T ON WHEN WE WERE THERE.

THE SUNDERLAND ROYALTY IS STILL GOING STRONG, EVERY WED.

Boosh! Boosh! Stronger than a moose!

I've been busy this week so the 'every week-day' plan for the blog has gone out the window. One of the things keeping me busy was - the Mighty Boosh Live in York (first date of the tour).

This was great, I loved every minute of it. Be sure of that. I am, however, going to talk about a few of it's failings - or at least things other people are sure to point out as failings.

First - there was a lot of old stuff. Although it was kind of a new story, it was collaged from bits of the TV series, held together with new glue. Then again, most comedy hits of recent years who tour have been sketch shows - and they do the same gags every week, even on TV. It was a shame there was no new music - but then again, it's always hard to get pop music on the first hearing - even making out the lyrics can be tough.

The other 'failing?' was that it was still fairly amateurish and pantomime like - the TV shows are really slick. (whereas something like Vic Reeve's Big Night Out looked as ramshackle on TV as it probably did in the London pubs where it started.) In one way this is good too. On the DVD you can see early video of the Boosh (in London Pubs) doing the same kind of thing, going to the arctic in Ziggy Stardust costumes, fighting mod wolves in jungles etc - so they didn't wait till they hit the big time to have big ideas, they just used their imagination (and the crowds') a load of cheap props and did it. Maybe that's why it still looks a bit rough - they're not thinking 'now we've got an audience and a budget we can do it' they're just doing what they've always done.

And hopefully, when our little gang finds a weekly venue in Newcastle, some of the stuff we're doing will be as ambitious.

Anyway - I'm going to the last day of the tour in Edinburgh too - that's how good it was.

MY NEXT GIG:
POSSIBLY A WARM UP FOR SUN -SAT CUMBERLAND ARMS HOME KOOKIN'.
THE GONG SHOW - DICKENS INN MIDDLESBOROUGH SUN 5TH FEB.

Mon 6th Feb - Open Mic Night, Agora, Newcastle upon Tyne
(and then every monday I can persuade them to put me on)
-I COPIED THIS FROM AL'S BLOG -BUT ACCORDING TO CALLUM ITS FORTNIGHTLY -THAT'S WHY IT WASN'T ON WHEN WE WERE THERE.

THE SUNDERLAND ROYALTY IS STILL GOING STRONG, EVERY WED.