Have PA will travel.

I have another gig this week, thanks to Al's dedicated research and schmoozing. We're off to Manchester on Wednesday, though I don't have the details. This will be gig 26 for me - I'm not counting the 2 minutes of links I did at the last one.

We also have a PA now (as in Public Address - we don't quite need a Personal assistant yet.) - again thanks to AL, who had been coveting one since his days as one of those guys who helps out musicians, that's it, a drummer. We didn't really need this as the PA at the Dog and Parrot was fine. Actually it was a bit weird this week, but that's probably because it was set up at the last minute, when we failed to bring ours as it was still locked in Al's car, his keys having been stolen in Amsterdam.

Anyway, now we have it, it opens up new horizons. First in using it to full comic potential. We could have proper scene setting sound effects for sketches. We could have little SFX jokes - like opening fan mail and having screams come out, or hearing internal monologue, 'Hmmm, with Cal and Al gone I'd be the star of the show...' -it was always fun when Vic and Bob did that. We could have backing music for more elaborate musical numbers etc etc. Actually all of that depends as much on the sampler as the PA - but the nice thing is just having full control of the sound setup.

The other bonus is we can now do our own shows anywhere. Rather than travel to other comedy nights, we can travel to towns that don't have comedy nights and put one on, all we need is an audience and an empty room. Or rather, a full room with an audience in it. There's no point having an audience if you perform in an empty room.

Of course we might just discover exactly why these places didn't have comedy nights. Or worse still, we'll discover why they don't have mirrors or garlic.

On another matter, we're still looking for ideas for the audience competition at the LLC. I think the ideas we've had so far will all work, in fact even though there were only 10 people in last time we still had over 20 entries so it's certainly a popular part of the show. So the little games / jokes are working, but sometimes it's enough just to ask a simple question - that's what they do at the end of 'the Now Show' every week, eg.

With the Marathon this weekend we asked - What was your greatest Physical achievement?

What?
Learning to walk.
Why did you do it?
To impress the family.

What?
Biking up and down Scarfell Pike.
Why did you do it?
I couldn't read the map.

What?
Giving birth.
Why did you do it?
The baby was coming.


WEDNESDAY 26TH OF APRIL.
SOMEWHERE IN MANCHESTER -IF YOU'RE READING THIS AL PLEASE ADD A COMENT WITH THE DETAILS.

TUESDAY 2ND OF MAY. 8.30 FOR A 9.00 START. -
THE 4TH 'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2.