Category: Comedy
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A new show for 2021
I’m currently having a week off from my “proper job” of Arts Marketing after a Christmas doing online support for digital shows. The online support was eye-opening, I don’t think I’ll get annoyed with people replying slowly over support when I need help ever again, I mean, don’t get me wrong 99.9% of the people…
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Doing R&D on a show
I’ve been feeling a bit down for the last few weeks – there’s the obvious reason for that, but also, because I’ve not done anything I count as ‘creative’ for a while now. I was feeling a bit, well, pointless. I’m also approaching my birthday, a time which consistently puts me in a foul mood,…
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Gig #1 – Commo Comedy (MC)
Firstly this isn’t my first gig. Every year I make new year’s resolutions that are big objectives to achieve over the year – one of them for 2020 is to do 36 gigs over the year. As I a) blog and b) a few people I know read these when I did them years ago…
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I’m doing a solo show in September
Hey Everyone, This is a long post (sorry). Just over a year ago I wrote a show, “Truth” which I performed at 81 Renshaw Street on a double bill with my good friend Rob Thomas as a work-in-progress. The show lasted an hour and was a reasonable success, so much so that I decided that…
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Would I Book Myself?
It’s been a couple of months since I wrote anything on here – a few reasons really, hyper-busy at work, a few gigs and just generally feeling like I don’t want to write anything – suffice to say the numbers of visits my website has had has really dropped off (apart from in the Ukraine,…
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GIG REVIEW: Performing a show for the first time
So on Wednesday night this week I performed my new show, Truth, for the first time from start to stop. It’s always terrifying when you do anything new in front of any audience, what’s particularly galling is doing some solo hybrid comedy/theatre/storytelling, literally everything can go wrong. So did it? Well…. No, not quite. So…
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Creativity, Confidence and a Show
There are, it is said, two types of creative people. There are those who talk endlessly about the book they’re going to write and then there are those who write the book. I’ve been feeling over the past year that I’ve been falling, increasingly heavily, into category one. Sure I’ve done gigs, created some new bits of…
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Gig Report: New material in Warrington
There’s a few gigs that, since I started, I’ve kept coming back and doing. They’re not the most glamorous gigs or even the easiest to get to, what they have is something better, an audience that is brutally honest but also not cocks. The Albion is, for me, one of those. I’ve tried out loads…
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Gig Report & Analysis
On Sunday night Hot Water Comedy in Liverpool let me perform and so I could record my set. I’ve needed a new recording for a while. Not gigging as often means I’m seen by less people so getting gigs from meeting people is getting harder. Also I’ve been conscious that when I record the songs…
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An idea, a graph and a calendar
It’s been a while since I wrote anything on here so, finding myself incredibly away at 12:46am I thought I might as well write down some thoughts about what’s happening and what I’ve been thinking about recently. Plays Regular readers will know that I finished writing a play, Opposition, in December and sent it to loads…
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Gigging with a famous comedian
So tonight I was on the same bill as a famous comedian. Regular readers will know that my general choice of gig usually includes at least two of the following elements: audience of less than 6 people audience casually eating food unaware of comedy happening, sometimes celebrating anniversaries compere’s begging people to not leave, or…
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Gig Report: Hot Water Comedy, Liverpool
Sometimes you make a mountain out of a molehill and build things up to a ridiculous degree in your head until you find yourself driving to Liverpool wondering if you could persuade your car to break down on the way so that you don’t have to do a gig. Now. I appreciate that is an…
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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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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…