HeadSpill

Day 21 - Wellingborough
After the sell out gig in Nottingham, things are more normal and quiet in Wellingborough. A nice enough  place, though the rear corridor of the Hind Hotel smells strongly of faeces. A good show is had despite low numbers, and Charlie and I go for a post show pint in the Cromwell, the pub attached to the hotel - which closes at 8pm. What? It is half past 10. “We close at 8″ says the woman behind the bar as she pulls our pint. Charlie pops outside to use his phone then dashes back in as two drunk men wobble down the road toward him.
We leave the next morning.

Day 22 - Cheltenham
Danny Pensive did his first ever closing gig here at Cheltenham race course, so I like Cheltenham, and we’re not disappointed. A full house for the show and a great one too. I quick wander into the town centre past loads of fanct clothes shops and a giant bronze rabbit sitting next to a bull. A nice fast internet conection at the venue and I managed to download the first episode of Spooks and Merlin of the BBCi player, how showbiz. There is no phone signal at all in the hotel.

Day 23 - Brecon
Day one of the ‘Welsh Trilogy’. Yes, we’ve been to Wales already twice, but this time we stay in the same gust house for three days and sattellite to the venues to gain a modicum of consistancy before the last two dates of the English leg of the tour. We head direct to the unpronounceable theatre in Brecon where it rains, and rains, and rains. Cool stuff - my cousin Seb and his missus turn up to watch the show and catch up which is a much needed respite, as the crowd really are a challenge tonight.

Day 24 - Newtown
Consistency in the Welsh Trilogy is provided by Joan and David at the Plas Canol gust house in Newtown, Powys, a 3 star establishment where all surfaces are liberally covered by Laura Ashley patterns. I don’t have anytime to enjoy it, getting up at 6 and driving up to Chester for some Comedysportz corporate work, see the missus for lunch and head back. The Theatre, or Theatr, Hafren looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere, like Newtown itself, but the posters of previous tours clearly show different, and there’s a good crowd in to see the show. Afterward a walk in the freezing cold to a pub where they are playing darts. It is very Welsh indeed, and pleasingly so.

I did my first Leeds tryout at Jongleurs last week, and if I’m honest a previous week of no gigs made me rusty when I needed to be ‘gig fit’. It’s a tough gig at the best of times, and worse if you’re in comedy for the art. This was swiftly rectified the next night when I did my first gig in a Jewish synagogue doing a half hour for the Jewish new year. Not the easiest of crowds either, but a good few of them recognised me from the comedysportz gig the previous week at the Comedy Store, which made the whole thing immediately more enjoyable. Someone commented on my big nose. Racist.

I got to meet one of my all time heroes this week too. Neil Innes, he of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band, at Bury Met. He’d didn’t play as much Bonzo’s as I’d like, but then I’m sure he’s pig sick of playing the same requests all the time. I was in proper fan mode and got my 40th anniversary bonzos tour t-shirt signed.

September has been incredibly quiet for gigs, almost like Edinburgh didn’t happen, my poor little ego going unloved and feeling sorry for itself. There’s a shedload in the pipeline fortunetly, including a return to the glorious Edinburgh stand in late october and a Darlington run out for my show in November.

Utter Joy. If you were to list my favourite things in order they would pretty much be comedy, Doctor Who, cider,  comics and animation. So when I’m asked if I’d like to mc a Doctor Who Convention all about comics in a pub, I had to check I hadn’t fallen through a whole in my own mind and mistaken reality for a wish list.

Meeting the organiser Gareth I hoped I did’nt come over as a gob*****, as everything he spoke of I knew something about,  but it’s just true.  Doing my small press comic back in the 90’s I’d been to comic conventions and met some of the artists who are coming. Doing flash animation for the ‘Get Happy’ show a year back, I’d bumped into Firestep, the guys who did the WHO infinite quest animation, and been to their studio. And of course Doctor Who itself, I’d only just rewatched some vintage McCoy the previous night. It’s like it was meant to be, weird.

It’s great news too as ‘forgot’ to put my show in for the Manchester comedy festival, but I am in the Literature Fest Brochure twice, so I can’t complain.

Got up at 5.30am. Drove to Newcastle and picked up an Amp for the free Fringeand after seeing my folks in Sunderland, arrived in Edinburgh at 2pm . I set to work putting up some posters at the free fringe venues (I’m at canons gait). I’d over loaded the pockets of my ill fitting cut off combat pants with flyers and on reaching up to apply the publicity piece, they fell down in full view.

bought a new belt.

The flat is ace, and  I can see carl sagan’s massive face from my window (in a shop front advert).  Went to the free fringe meeting where PBH stated quite literally. ‘If the public come, we will kill them’. He rocks.

Went to see Longleys show. It is late, I am knackered.

People I met:
Kevin Gildea
Paddy Monahan
Don Moses
Paul Kerensa
Gav Webster
Matt Tiller
BethanyBlack
Longleyman

People I saw at a distance:
Mark Watson
Simon Munnery

People who I created an awkward showbiz silence with:
Teddy

First show tomorrow, hurray!

June and July have been pretty eventful. Most notably the nightmare that was logging in my PC to check my bank balance and finding £350 had disappeared out of it care of some gambling website and I’d become the victim of card fraud. Having pedalled it into town to go to the bank and get it sorted, one stressful ranty conversation later I came out to find my bike had been nicked. Joy. I decided to cheer myself up by picking up a copy of the fringe festival brochure to see my name in print only to find the show, but without my name in fromt of it, which on further examination was my fault. I went a bit mental and put some stickers I’d found on my face in an attempt to show the world my bellicosity.

In brighter news I went camping twice in the space of four days set foot in Maidenhead, Bracknell, Windsor, Newquay, Truro, St Austell, Cardiff, Coniston and Sunderland. First with wor lass, then on ‘Man & Nature 4′, the 4th Annual North West Comedians comedy camp, 2 fine days worth of drinking, bitching and riding motor boats on lake coniston while fishing and drinking and bitching. I put my tent up in the p****ng rain, the high wind tipped it over but after a couple of bottles of ‘Cornish Rattler’ bought fresh from a Cyder farm the previous day, I was half nakedly hammering the pegs back in with my bare hands and thinking nothing of it. Class.

Wor lass went away to the USA on sunday, so I’m is a bit sad. As evidence of just how accustomed I’ve become to living together, last night in her absence I drew a face on a balloon. Oh dear. (not that she looks like a balloon or anything). With loads of room and time to myself now though I can focus on banging my Edinburgh show into shape ready for August, and I’ll do another video blog for that shortly.

I have a new gig to mc. hurray!

I can’t complain even though I’m already too busy with Edinburgh stuff, but I had been eyeing up the Carlton Club, a gig venue just down the road, since I moved late last year.  I’d been put off as it said on the sign outside ‘member’s only’, but then when I passed the other there was a big banner out front advertising the ‘Celebrate Whalley Range Festival and the ‘members’ bit was covered up. It was all but over by the time I went for a nosey, but a few enquiries later, and I was having a meeting discussing a comedy night, which they were after. There’s work to be done promoting it, and time will tell if it works out, but first impressions, and seeing that they’ve got a newsletter and roster of events, suggest that this very established venue is having a bit of  a renaissance. Today is a good day.

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The Apple Bar, Bristol. It only serves cider. It’s on a boat. What more do you want! I’m in heaven! (Some swearing)