HeadSpill

I’m on tour. Danny Pensive is supporting The One Man Lord of The Rings show throughout September, and this is what happened…

Day one - Sheffield.
Arrived early in the Heathrow branch of Avis to meet Charlie and Kristina his tour manager and pick up the ‘tourmobile’. Charlie went big and got a BMW 320, which was good as it turns out we have a lot of stuff. I’ve never driven a BMW before, and as the licence carrying driver, re-assured both by jerking them violently in the car all the way out of London while a tried to ‘find the bite’.
The first stop was Sheffield Lyceum. Got settled, went for a stroll and bumped into the lovely AJ Brown mooching through town in a dapper hat, so joined him for a bit of walking and looking. Over 400 in, it was a lovely show, and a great way to kick off the tour. Great Gig. Took the BMW home through snake pass. nice.

Day Two - Middlesborough
Sitting in a premier in just outside Middlesborough, Charlie mistakes a lifesize cardboard cutout of Lenny Henry for Ainsley Harriot. Easy mistake.
Middlesborough theatre tonight, not been there but got some mates coming. We shall see.

The greenbelt festival on Saturday night was an absolute belter. Danny Pensive closed, and despite the gig being called short - the gig being in a tent venue, they had to wrap at eleven - the crowd were awesome. I had new dvd’s made from Danny’s video diaries, I’ve never sold anything at a gig before, and only took five, but they all went like proverbial hot cakes straight after. Top night, and lots of new facebook friends too, nice.

The Edinburgh festival finishes this week, and I’m starting to put together ideas for next year. Some comics go up every year with a new show, some never go at all. I think I’d quite like to the former, but a new show every year? I feel I’d lack consistancy. Not quality - just consistancy, I get too excited by too many things.

I had a conversation over a curry with comic chum Dan where we banged on about having loads of ideas in different forms (scripts, stand up, character stuff, etc), but then which ones do you ultimately give your time to in order to follow them through and do ‘em justice? The more you spread yourself over multiple disciples, the less time you’d have for each, and at the creative sharp end of comedy you can’t really afford to take you’re eye off one ball, let alone three. I have three balls.

Ahem. There’s Stand Up, Danny Pensive - character comedy, and Comedysportz  and I believe in them all equally, they’re like a comedy triumvirate of disciplines.

Danny Pensive is all about the writing, use of language and lack of compromise. As I am now, locked away in a room, fathoming out what I find funny and presenting it to the world. Simple, beautiful, and I refer to him in the third person, which while I appriciate is quite odd feels perfectly normal.
Comedysportz is all about the moment. No writing, just instinct being bounced around making brief wonderful moments that can’t be recreated.
Then there’s me, a combination of the two. I love stand up and writing, but it’s the hardest part of the whole. Writing is comedy, if it doesn’t jump off the page, it probably won’t dance out your mouth to the sound of laughter, and once written and delivered stand up evolves in the telling, a combination of written word,  improvised flourish and repetition.

I’ve spent most of this year doing repetition. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s what promoters pay for when they book you, your best stuff. While at the same time writing new stuff for Danny and on occasion taking Danny tried and tested stuff as my own, which feels like stealing, but really isn’t, though I do feel guilty, which is probably my fault for invoking the third person. It’s more evidence of decent gags, and a very long winded round-the-houses way of not getting bored with a ‘club set’ while cultivating new gags in a parallel dimension.

I’m looking at taking a Danny Pensive show to Edinburgh next year. Wish him luck.

Wedding
So I’m at the wedding of some friends in Windermere, it’s December, cold, and the ceremony is at the bit where the bride throws the bouquet. As the bunch of flowers flies into the air behind her I try to take a photo but all I can hear is my girlfriend shouting the word ‘baggsied!’ (a term meaning ‘get off, it’s mine’). According to tradition I am now next in line to get married. Apparently.

The Speaker
I’ve done some filming with ther BBC for a new show called ‘The speaker’ (see more here: www.bbc.co.uk/speaker ) which goes out in January on BBC 2. It’s a competition to find Britain’s best young speaker and after every new episode there’s a new short film published online covering a day in the life of someone who’s job is public speaking. One week It’ll be a singer, another week a teacher, and then I’m on week 6 or thereabouts talking about being a comic.

The recording took place at a small gig in Stockport which was lovely, so I’m hoping it shows in the broadcast.

Fallout 3
The last 2 months my life has been sucked dry by the gaming pleasure of Fallout 3. The joy of wandering around a post apocalyptic landscape listening to ‘I dont want top set the world on fire’, and shooting big monsters with bigger guns was the best game I’ve played in yonks. I want my life back now.

Telly
As you may or may not know I’m a massive fan of old and cult telly; everything from Quatermass and Starfleet (the puppet version, not the roddenbery one) to Edge of Darkness and my all time favourite Day of the Triffids (BBC ‘81 version), which is currently being remade, thanks to the success of New Doctor Who and the recent remake of Survivors.
Survivors, a  show from the 70’s was all about everyone dying out from a virus, this time a bird-flu type epidemic. It’s been all been a bit too sexy for my liking, not enough grime and unpleasentness. My biggest problem, however was the last episode didn’t actually end and just stopped as it got going to leave you wanting more, which is a bit rubbish.

Bye Bye 2008
It’s nearly the end of 2008, a time to reflect on what 2008 brought and set goals for 2009. For me the biggest achievments have been my edinburgh show,  despite the successs not being large in commercial terms I feel I’ve evolved as a comic. Also going fully self employed, which as no small task and will probably form the basis of a show in 2009.

Goodbye to the man.
I am now the man. My own boss. In October handed in my notice and filled in my first fax return to go self employed. It was and is a big deal.

Balancing life and work is not an easy equation, you can either have time or money. Ever since I decided I wanted to be a comic back in 2001 It soon became apparent that time was needed to write, travel and perform. This is opposed by work, or more specifically money. Money to travel, pay rent, eat and live generally.

Some comics, even pro comics still do work other than comedy to pay the bills.  It doesn’t make them any less gifted as comics, but it’s merely a temporary means of supplementing their career, nothing more.

I’m a comedian. I’m also a middleweight graphic designer and have been for a while, with a ‘career’ job, the kind agencies advertise for in newspapers, and can pay quite hansomely, up to 30k in some places.

Q. Which of the above titles is more valid?

‘Middleweight’ might sound grand but I never called myself ‘middleweight’ by choice. I was told I was ‘middleweight’ by an agency bod over the phone once when they asked what I could do, I still prefer simply ‘designer’, if at all. It took me years to confidently say I’m a comedian, and anyone can use that title simply by getting on stage for 5 minutes.

A. neither. 

I’d managed to negociate reduced hours to accomodate my career in comedy, which didn’t happen overnight, but even then the more time I’d had the more I wanted to fully capitalise on the gig opportunities I was getting.

I spoke to a few freelancers, most had become freelancers due to other commitments or because they’d never been in full time employment and couldn’t ever see themselves staying in the same place for long time.

People I know who are self employed are the most overworked people I know, they don’t have a pay cheque coming in at the end of the month, so whatever work they get needs to be done as soon as possible. Also while they are doing that work they need to be looking for more work and selling themselves to do when that work is done.

I went to to ‘business start up’ seminar. I thought it would help and it did, but not in the way I thought. The main lessons I pretty much already knew from chasing comedy bookings, self confidence, go out and get the work, have an angle thats uniquely yours.

I liked freelancing, and started doing some out of hours work as well as gigs (no time to socialise), but did nothing to get more, thinking it too unstable and irregular to take seriously. Though suppose I knew the real reason wasn’t this, or abilty, but somthing more substantial. Fear.

Fear is a great motivator. You can do a lot of things with it. I’d never not had a full time job and couldn’t fathom how I’d survive without a regular pay packet at the end of the month. Even though some months gigs and freelance paid plently.

Life had become like ’stone soup’, the story where a traveller puts a stone in a pot, adds water and veg and makes stone soup. He deceives the locals it’s the stone that makes the tastey broth, when in actuality it’s all the other stuff thats added that makes it wholesome.  I was making stone soup and focusing on the stone.

The next day I handed my notice in. That was 3 months ago.  I’ve not looked back.

The Manchester Comedy Festival kicks off this week and I’m not in it because I missed the deadline and didn’t get a venue for my show sorted. Event’s have a funny way of conspiring though, and as it happens the Literature festival runs on exactly the same dates, and I’m doing two things for that, and even have my face in the brochure for the Poetry Slam Final that I’m mc’ing at the Northern Pub. During the fest I’ll be compering a Doctor Who convention (see previous post) on Saturday and doing the late night Asylum next Wednesday. As well as that I’ve got a whole new night kicking off in November, ‘Northern Humour‘, a sunday new material/character/wacky stuff night in the Northern Pub which promises to be proper fun.

The fest appears to be a lot more low key than in previous years, which is a bit of a shame for something that really needs to be as in-yer-face as it possibly can. With no sponsership this year it’s hard to can as much exposure when all the work being done to promote it is more or less being donated by the organisers. Hopefully next year it will be bigger, but that’ll only happen if more people get behind it, promoters and comics alike.

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!

(Submission piece for The Scotsman)
August is fast approaching already I’m packing and racking my brains to make sure I’ve covered everything. clean underwear, check. Digs, check. Multimedia bells & whistles, check. Tightly written hilarious Show, check (I hope).
I’m taking my first full stand up show to the fringe, and to be honest the thing stressing me out the most isn’t submerging my brain into the all encompassing creative din of sound, colour and taste. Or my show, which still needs work, but is robust enough to set sail on the sea of competitive mirth. The cause of my furrowed brow is the multimedia elements that go with the show. Also being the control freak I am it’s all triggered by remote control instead of having a tech on hand.

Comedy and technology aren’t exactly a marriage made in heaven, one is born of sponteneity, adaptability and  tangents that creates humour, the other is about order and numbers, and safe predictability. Arriving at a recent preview show, loaded with AV gear like an powerpoint terminator, one of the others comics, armed with only a handful of written notes made the comment ‘how can I compete with that?’ and as much I as I understood the question, it’s a bit of a moot point.

Multimedia Bells and whistles are exactly that, and shouldn’t be a distraction. If anything he’s far better equiped, and purer to the art form of stand up. Good writing is the core of any show, and if the show can’t be done without multimedia, then arguably it’s not straight stand up.

Increasingly comics at the fringe are using projection and multimedia elements to enhance their shows, and I’m biting off a sizable of in mixing character comedy, stand up and multimedia together in a themed show about eczema. Did I mention my show was about eczema?

The previews I’ve done so far already I’ve pressed the wrong button good few times. Ironically pressing the wrong button is getting a big laugh, which is a result, but not what I’d planned at all. As long as I don’t do it too much, I might just keep it in the show.

‘John Cooper: The 30 Year Itch’ is on at the Canons Gait at 7.15pm from 2nd - 25th August and is free.

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.