Sunday Night at the Horse

Some gigs, as I've said, are just fucking weird. But then some weird gigs are actually quite fun. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to this comedy wotnot I've involved myself in. Last Night I rocked up, with a hopeful spring in my step, to Laughing Horse Camden, on the off-chance I could get a spot. I wasn't the only one, as it turned out. Between the booked acts and the walk-up comics there was something like ten potential performers, and as it turned out about half that amount of actual punters. I'm coming to see a pattern to gigs like this. There are effectively three options.

a) The gig gets cancelled
b) The gig goes ahead, the comics perform to each other and it's weird and uncomfortable
c) The gig goes ahead, and everyone has a bit of a laugh.

Option (a) is actually the least appealing, particularly at my level when every gig is exciting regardless of the amount of people in the crowd. You spend your whole day building up to it, thinking about your material, mentally limbering, being excited about stepping up to the mic once more. Imagine spending several hours watching porn and thinking about every delicious sexual encounter of your life in preparation for a night of unequaled passion with a sexy blind-date from some sordid website, only to realise -just after you've necked the Viagra- that you've got the day wrong and have to have tea with your Nanna instead. The only hope is to ensure the old dear isn't looking while you pathetically yank one off into the biscuit tin and have a bit of a cry. Cancelled gigs are a bit like that.

Option (b) is a bitter-sweet affair, where the sordid blind-date turns out to be 40 years older and ten stone heavier than her picture. It's not quite what you imagined, but there's usually something to gain from forging ahead anyway.

Fortunately this was a (c) gig, where it turns out the blind-date is actually an old girlfriend using a pseudonym. It's a bit awkward, not as spontaneous, but in it's own way quite comforting and worthwhile because everyone knows what to do.

It was decided not to charge the guests, and that everyone would try and do new stuff and everyone would get a go. Seeing as there was a couple of chums involved (Grainne Maguire was MCing, the ubiquitous Alistair Grieves was lurking around a corner and Lou Sanders who helped me get my first ever gig, was in fine fettle) there was a nice supportive feel, and okay, it wasn't the most perfect of comic experiences, but there's always something to take from gigs like this. Grainne, who really is a delightful comic, gee'd up the crowd quite nicely, only to have them remain stoney faced for the actual acts. In fact most of them vanished in the interval, despite some impressive hard work from the comics. The lack of actual punters (now down to one) didn't damped the second half though, if anything it went a bit better. Now playing purely to the comics, Lou delivered some of the strongest gags I've yet seen from her (and I've seen Lou Sanders LOADS), Alistair had some cracking stuff (Warhammer fans should look out for his Ice Planet gag) and Grainne was waving her Guinness around with obvious enjoyment. It was an even smaller crowd but everyone was pretty cheerful.

I went on last, and got introduced as the 'Headline Act', which if you were a paying punter would be bit like going to a Beatles gig to find yourself watching The Pete Best Band. Brilliantly Grainne got the single last genuine audience member in the crowd (who as it turns out wants to try stand up himself, he later revealed at the bar) to bring me on by repeating what she whispered in his ear. She had to tell him my name twice, which pretty much said it all (and I said so.)I decided to just do new stuff and play with ideas, managing to work up some bits I want to develop further, which was nice. It was quite exciting to set myself the challenge of not using ANY of the material from my more rehearsed set, and I quite enjoyed myself despite about 60% of the gags falling flat. I even did the Spandau Ballet poem.

Not the most successful of Comedy shenanigans then, but a nice time had all the same. Still, it will be nice to get away from the open-mic and playing-to-the-other-acts affairs next Sunday when I do One Mighty Craic.

One final thought for you, Jerry Springer style. Proof if proof were needed that vanity will ultimately make you depressed. I was googling my own name yesterday and came across this:



I don't know who this other Marc Burrows is, or how he met his demise. But I hope, wherever he is, his T-Shirt and Westlife tribute makes him proud, and that he is doesn't think i'm sullying his good name with my low quality beginner comedy. RIP indeed Marc B.

Good Words and Good Books

I'm not sure if yesterdays critique of my critique (are you following this?) was the wisest move, and very possibly I was a bit hasty. I know a couple of the comics on the night said they had a great time (both pointed to the free beer as an important factor), although other comics I have mentioned it to were far more outraged on my behalf than I was myself.

I wonder if I should go back next month and learn some more?

Either way it was a relief last night to find myself in the warm fuzziness of the excellent monthly poetry night Bang! Said The Gun. I've mentioned before that I occasionally a dabble a bit in poetry, although it's very rare that it gets a proper outing. I like Bang! though, it has a lovely welcoming feel and is quite unlike other nights of it's ilk, being a showcase for its four regulars with an open-mic slotted in the middle. When it comes to poetry I seem to have accidentally fallen into a tradition of always writing something on the day I perform. Once I realised I'd been doing it, it seemed obvious to carry on...meaning I needed something new, fresh from my head...this what I came up with.

Spandau Ballet
Why can't the whole world be more like
Spandau Ballet?
Ready to put aside their differences in the pursuit of
Art, Music and lots and lots of money.
Oh! Tony Hadley
Oh! that one off Eastenders...
And his Brother.
Oh!...the other two.
If only everyone was more like you.
Only with better songs.

Now, eagle eyed followers of That Joke Isn't Funny will spot some connections to this blog entry from wednesday. To my delight my words are eating themselves. I'm blogging about my life, but the process of writing is actually producing creative results I can take away and use, and then blog about again. It's a literary Ouroboros. I'm also developing some stand-up based around my Job Centre rant. I will be Richard Herring before I know it, only younger and substantially less talented and successful than he was at my age.

I like performing at Bang!, it doesn't have the high pressure of a comedy club -which means its less innately thrilling- but still gives me the opportunity to banter a bit, try out mini-routines and make people laugh, and if I'm not funny it's fine because people aren't really there for funny. I'm going to do a longer spot on April 30th. It's at the Roebuck on Great Dover Street, near Borough station, you should pop along.

It also afforded me the chance to see the baffling Ant Smith, the self styled Gene Pitnet of Poetry who sings all of his words in a rather spiffing tenor. Very much a new experience.

And if that wasn't enough to cheer me up (and get me over my first official sign-on at Peckham Job Centre today), tonight I found myself selling t-shirts for the lovely Good Books. I go back with the band a little way, I did their merch for over a month of gigs on their first headline tour in 2007, and it was lovely to get requainted. Their new stuff is great and I can't wait for the second album. There first record, Control, was cruelly over-looked. It was one of the albums of the year for me. Go and have a listen.

My favourite moment of the evening came from one punter who visited me at the merch stand and told me she'd loved my performance. I pointed out I wasn't in the band, and she refused to believe me, mistaking me for GB Basstype Chris. She seemed to think he was even dressed in my shirt (he wasn't). I tried to prove her wrong by claiming that Chris wears glasses, and she said "well you could have just taken them off". I had no come-back to this. She had a point. I gave up. There are worse things to be mistaken for than Chris from Good Books.

Jim Davidson is offensive. ITV are not.

Cockish alcaholic and homophobe Jim Davidson may have said some offensive things on Hell's Kitchen, but OFCOM have ruled that ITV was allowed to show them, say Media Guardian. And quite right too. The more people who get to see what an utter utter tit the man is the better.

Brian Dowling is a hero for being the first ever openly Gay Kids TV presenter in Britain. He's also had a bad time lately, with the Golden Globes being cancelled and all.

Where as Jim Davidson is a shitbag who gives Star Trek fans a bad name.

And isn't funny. Ever. And you laugh at his jokes, that means you must hate Gays too. Or clearly insane, like Teresa Young.

He's not the messiah etc etc

Joining the Amanda Palmer and Flight of the Conchords albums in a list of “things we’re really looking forward to in 2008” is Chris Morris’ directorial debut. According to the Sunday Times, the film is about the innate ridiculousness of terrorism, and according to us in likelihood will bulldoze through a wall of dearly held taboos, inflame the Daily Mail (again), and of course be very very funny.

According to slick-haired one behind BrassEye, The Day Today and Nathan Barley:

“There is this Dad’s Army side of terrorism and that’s what this film is exploring…This film will hopefully get over that terrorists do what we all do, they discuss the mundane, and plan things that sometimes then go wrong. People, that is viewers, are longing to laugh at terrorism.” (Sunday Times)

He’s probably right as well. It worked pretty well in Team America: World Police. Morris will apparently direct, but not star in the film. And with the closest thing British comedy has to a living genius behind the wheel, this could very well be our generations Life Of Brian.

"Oi! Dave – Eton Lads’ is 300 miles"

And just when you've been depressed by the British public, they cheer you up again.

David Cameron has been sent packing from Salford Lad's Club. Not that the local Torys seemed to notice.

That Joke Definately Isn't Funny Anymore.

Good God! If anything can put a dampener on the Conchord-infused bubble of love surrounding us today it’s further evidence of the Great British Publics piss-poor taste in just about everything.

The BBC website is reporting that a poll conducted by onepoll has put Only Fools And Horses as the show the public most want to bring back, further proving my belief that Del Boy Falling Through The Bar is the zenith of comedic achievment in most peoples eyes. The full results are below.

1) Only Fools and Horses
2) Friends
3) Fawlty Towers
4) Brookside
5) Sex and the City
6) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
7) Monty Python
8) The Krypton Factor
9) Big Breakfast
10) Absolutely Fabulous

Honestly, when will people learn? Lets put aside the sacred cows in the top 3 for now and deal with the lower regions of the list.

Absolutely Fabulous
Really? Did anyone who voted in this actually see the revived version of Ab-Fab a few years back? It had lost all of its bite and its silliness felt over done rather than glorious. Besides which Jennifer Saunders is currently working on infinitely more interesting fare in the under-rated Life And Times of Vivian Vyle, and especially in the current series of Jam and Jereuselam, which has quietly become –thanks in no small part to Sue Johnson and David Mitchell- one of the best bittersweet comedies on TV.
Chance of a come back: probably for a special here and there.
Deserves a come back: Nope.

Big Breakfast.
An interesting one this. Breakfast telly is awful just now and Channel 4 have given up all together. In its day the BB was one of the best things on all week, especially in the Evans/Roslin and Vaughn/Van Outen hey days. The replacement show, Ri:se was dreadful from the outset, and the brave revamp proved the train had long since sailed. Saying that, what’s on instead? GM:TV has its steady Mumsy viewership, but its yucky. BBC1 do a visual version of the Today Programme that isn’t as good, and C4 themselves just show Friends.
Chance of a come back: Unlikely
Deserves a comeback: If it’s done right it could work.

The Krypton Factor
Let’s not dwell on this, as it’s not comedy. However it would make certain older sketches funny again.
Chance of a comeback: Fair actually.
Deserves a comeback: Why not?

Monty Python
I refer you to 1999’s Python Night.
Chance of a comeback: Unlikely. Plus TJ says it can’t be done.
Deserves a comeback: Something’s should just be left alone. Maybe a live show would be fun though.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Would probably work fine. Joss Whedon’s “Season 8” comic books certainly seemed popular.
Chance of a comeback: Maybe.
Deserves a comeback: Spose.

Sex And The City
Surely disqualified as there’s a film in production?

Brookside
I know, lets bring it back, right. Only, instead of just the show, they can do an E4 sister show where a fictionalised version of Phil Redmond –played by, oh I don’t know, Harry Enfield- can talk about the production. It’s genius, genius I tell ya.
Chance of a comeback: Nah.
Deserves a comeback: Nah

Okay, now we get to the meat of it…

Fawlty Towers
Again, somethings should just be left be. It was pretty much perfect, another series can only be a bad thing. The show was recently bought back as a corporate video. Oddly it’s not made its way into the public sphere.
Chance of a comeback: Well there’s a Divorce to pay for, and the BBC would pay for through the nose, so…maybe.
Deserves a comeback: Only on one condition. The only way it would work is if ITV re-do the Audience With Alf Garnet format from a few years back. An Audience With Basil Fawlty? That would be ace.

Friends
Friends, the perennially likeable collusus of modern comedy is probably the most influential TV show on the speech, habits and attitudes of young people ever. Maybe something so powerful shouldn’t be allowed back. Besides, it was all wrapped up quite well wasn’t it?
Chance of a comeback: Well, the cast are hardly doing well in films are they?
Deserves a comeback: Probably not.

Only Fools And Horses.
And you have to just release a weary sigh. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Fools and Horses. Genuinely it was a funny show. But how many times can you reanimate it? Since going out of regular production in 1990 each progressive reanimation has been further proof of the law of diminishing returns. They managed to squeeze out one iconic moment in the Batman and Robin sketch, and making them rich was a nice way of closing it up, but it hasn’t had the magic, especially since Buster Merryfield died.
Chance of a comeback: Inevitably.
Deserves a comeback: Not on your life.

Still, just to show that not every format has been done and dusted here’s the That Joke Isn’t Funny Top Ten of shows that could and should be brought back:

1) Brass Eye
2) Shooting Stars
3) Big Train
4) Futurama (okay, it sort of is)
5) Alan Partridge
6) The Good Life
7) Red Dwarf
8) Fist Of Fun
9) The League Of Gentleman
10) My Hero. Only joking.

Note I didn’t mention Spaced. Some things are sacred.

Conchord Flies Again

Occasionally a piece of news comes along that makes your soul glow, and you spend the rest of the day floating along in a bubble of simpering happiness, chirruping occasionally in a bemused and delighted expression of child-like joy.

Flight of the Conchords are making an album.

Okay, you might argue that given the success of their HBO series an album was unavoidable. After all they released one in 2002 already. Not to mention their Radio 2 series, which is well worth tracking down. Then there was the EP they released in August on Sub Pop, that’s been nominated for a Grammy. In fact if they hadn’t done an album is would probably be more newsworthy than the inevitable one that’s actually being produced. But still, let’s not ruin it. The fact that the label that released the first Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana material are releasing a record from the best comedy-music project anywhere in the world is exciting enough.

Hopefully the album will be new material, as much like the position the Boosh were in before they started on their second series, most of the songs from season one have been knocking around in one form or another for years, good as they are. A reasonable guess would be the songs from the album will form the basis of those is Season 2, which begins filming later this year.

It’s actually harder to think of an album due out this year that we’ll be looking forward to more.

Lager and Live please Bar Steward

Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps is a show it’s pretty hard to love, but for all its faults it gets a far harder time than it deserves at the hands of pundits and snobby comedy fans alike. It’s really not all that bad, and there’s generally a handful of genuine laughs in every episode.

That said, I’m not sure how wise bringing it back is, even with the added gimmick of that American TV-staple the live show.

Granted this could actually be a lot of fun, it’s almost certainly going to be the best episode of the new series and it does actually achieve the impossible: It makes 2 Pints… event television for the first time ever. There’s not many as can claim they saw that one coming. When Will and Grace attempted the Live show it was a hoot, which isn’t an adjective I use widely. I'm not 100% it's even an adjective,

It’s certainly hard to think if another current British Sitcom that could make use of the live format. Possibly The IT Crowd could pull it off. For it’s faults 2 Pints does have a sense of barely held together anarchy.

That said it’s hard to see how it deserves yet another series, Live or not. Despite the likeable cast and aforementioned couple of strong laughs per episode, 2 Pints is patchy as hell. Half the things attempted don’t work, and every conceivable format twist has been thrown at it already. What’s more the stuff brought in to make it more interesting has all been nicked from other sitcoms. There’s been a musical episode (Scrubs), they killed the entire cast in the last episode (The Young Ones), now the live episode (Will and Grace). There’s nothing left to try. They can’t take these characters anywhere else, something that someone has clearly acknowledged: Ralf Little (whose sensibly jumped ship)’s character Johny has been written out by going on a ‘Shark Jumping Holiday’. That’s probably the best gag of the series right there.

Still. That cast is very likeable, even if you can’t ever remember that they’re characters aren’t called Jambo, Carol and Are’Antnee. At least it keeps Susan Nickson from writing another series of Grownups, which was shudderingly bad. Personally I won’t be happy till Sheridan Smith is put in Doctor Who properly though, and this just takes up her time until that day.

The first episode of the new 2POLAAPOC (as it shall now be called) is on this Sunday (Jan 14th)at 9.00p.



Here’s the trailer.

Ring Leader of the Tory Mentors

Dough faced Tory Godhead David 'call me Dave' Cameron is messing with the minds of decent people everywhere by talking about The Smiths again.

You may remember a few years back he appeared on Desert Island Discs where he revealed that, quite annoyingly, he had a reasonable taste in the presentable side of vaguely alternative left-leading indie. We’re not talking anything earth shaking here, but when you find out a Conservative MP likes The Smiths and Radiohead it still jolts something quite fundamental inside you. It’s like finding out your Mum listens to Cannibal Corpse. It doesn’t fit with the way you see the world and how music relates to it. It’s a snobby view, but it’s human nature. Music snobbery is, after all, one of God’s greatest gifts.

Just to hammer the point home, having already proved his Radiohead credentials by persuading Thom and Jonny to play Fake Plastic Tree’s especially for him, he’s making the obligatory Smiths Fan pilgrimage to Salford Lads Club, where no doubt, like thousands before him, he’ll pose on the steps with a hearing aid and some gladioli.

The endearingly spiky Salford MP Hazel Blears is having none of it.

“People in Salford remember when the Tories were in power... I'm surprised he wants to visit a shrine so reminiscent of the 1980s - the dog days of Thatcherism” (BBC)

It’s true. It’s astonishing Cameron hasn’t thought of it. I know tact isn’t the Tory’s biggest priority these days (why else would they keep letting Boris Johnson out into the world?), but does he really think the people of Salford, of all places, will be pleased to see him? Let’s face it, the Manchester area has never been what you’d call Conservative heartland, and as Blears pointed out the bite of Thatcher was felt harder there than most places. People don’t forget that in a hurry. Cameron can hardly be unaware of his parties immediate legacy from their last run at the top. As new Lid Dem chief Nick Clegg says in today’s G2, Cameron was

“a foot-soldier for Thatcher.”

I wonder what Nick Clegg listens to?...Oh.
Nevermind.

Should we so surprised at Cameron’s allegiance to the other other Fab Four? Baring in mind Morrissey’s recently published views on immigration –which despite a lot of protest and clucking about being misrepresented by the NME, he never actually took back.

Are the leader of the Conservative Party and the indie elder-statesman gradually becoming the same person? It makes one shudder. As I live and breath, sir, you have killed me.