Author: Sam Freeman
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The Scarborough Boxing Day Tradition
Boxing day in Scarborough always seems slightly different to many places. Not for Scarborough the simple consumption of excess chocolate and the remains of Christmas dinner. Instead we’re all seemingly lured by the call of the sea to walk around the seafront in sub-arctic conditions as lunatics paddle home-made rafts around the harbour. As hypothermia…
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Rejection letters: what they say and what they mean…
I spent the last year writing a play. It’s good. I wrote it. It must be. Surely. Sadly no-one agrees. Lots of people say you should take rejection with a pinch of salt. I say no. Take that salt, add some lemon juice and squeeze it onto the gaping wound where you heart once beat.…
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You won’t believe what he looks like today…
Seriously now. Grow the fuck up and read the news. The Guardian – Click to read The Independent – Click to read The Daily Mail – Click to read Oh, and join my e-mail list.
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Drowning under the weight of a thousand e-mails
When I first started writing this blog it was to have a voice. “I’ve interesting things to say” I thought, “on interesting matters”. So I started to write and it turned out very quickly that I had nothing interesting to say when I tried to write something interesting. Instead it came across as someone trying…
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Gig Report #6 – Albion, Warrington
This is a gig I’ve done before (as compere and doing storytelling) and while I love it to pieces it can be a bit tricky sometimes. The seating configuration is in thrust, so, as you’ll see from the video below there’s audience behind and in front of me. This means that delivery becomes harder –…
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Gig Report 4 & 5 and some stuff about theatre…
It’s been a week or two since I last put my gig report online so I thought it’d be high time to keep up and write up what’s been happening. Well, I’m now up to gig 5 of my return and I’ve still not died hideously on my arse… Gig 4 was Danny Mc’s gig…
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Gig Report #3 – Pros & Coms, Liverpool
I was back at my old stomping grounds* down Liverpool’s Lark Lane to do a set at Pros & Coms. It’s a gig I have a long history with having compered it regularly for 2 years and it being my home gig. It’s moved venues since I performed there regularly to a bar called…
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Gig Report #2 – Comedy Asylum
There are some gigs where you arrive and you think, “this is going to be fine”. There are other gigs where you accidentally take a wrong turn on the way there forcing you to drive through (and pay for) the Mersey tunnel twice despite there being no need, to arrive, in Birkenhead, at a bar…
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Gig Report #1 – Tiger Lounge, Manchester
So I’ve started again. I realised the other day that it’d been 12 months since I did a proper set, what with the excess MCing I’ve been up to, so I approached this gig at first with trepidation. I’ve put this as gig #1, in reality it’s probably gig #180ish, but it feels like I’m…
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When Ideas Come Thick & Fast
I’ve just got back from a week at Edinburgh Fringe, supposedly a holiday, but, invariably the combination of sprinting venue to venue in the driving rain, up flights of steps, shoving teenagers flyering their student production of 4:48 Psychosis out of the way and into the path of oncoming unicyclists advertising their one man Lord…
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Edinburgh Fringe 2016
I thought I’d write up a little about some of the shows I see this year! Chris Stokes: The Man Delusion A nice show by a comedian I really rate and admire, he has a real like-ability that comes from avoiding the cliches of the ego-driven stand-up and instead being low key and incredibly humble on…
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AMA Reflection 2016
It’s become a bit of a tradition that on the way home from the AMA conference I gather my thoughts and write a blog post about the events and things it has raised. Luckily this year’s conference was in Edinburgh so I’ve a full 4 hours until I get home to do “thought gathering” –…
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AMA Conference Notes & Thoughts – Day #1
I’m up in Edinburgh for this year’s Arts Marketing Association conference which is this year about relevance, or, as they’ve catchily titled it, On A Mission To Matter. I’m going to write up more extensively once the conference as ended but here’s a few bits and pieces I’ve thought about today. What is the role of…
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Dear David Cameron
Dear David, I rent a house and the wall outside was chipped, cracking and looked a state. So I sanded it down with the help of a friend, removed the dirt, the flaking paint and weeds. I bought paint and painted it so it looked fresh and new. My next door neighbour saw me outside…
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Brexit: What next?
It happened. I woke up this morning and felt sick, a wave of almost grief coming over me, that was swiftly followed by anger and then sadness. The UK has voted to leave the EU. It feels like the worst decision that has ever happened, it quite likely is a massively bad decision, but it…
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TV Review: Community
Viewing habits have completely changed. Whereas once upon a time we’d anxiously plan our forthcoming unmissable shows in the Radio Times, carefully highlighting the key programmes and negotiating with family members for sole use of the television, and, or VHS, now we’re all on-demand, streamed and downloaded. We’ve also lost, to an extent, that long drawn…
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To EU or not to EU (that is the question)
This last weekend I did the usual things people like me do. I went to Waitrose wishing I’d brought my Aldi bags so people would regard me as “dangerous” and “a maverick”. In my new found capacity as a garden-renter I pulled up some weeds, watered some inexplicably expensive plants I’d been forced to buy…
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Navigation for a 21st Century Man.
Today I went for a drive to Wales with my better half. It started fairly certain enough – the same roads I go along each day for work – then a slight mistake and then a single lane track with grass intermittenly growing out of the centre, dubiously small “passing points”, clammy sweaty palms on…