HeadSpill

Big up to Brian Gorman for getting me into the press opening for the Doctor Who up close exhibiton which open this Saturday at the S&I museum.

It’s the biggest exhibition of WHO stuff in europe apparently, and they got pretty much all the monsther from series two and a JUDOON!

I helped myself to canapes and bubbley while the curator was attacked by cybermen at the end of his speech and lead away to have his brains scooped out/be interviewed by local radio (it’s the same but different). Then they stomped around some more.

I spotted at least two terrified kids who’d nearly wet themselves with fright, instilled with a healthy dose of fear in the way only Doctor who can do.

Top evening.

Also present was fellow comedian and (for the next 13 weeks) Satuday night sofa buddy, Toby Hadoke who is currently touring with his show (see elsewhere on this thread).
These pics don’t really do just to how impressive and detailed the modelwork is, if you can go and see it yourself, you should.

Here are a couple of pics taken from a sitcom pilot I helped out on this week. All I had to do was lie on a slab for an hour, and be pampered by two lovely make up girls.

I thought the whole thing was going to be a cakewalk, but when the director shouts ‘Action!’ and you’ve got to hold you breath for longer than a fat lad should have, it could have got a bit tricky. All was good, i’m proper method me ;). Thn afterwards, I kept the make up on and went shopping in Sainsburys.

“Jaffa Cakes for the Albino?”.

Anything for a laugh.

I knew this would slip. What has happened since?. Did my show at the Frog and Bucket, could have been better, did a weekend at the Stand in Glasgow, glorious, compared in Ormskirk, nice, and was a dead body in a film Bron is directing, weird.

Today is comic relief day, and there is a 24 hour gig happening at the Opus lounge in town as I speak. Bron’s comedysportz is on at 6pm, I’m on at 8pm, and then I’m going to get drunk in a good cause till midnight. Hurray.

I’m still concious of my blog turning into some personnel verbwhore session. As I was told recently doing a ‘harold’ in a longform improvisional workshop by a lovely Australian girl “it’s not all about you”. I was talking about big hair.

I like improvised comedy. I like how unpredictable it is, when it’s funny it’s genuinely funny. Of course, It helps if the person doing it is funny to start with. You can teach people good improv skills, you can’t teach ‘em how to be funny.

As you’re pulling stuff out of your head on the fly it can somtimes be the case that you’re channeling you’re own subconcious, as in the conversation about big hair where I almost said that I grew my own hair ‘big’ to compensate for my short stature. God I hope not. Having said that it could be a lot worse when you’re working in a group comprising of your new girlfriend, her ex and a girl you had fling with and still feel guilty about. But then, “it’s not all about me”. Good.

Did my one man show at the Leicester comedy festival last thursday. Nice crowd, not many of them though in fact only 12 or so, but to be honest the whole thing was more about getting out on the road and dealing with the logistics of putting on a technically demanding show. It worked, I was happy. Also the night before I demo’ed some new anim/puppet stuff at ‘Get Happy’, a night set up for sketches character and experimental stuff, bascially anything, as long as it’s not straight stand up.

The ’sketch’ I did went well, kind of like a cross between a sketch and improv using animated puppets. I was chatting to a guy after the show who enjoyed it and they said he was surprised no one had done it before. He had a point, but then the idea wasn’t a complex one, the execution of the idea on the other hand, including the cost of laptop and projector was about a grand. That’s probably why.

I don’t watch too much telly. Bad for the brain. Saying that there’s rarely anything on worth watching, but then when I do watch it’s either hardcore BBC/Ch4 news or a rollicking bit of action adventure, preferably homegrown. Current picks are:

Life Of Mars.
Is Sam in a coma? Is he back in time? Bonkers? Well they’ve been implying he’s in a coma since day one, and they ain’t making a 3rd series, so with no need to chase ratings why not go the whole hog and have a cgi’d Tom Baker era WHO pick him up by accident and drop him off in the wrong place just for a laugh

Primeval
Two years late ITV get their new WHO competition off the ground, and it’s not bad. Dinosaurs jumping through time portals and causing all kinds of fuss. Dougie Henshall is very watchable, shame his pretty boy sidekick is looks more cgi than the dinosaurs, and the special op’s bloke sounds like he’s being paid by the word. hopefully it’ll pick up.

Ever heard of a bloke called Takeshi Kitano?

He’s a very interesting Japanese bloke who nearly killed himself riding a moped into a central reservation at high speed. You might have seen him on challenge TV on a gameshow show called ‘Takeshi’s Castle’. He’s only ever on at the end riding a little space buggy and squirting water at people.

He used to do stand up comedy, and was well respected in Japan, then was cast in a gangster film called ‘Violent Cop’ and played a straight hard man who beat people up and was very nasty. Half way through the filming the director walked off the set and Takeshi directed the rest of the film himself, even though the audience found it hard to swallow him in a stright role. The film did very well. Takeshi made some more films, one of which won a ‘palm dorre’ award. He wrote books, presented tv shows and directed gangster films all at the same time.

Over here in the UK we have no comparison for ‘Beat’ Takeshi. Imagine if Ken Loach, Jefferey Archer and Terry Wogan were all one person, or something like that. We tend not to do multi-faceted talent.

…

Actually yes we do, but our culture just isn’t very good at recognising it, or maybe just too many people prefer to use the pidgeonhole method of comprehending their fellow man because it requires less effort on their part.

The actor Peter Davison not only played doctor who, but also wrote the theme tune to button moon.

Actually that’s not a good example.

Did you know Osa Maki, the guy who playes ‘Hiro’ in the tv show ‘Heroes’ is both an actor and a digital animator who works for ILM (Industrial Light and Magic, The Stars Wars people). It’s true. Talented geezer.

“What’s you’re name and what do you do?”

I think there’s a point to this, but it’s possibly very egotisitcal. I did my one man show at the Leicester festival the other week, not much of an audience in, and a technical glitch with the sound at one point, but everyone left happy.

The show’s canny technical, uses animation and interactive slides as well as straight stand up, and still needs a lot of tightening up, but I’m pleased with how it’s looking. After the gig a guy came over and complemented the animated stuff, and asked who did it for me. I explained I did it all, and he was quite surprised. I was chuffed.