what have you done for me lately?

oh. yes. i have this blog don't i? i sorta forgot for a while. i've been doing this instead, putting a website together so that more people can experience improv in the world.

improvisation is now, well, kind of a full-on addiction. it's basically forming about 40% of my thought processes. that's quite a lot considering i spend 63% of my life asleep, and/or enjoying the throws of passionate freelancing.

anyway; 8bit have a gig this weekend and it's going to be a right royal phenomenon. without the royalty, those guys are basically pointless.

as you like it

sometimes comedy just gets you right there. you click with it or you don't.
as any fine regular readers are unavoidably aware, stand-up doesn't usually do it for me.
but these guys do:

the beta males picnic (great name) played the hoopla christmas cabaret last night; a gig that i was running tech-stuff for. and they were brilliant. they sat really well with me and i easily found their level of humour. it was playful and silly, but wrought with intelligence. they defied preconceptions, had some fantastically dark sketches and were fundamentally hilarious throughout.

best of all, each one of them came independently to thank me after the show, for doing the technical bits. it's a very simple and easy thing to do, but it makes a huge difference. i hope they are recognised for the brilliant sketch comedy they perform, because they are lovely chaps and totally deserve it.

the adjustment bureau

our review finally came out! hurrah! feel free to read it here, if you like.

or here:

obviously i slid down a big ramp of disappointment as i read it. i know for a fact that our show wasn't a 2-star unfulfillment, and other independent reviews prove my theory is not misled self-awareness.

i thought i'd check out other reviews by the same reviewer, and - good for her - she's managed to write six reviews for the edinburgh fringe. that's a lot of work. they're each at least 120 words each. that works out more than ONE HUNDRED words every week since the beginning of the fringe. that's a lot for a student on summer break. phew. i wish i had that pace when i was writing Slides of Chaos, then i'd still be doing it. and i loved the process of writing it. it was amazing. i was working with some brilliant people, making something brilliant happen.

and then we came to actually do the show, which was met with a resounding thunderstorm of positivity. for a free show that the audience could have wandered in and out of, we had regular audience members who stood (we often ran out of chairs) and stayed standing for the entire show. even ones who had to eventually be tugged out of the room by their partners because they had expensive tickets for another show starting somewhere else.

this happened more than once.

so i read some other reviews by 'georgina evenden' - our prolific ThreeWeeks.co.uk wordsmith. this one was my favourite:

or - in short - "eerily pretentious"

please feel free to have a read of her other reviews. i did. if you want a summary, basically she doesn't like comedy that much. except for a night of comedy that had different stand-ups on every night including Robin Ince and Stewart Lee (41st best stand-up of all time), which she gave a whole-hearted 3-stars-out-of-five. it seems a bit odd that someone who doesn't like comedy is asked to review comedy (a genre that requires audience members to have wholly generous, giving spirits). if you're going to do that, you need to send someone who can view the performance in an educated, unprejudiced and erudite way. and do it with a degree of conviction.

our reviewer used the term "tits up" and then happily put her name at the bottom.

so be it.

that's our review. that's how some review websites have to work. ThreeWeeks attempted to review two-thousand shows in a short time, and had to make do with some of the people who volunteered as "budding young journos."

i'll continue to base the opinions of the audience on the opinions of the actual audience. which looked something like this:

“that was the best free show i saw at the fringe, and one of the best shows over all.”
- audience member 22/08/10

"i loved the unashamed geeky references."
- dylan emery of Showstopper!: the improvised musical 28/08/10

“a massive two fingers to the world of suited, booted city slickers. too good to miss.”
- impro-junk 22/08/10

“better than a lot of stuff you have to pay for. very clever, very funny, with excellent timing.”
-mark duqueno 24/08/10

“very slick and humourous.”
- matthew somerville 24/08/10

“original and excellent.” 5-stars
- online audience review 27/08/10

“i thought this was a fantastic show, especially as it's free. a clever script, slick and endearing performances and incredibly creative use of technical wizardry all make for a very funny and very entertaining show.” 5-stars
- online audience review 27/08/10

of course, i'm only bitter because it was a bad review. i wouldn't have to've spent the last hour collating all those nice things people said into one place if Georgina Evendon (a student reviewer who only likes Dance and Glee shows and simply has to keep mentioning Italia Conti in much of her work, and even if a show is "occasionally stale" or "verges on the pretentious" she'll give it 4/5 if it's dance) had written "this was very slick, inventive and must've taken ages to produce and rehearse due to all the incredibly difficult technical aspects of the piece. audience members around me were commenting on how close the parody of a terrible place to work is, compared to their own working environment. impressive and dedicated work, 4-stars"...

it's okay, georgina. it's okay that you've only just left university and have no experience of anything referred to in my show. you're only a child, you've never had to do a days work for an arsehole. it's okay that your writing hasn't reached a level of maturity that makes it credible in the public world. you will learn. yes, your review currently says "i didn't like it, then i thought it was good, but i didn't like it." and you released it - pointlessly - three weeks after the thing finished, but don't let that stop you pursuing your dream. this country celebrates mediocrity so you'll fit right in.

i'll rise above the negativity and carry on receiving up-beat commentary, and georgina can work her arse off (100 words a day) to finally get a badly paid job at the daily mail where some coked-up bigot can attempt to moisten her dried up vagina facility.

a funny thing happened on the way to the forum

I'm working on a stand-up routine. it's hard.
the thing that makes it harder is that it's going to be put on in front of an audience in two weeks.
no pressure.

"be funny, Jon"
"okay then"

yup. I'm doing stand-up. Tuesday 28th at 8:00pm at The Miller near London Bridge.
it's a free show.
a whole bunch of us are doing it, all for the first time, so it may well be worth you turning up. you might end up laughing with us, you might end up laughing at us. some routines (certainly mine) will just be laughable, ... but y'know.. screw it. at least you'll be laughing. so that's good.

come along. did I mention the bit where you don't have to pay? and that some of it will be funny?

blackadder goes forth

it must be odd. it must be odd walking from a stage in a prominent theatrical venue with thousands of applauders thanking you for an hour and a half of your time, and an hour and a half of excerpts from a book you have penned about your own life. the level of egotistical spurnings should be debilitating. it should elevate your sense of self-worth to that of a smirking x-factor victim facing a seven digit viewing figure for the first time.
it must be odd.

stephen fry manages to (somehow) withstand that tectonic pressure. despite thousands paying money and making the trip to come and see him, traveling from such distant shores as Newcastle and Gorey (sp?) with the undeniable fan-boy sensibility that can drive people to pay money and travel from distant shores just to watch a man read a book; despite the seismic readings that must occur from that amount of ego polishing, 'Fry Secundus' maintains the warmth, humanity and humility that makes him so deserving of the respect that is offered. Christ alive, that was a long sentence.

I don't do celebrity worship or undeserved gushing as a rule. Michael Schumacher only got a "cheers" when he gave me a Ferrari hat. kanye west was (quite rightly) snubbed and Tony Blair didn't even manage my eye contact. I've got more of a rise for a nice piece of marmite on toast than I got from Cheryl Cole's bare midriff.

yes, there was that unearthly embarrassment I experienced when confronted with Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Lucy Davies and Kate Ashfield staring at me from behind a fold-out table and a handful of marker pens, and the subsequent dumbfounded, starstruck burble that discharged from my quivering gob... but let's not go into that.

I will, however, wax lyrical about Stephen John Fry, a man who is more talented, more erudite, more well-read, more witty and more intelligent than you'll ever be. he is aspirational. he is a devout humanist, but in all the positive aspects of the word and none of the negative. he is passionate and brilliant and masterful, a rare national treasure in a country that seems to worship mediocrity.

above all, and I must come back to this, he is humble. this is what makes him likeable. despite declaring at the end of his gig this evening that part of the reason he does what he does is for the praise and recognition of other humans - he also does it with kindness and generosity, and he does it as your equal.

I make no apology for my disgusting release. the man is excellent.

quite remarkable was the excerpt from his book that he read about the forming of his comedy relationship and friendship with Hugh Laurie, of which he described as "falling in non-romantic, comedy love" with. every word of that section resonated with me and my thoughts over the last 15 years of knowing my friend The Troubadour. and if we were to ignore the path that Fry & Laurie took, if Chris and I ignore the work and achievement of Andrew & The Slides of Chaos and not try to work hard on the next project, and the next, and the one after that; we should regard ourselves as feckless and lazy.

see, he does good work that posh-talking, public school educated fop. carry on, mr. fry.
and thanks.

children of the corn

quick, get down to cornwall! or you'll miss this fucking ace show what is going to happen:

it's this evening..... RUN!

due south

what's that? another show what i am in?

book the date. see you in cornwall.

the men who stare at goats

me and the troubadour are writing a show for the edinburgh fringe festival this year. here's the website:

there's not really anything on it at the moment, but there are a load of links so you can follow our progress. like on twitter or facebook or something.

and this is what it's all about. we think.

It’s the big meeting and Andrew is lumbered with the key presentation on Corporate Strategy. He’s unsure what that is.
He isn’t too worried though: he’s a PowerPoint wizard, he can make words jump through hoops (as long as he has some Clip-Art of hoops). He’s in complete control.
Except PowerPoint has inconveniently achieved sentience and is planning to kill him and take over the world.

In a death struggle with his homicidal slides, the four bullet points of the Apocalypse and quadspeed forces of evil; now Andrew might be humanity’s last hope of salvation.
Death by PowerPoint? Next slide please.

iron man 2

i'm in this show tonight.

the toughest impro challenge in the world!
12 actors start. they do impro. audience vote some off.
one actor survives 'til the end.
they become - IRON ACTOR!

london impro never got better.
or tougher.

the show will also have these fine performers (obviously they won't win as I AM IRON ACTOR. but they'll at least help me look good):
Chris Mead - The Ministry, The Oodcast, Andrew & The Slides of Chaos
Rhiannon Vivian - Cannonball, Crouching Unicorn, Hidden Goblin
Claire O'Callaghan - Cannonball
Andrew Gentilli - Cannonball
Michael Brunstrom - Curt Hatred's Copper Glove
Wanda Keenan - A whole bunch of stuff, including this
Roderick Millar - Friendly Fire
Paul Rice - Sketchprov
Matt Andrews - Hoopla!
Geoff Marshall - Cameron Girl
Katrina Johnsen - Hoopla!

doors 7.30pm, show 8pm
upstairs at The Black Horse, 6 rathbone place, london, w1t 1hh

see you there for kick-ass good entertainment and laugh-a-moment genius machinery.

do you want the truth or something beautiful?

i spent quite a lot of time tonight, staring at a woman in extravagant clothing who sang with a voice more powerful than a circular-saw wrapped in silk. she was singing pop music, too. and at one point she had a bit of flesh on show.

now, i know what you're thinking, you're thinking, "but monster-boy, you hate lady gaga with the hatred of a thousand suicide bombers! what are you doing going to see her live?!"

i will inform you to rest your pathetic excuse for an investigative mind, and quit your jibber-jabber. i would never stoop so low as to bless that demented harlot with my presence. no. i saw Paloma Faith at the shepherd's bush empire. and, i know, it's not the sort of thing i would normally even give two hoots about. 'twas a stab in the dark, a present for a friend whom i had no certainty would enjoy it. thankfully, though, both my hoots and my stabbing device paid off, because she was marvellous.

bloomin' marvellous.

the lady gaga reference is not without relevance. paloma has been compared to the product-placing-sweaty-beast-cow more than a few times by celeb-loving journalists who don't really reserve too many column inches to fact. and in all honesty i spent quite a lot of the gig wondering what it was that made me vomit at the thought of gaga, but was slowly making me fall for the bundle of allure on stage before me. y'know, when supposedly one of them is the "british version of the other."

i posed the question to my companion (an ex-celeb journalist who went freelance to avoid having to talk to idiots), who summed it up with the following justifications:

because paloma faith has a personality.
because she looks like she's having fun, not just there to make money.
because she actually cares about whether the audience are having a good time.
because she makes good music.
because lady gaga's music is completely awful.
because she is actually engaging with the audience, instead of perpetuating the myth that celebrities are a different breed, or that they are earthbound deities.

that seemed like a good start. paloma was beautiful, wonderful, extravagant, but not 'other'. she was a performer completely engaged in making sure she put on an enjoyable show, for us.
and she was funny.
could you see lady gaga putting little amusing quips in between her songs?
quips, maybe. amusing... nope: because they would be quips written by a team of marketing professionals from walkers crisps or bodyform. or kwik-fit. or whoever the tramp-licker had sold her soul to that week.

this turned into a bit of a gaga-attack didn't it. not that that isn't admirable, but what i wanted to say was Paloma Faith is a joy. even if her music doesn't make you wet-at-the-knees, herself is just great. she has style and substance. she is warm and friendly. i like her.

forget paris

picture the scene, it is thursday morning:

YOUR BOSS: what did you do last night, anything fun?

YOU: well, i did have the opportunity to go and see a comedy show filled with laughs and fun and improvising. and it was only £5. in a cool venue, surrounded by excellent people and a really exciting atmosphere. and really easy to get to, near London Bridge station.

BOSS: sounds ace! i wish i'd known about it, i would've definitely gone to that. did you have fun?

YOU: i didn't go in the end, i was a bit tired and couldn't be bothered.

BOSS: you are a stupid fucking idiot. i'm removing your holiday entitlement. go and sit in a cupboard.

see you at the show:

battle of britain

do you like comedy? you should come to this show. it might well be very funny. i'm in it and everything. but there are also some very talented improvisers too, so you should at least get a chortle on your chops at some point during the evening.

if you don't, you are a heartless swine and i demand your demise.

here is a link to the facebook page: the facebook page

a song a day for january: 17

i don't think it's possible for me to explain how much i love the guillemots. i've seen them live a couple of times. both times, they were spectacular.

if i only had a heart

do you remember a couple of years ago when i was an awesome dude technician bastard for a theatre show? oh go on, you remember. it was this. and it rocked.
i particularly rocked.

anyway, as i was recently singled and had to fill my sad lonely life i decided to help out a bit again this year, when the kids put on a performance of the wiz. which is a 1970's motown version of the wizard of oz, the film originally starring michael jackson.

and if you watched that video all the way through; don't worry, you haven't accidentally taken some drugs.

... so anyway, we did that musical. we took 35 white middle-class kids, and put on a 70's harlem soul musical. go us.
you can look at the pictures i took here.

and you can also listen to the BBC radio reports part one here, part two here.
make sure you listen out for me. i'm the one doing the makeup for the scarecrow, mindlessly rambling on about a completely different show.


d'ya hear that? he compared us to "professional theatre" ..! goldarn it.

anyway. i still love those kids.

warmer than hell

spinal tap, wembley arena

perhaps the most ironic gig that has ever existed: 3 aging rockers played by 3 aging comedians, doing a faux reunion gig for a fake band parodying classic rock from a mockumentary made 25 years ago called their "one night world tour", supported by a faux folk band made up of the same 3 actors in different costumes - one of which was dressed as a woman - in reference to a different mockumentary they made about 10 years ago.

and the audience seemed to be made up of:
people who modeled their life on derek smalls,
people who modeled their 'look' on derek smalls,
people who dressed in fancy dress as derek smalls,

..and one guy who sat in front of us, singing as loud as the human vocal chords could muster and explaining to his bemused girlfriend that Spinal Tap pretty much guided every choice he's ever made in his life... without irony. which, to me, makes it seem even more ironic.

anyway. the three original performers, who between them created the mockumentary genre and so one of the bedrocks of modern comedy, took it to a whole new level; and their brilliantly observed characatures played a notably un-sold-out gig without missing a parodying beat.
was it by genius design that the place was only 2 thirds full?
was it a sign of highly controlled skill that many of the songs were a bit rubbish?
could it have been the mind of comedy legend that screwed up the opening VT?
..?
the conviction with which creator Christopher Guest played misunderstood songwriter and lead guitarist Nigel Tufnall suggests it so.

and,.. whatever; it was cool to be there. especially when justin hawkins turned up with a bass guitar shaped like a space shuttle to play the bassline of 'big bottom'

the lord of the rings

ages ago i found a video of a very attractive lady taking her clothes off in public. what a delight it was to see her live on monday night at le clique. the whole show is pretty much what it says in this description; but i want to pay particular attention to the best act of the night, captain frodo.

here's a little video of his act. unfortunately it is bastardised by the presence of graham norton and the low attention span attitude towards television editing. the real act has a wonderful bumbling pace, far more verbal jokes and is well worth the ticket to see in person.

also i managed to nab seats with the troubadour that were about 80cms from the tiny stage, so when the sparsely dressed lady performers were on i could almost see their breakfast. some of them had hula hoops.

suburban rhythm

come to this and see me there!

the lion king

i have a wide and varied music taste. it is something i'm immensely proud of; that i can give adequate time to, and often thoroughly enjoy any type of music (that isn't house or misogynist hip-hop). i even let kanye west into my life for a moment until i saw for myself that he was utter pap.

tonight's gig was pretty far out there in terms of experiencing variety.... yup. it's difficult to explain the animal collective and very difficult to explain who they are and what they do. only that there are only two people i know who've ever heard of them. one is myself, and the other is my old boss and good buddy 'ass' who introduced them to me. they became an invaluable tool in getting through daily life at our old job, where the only way to deal with the irregularities and dystopia of that crazy workplace, was to go back and load the office p.a. system with something even more random and uncontrollable.

step in the animal collective (amongst others*).


for a long time, since i first heard about rave music actually, i've wondered where music was heading. where it would be in 10, 50, 1000 years. in the last hundred it's changed and evolved at a ridiculous pace into uncountable streams almost indecipherable and unrelated to its roots. back in those days i listened to nothing but metal and thought the likes of The Prodigy and The Shamen were bouts of mindless noise akin to mental illness, symptomatic of broken homes and shock treatment. i did know that there were people who found ways to appreciate wider music than me at that time; people who could somehow enjoy meatloaf, biohazard, barry manilow AND 2unlimited. equally.

don't worry i've killed him now.

before i'd reached this audio maturity i did have an inkling that somewhere in the distant future someone would find a way to combine musical genres. someone out there would be able to see a link between hardcore, repetitive dance-centric beats and lyrical, oppressed, melodic flows. my suspicion is that eventually it will all lead to a hundred people sitting in a room listening to 1k tone, but for now i'm very happy to enjoy the animal collective and anything within that genre. if someone could tell me what that genre is, i'd be most grateful.

electronic hardcore punk-rave?
binary soul?
intellectual death drum n' bass metal?

...no idea. but i like it and the gig this evening at koko, camden was an sensual experience in the literal sense of the word; encompassing confusion, pain, wonder and watery eyes. me like.


* also look up:
squarepusher
battles
and steve reich's train album

almost famous

it's been far too long since i went to my last gig, but thankfully the drought was ended with a brilliant evening spent with shoelace and his old school pals from devon, the rumble strips.

a long while ago i heard their song "motorcycle" which is frankly nigh-on anthemic, disguised as a sort of lo-fi garage recording. not only is it a catchy little number, but also came onto my radar at pretty much the same time i passed my motorbike test and got myself a crotch rocket. the 'strips encore performance of said song bought those pleasurable feelings flooding back and i was momentarily back in the fresh air with the wind in my eyes and flies in my teeth.

in the very hip new proud gallery, camden (£5 drinks... urgh) the rumble strips played to a small but energised crowd. there was an honesty to the set, a result perhaps of a group with their feet still on the ground; becoming famous, but not yet suffering from the fall out of mega-stardom (despite collaborations with mark ronson.) anyone who knows me will know i will always favour the underdog, the independent, the cult... and this band is happily within this gamut; certainly for now. though there's something unpretentious and genuine about their writing that implies they could remain untainted for a good while.

brilliant, don't ruin it.

deliverance

shunt

i must tell you about one of the best venues and one the the funnest cabaret ideas what i did experience on friday, these...

shunt is an awesome 'members club' underneath london bridge, hidden in the shadows of railway arches amongst the strange, the circus and the unusual. it's a performance art club and anything goes.

anything.

the time i went before, the evening was interrupted by a rather large naked dude who ran amongst the revelers only to have a bucket of tinned tomatoes fall from the ceiling on top of him. after throwing himself around a bit in a frenzy of ketchup manufacture he ran onto a small stage where another bucket (this time of sand) fell atop his head. more writhing about then back into the crowd/dancers/audience whereupon a bucket of water drenched him and anyone standing nearby.

he was one of the owners it turns out.

so yeah.... anything.

but last friday i went off to the good old freakshow in support of an old friend of the troubadour's who was performing with her band - karauke - please do go to the website for information, but in short they are a ukulele band who put on karaoke gigs. like karaoke, but with a 15-piece ukulele band instead of a little machine with a microphone attached to it.

check them out. go and see them. and sign up early to do a song. don't hesitate like i did and by the time you've psyched yourself up enough to go on stage and you're really excited... time has run out and the gig is over.

shame, because my ukulele backed rendition of kaiser chiefs "oh my god" was to be the stuff of legend...

karauke