Windmill Comedy

Well after all the uncertainty and trepidation about last year's comedy show at the Tuxford Arts Festival, thus year's was a resounding success. Plenty of lovely people, beautiful setting and great comics. Marc Lucero and Steve Day did me proud. The setting was in a marquee next to a privately owned working windmill. Gorgeous setting for a comedy. He crowd were a crowd from heaven. To be honest te setting alone was enough to put you in a good mood. It's the sort of show he audience will bentelling their friends about for years. We even had anfew people return from last year's show so it couldn't have been all that bad. Marc Lucero even got away with some of his racier material by doing it on purpose and telling the crowd I warned him not to do it. And they adored Steve Day, I mean who couldn't. A member of the audience even said after that he just radiated charm.

So that was great. There was even someone from the Retford Times who wanted to meet me the next day to take some publiciy shots of me posing inside the windmill. So that's me hitting the big time.

We spent the rest of he night in the pool drinking wine and talking about how fabulous I was. Everyone's a winner.

Ukulele days

I've spent an age an a half doing stuff for the Tuxford Featival that starts today. There was supposed to be jazz but that got cancelled. So we're starting with a day for old people with bad memories. I wonder if Glastonbury started like this. the local MP is coming to the comedy win his family. One side if me wants to do a load of political stuff but to be honest I'm genuinely happy that he's supporting the festival so I'll just keep my happy trousers on. That and the majority of my knowledge is based on obscure documentaries and conspiracy websites.

I finally got around to doing Helen Arney's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Uke night. Where a bunch of misfits like myself sit around in a circle playing songs on our ukuleles. It was great fun. I particularly liked playing The Man Who Sold the World by David Bowie. Sophia bought me a ukulele when she went to Bestival and i love it to bits. It's probably the cheapest one ever made and it certainly was at the uke group. But it's opened up so many new avenues in comedy. I've used it in Music Club, I'll use it in my Edinburgh show and I'll be doing a weekly slot for Tricity Vogue's Ukelele Cabaret also during the festival.

I'm feeling a bit weird about the festival this year. I seem to have everything sorted. Normally I'm running around a few weeks before knowing I still have something important to do, like write a show. But not only have we got the show written we have four previews to tweak it. I'm not normally that well organised. I'll probably have the car blow up when I pass e Cambridge services. Better get my AA upgraded to relay just on case.

It's bloody hot at the moment. I'm suffering from prickly heat at the moment on my lower right calf. I spent half of last night with a blue freezer block tied to my leg with a dressing gown belt. I watched a few episodes of the American version of The Office which I love. If you haven't seen it, do. It's brilliant and dare I say it better than the British version. The whole cast are just perfect and yes it's got tons or irony and it has really embarrassing moments like the uk cousin. Because there's over twenty episodes a series you get to really explore the characters.

I'm back

Well it's been a while, but Edinburgh is almost upon me and I love to do an Edinburgh blog. This will be my 4th. So what have I been up to? Well this year I have two shows and have decided not to do a show doing straight stand up. I have to be honest I can't compete and never have a good idea for a show. I can fill an hour of me doing stand up and bantering, but an Edinburgh show this does not necessarily make. I did a gig years ago with Alex Horne and was impressed with the fact that he ha such a strong idea for a show and while we were having a coffee between gigs he was researching. The show was called Bird Watching and it went on to be a radio show and a book. After a fairly bog standard Edinburgh full of alcohol, infighting and bitching I vowed not to bother coming back till I had a good idea for a show. And like being caught with bald tires on your car by a policeman at 8.30 in the morning doing 3mph in the middle of London, they come in pairs.

I originally decided to come up with a children's show that would reflect the kind of children's show I like. Tiswas, Michael Bentime's Potty Time, Going Live, Trevor and Simon, Pee Wee Herman, The Monkees, Banana Splits. All that really anarchic stuff. I had the show more or less written and performed by Nov last year. Then Mike Manera suggested finally getting around to doing a show he'd had kicking around for years called Musoc Club. This also turned out to be a great idea for an Edinburgh show so we decided to go ahead with that too. Then I had a dilema. Should I just jettison he kid's show? Manera thankfully told me to stick with it as it was written and if I was already up there it would just cost a few extra hundred quid for brochure entry and flyers since I was doing it at the Free Festival. It was manera's idea to rename the show Lessons in Chaos. I was going to have guests but have since decided to make the guests/friends part of the show the puppets and toys I have in my suitcase. I was inspired by The The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson sequence I recently saw on Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI6Ljm6YhGk

Possibly one of the funniest, mental and disturbing things I have ever seen in my life. I've watched it about 15 times so far. Trust me, it's aimed at kids.