Category: Blog Post
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Spektrix Conference 2014
I’m on my way back from the Spektrix Conference 2014 and I thought I’d pop my musings down. At the moment there are three snoring people surrounding me (one is dribbling), a lady eating a salad that smells like death and a teenager listening to what can only be described as 90s club anthems, because…
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A gig in Leeds to mostly silence
I’ve just got back from Leeds and, sat in bed, suddenly don’t feel at all tired so I thought I’d write a quick post (as it’s been a while..). It was an interesting gig tonight, I’d done it before about 8 months previously and it’d been great, noisy, friendly and with a slight edge –…
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Frauds, Hipsters and the word C**t
There were three things that Charlene despised. The first were frauds, the seemingly never ending line of people pretending to be something they were not, doing things they hadn’t, telling her about achieving things they either exaggerated or, more often than not, had never actually happened. The second was hipsters, including (but not exhaustively) bearded…
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Comedy deaths, Man Utd and the pit of despair.
I’ve found that recently I’ve become, metaphorically, in my comedy career, Man Utd. It was all going so well a few months back, I was in a weird comedy zone where everything just seemed to work and was easy, I didn’t feel under pressure at gigs and was performing and felt really happy on stage.…
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What I’m working on…
Its been a while since I updated people on what I’m working on so I thought that as I’d finally sorted out my site I’d add an extra blog post too! It’s been a while since I wrote new stand up as I’ve been working on Gaffer, the football play about homophobia which will now…
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Tech rehearsals
It’s Monday at 5:40 and I’m currently sat in the back of the theatre as preparations for Gaffer happen all around me. The two week rehearsal process has flown by and I have a slight dizzy excitement about the next few days and the opening night. It’s been a pretty intense process for me (and…
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The TEN types of open acts…
I wanted to share my views on the different types of people I’ve experienced as an open act doing comedy this past year and a half… This is just my personal experience, so please don’t be offended if yours has not been the same. So here goes, STRAP IN. The dedicated dreamer who’s taken a…
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Feeling Mello.
I’m currently sat in Love Crumbs, (find it here…) a delightful cake shop in Edinburgh before toddling off to a wedding so, with 45 mins to kill, I thought I’d get some diabetes, caffeine and write a blog post.
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Icy beer, brain freeze and the problem with being tired..
It’s been a hard day. Sometimes they just are. That’s not to say it hasn’t been fun, quite the contrary, i’m directing at the moment and loving every moment of it, but today, in a stickily hot rehearsal room with melted chocolate biscuits fighting the tiredness that’s been threatening to engulf me I have to…
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Post-match: Eng V Ita
This is, it should be said, a conflicted World Cup for me. I am massively excited to see the games, the attacking prowess on show and the top players battling for dominance. After the Spain Netherlands game my appetite was whetted, a clash of the titan’s – total possession football being taken apart by counter attacking at…
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Gaffer Rehearsals – Day 1
So, here we are, day one. There’s always mixed feelings starting a rehearsal process – fear, panic and excitement mix together in a heady mix that can, on occasion, be overwhelming. We, however, cheated a little. Today is day one, but we did a couple of days pre-rehearsals in in a desolate part of East…
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Who’s the funniest?
I keep getting to the station late at night and, having found I’ve missed the last bus by seconds (seriously why do they always pull away when I’m running towards them?), being forced to get a taxi home. Generally I find taxi drivers fall into three distinct categories. There’s the nice ones who have balanced…
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Art ‘n’ That
“Try it yourself”. That’s what Neil Buchanan use to say as he’d demonstrate his creation, undoubtedly involving dried pasta, PVA glue and sugar paper, to the screens, “Try it yourself, a scale model of the Louvre, t’ra”. We’d all believe him, that we, like our hero Neil could create something so wonderful so quickly and…
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Gaffer – Opening soon
This June I’m directing a revival of a play called Gaffer. I’m finding it hard to articulate how I feel at this moment in time, 4 weeks before the show opens and 2 weeks before we start the next stage of intensive rehearsals. I was recommended the play by a friend of mine, Duncan Clarke,…
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Comedy Songs
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Review: Meat & Liquor
In my life I have given probably close to twenty people severe food poisoning. I have to confess I am a terrible cook. It’s embarrassing in so many ways – I feel ashamed every time I look in the fridge at ingredients – it should be simple to turn what’s in there into a tasty…
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Five Best: Ben Folds Videos
1# – Army I just love this video, it was one of the first BBF songs I learnt to play but I love the theatricality of the staging and also the lovely buzz bass sound, combined with the honky tonk middle it’s just quite fun!
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Resolutions 2014
I’m not a big fan of the whole New Year’s celebration and, in particular the resolutions that accompany them. After all it is a somewhat arbitrary date from which to enact change. I’m a particular fan of smokers who decide to quit in the New Year. This is usually in November, they’ll walk up, tell…