You so cool.

I was supposed to stay at work and watch Rhod Gilbert, Dan Nightingale et al tonight, but I was too tired/hungry. I did the obligatory networking then ran off.

That's really cool news, whitey - glad to hear things are moving on a pace on the circuit for ya. Keep up the good work, matey.

Ooh!!!

Indeed a rare sight to see in Britain. I will try and book tickets tomorrow.

It's nearly Fringe time! Sorted out Richard Herring and Adam Hills tickets so far, and Stewart Lee will be in Glasgow at the end of July.

And now I can add Izzard to my Will-see list this year. Cooooool.

Yes, I do rule hard.

So?

Spill the beans.

I was ace. It was one of the best audiences I've ever played to. Stewart Lee was asleep in the back the whole time I was on. And the money from the ticket sales was stolen so I didn't get paid. Great gig though. I'll post a recording as soon as I get it.

In related news Stewart Lee's new show is predictably fantastic.

Are you a sardine?

I really enjoyed it last week too, and it went down brilliantly with the crowd. Even though he spent the first few minutes insinuating the people of Nottingham were all alcoholics, I have no idea where he would have got such an impression.

Pappy's Fun Club struggled, they had technical problems, the audience didn't really get it and not every joke worked - doing unfunny gags deliberately is a fine art. I talked to Matthew about it afterwards and apparently some of it was old material and they have other new stuff for Edinburgh. Mr. Lee (though he took the piss out of their poor reception at the start of his set) reckons it'll play much better to a smaller crowd, I hope so because they're lovely boys.

I am very much looking foward to seeing what Kitson's preview has to offer tonight. I like this time of year.

Or at least as soon as I figure out a way to share it. I have an mp3. How do I make it not just be on my computer but be on others also?

Can you put it on Myspace videos? I'm sure I listened to something that didn't have video on it on there the other day.

Some rusty old jokes and some shiny new ones.

Very good.

Though you didn't use my smoking paedophille joke you said you'd have off me. I was looking forward to the 10p in royalties.


Wife Of Rolex

Going to see Russell Brand next weekend.

DeNiro.

Last night I went to see Daniel Kitson at the Lincoln Drill Hall. The gig was rescheduled from the 27th of June, when Daniel apparently couldn't get to the venue because of flooding, a likely story. It was worrying at 8pm then, that we were told Daniel wasn't feeling well and may not be able to perform. Sympathy should have been the response, but instead there were whispers of, "hmmpf waste of a babysitter". Twenty minutes later we were told by the duty manager that Daniel was going to make a start, and see how he got on.

Daniel was very poorly, he had a terrible migraine, which you could feel from the fifth row. He had a bucket brought onstage, and there were a couple of times it looked like he might need to use it. He said we’d be able to tell people when asked about the gig, "it was ill".

It was also brilliant. Though he had to sit down from 90% of the show and he decided to skip an interval (he was worried if he went off stage he might not come back on) and he spent a lot of the time rubbing one of his eyes, or perhaps because of these things, he has confirmed his place as my favourite live stand-up.

The show is called 'It's the Fireworks Talking' and it's ostensibly about the melancholy euphoria of seeing fireworks, putting the first footprints in the snow or staring up at the stars. This may sound terribly mawkish, but it's far from sentimental. Kitson's world view is both cynical and yet full of childlike wonder. He will tell us none of us have ever had a unique thought, but you know he really believes he's special. And he is special. Everytime I've seen him his performance has been better, there were touches of Woody Allen in last night's performance that really made my night. His routine is very clever, interesting, extremely funny and occasionally rather moving. This was the most complete show I've seen him do, and I'd agree with him that it's the best thing he's done in his career so far. The only criticism I have is that it was a touch long. He did about 15 minutes of unrehearsed stuff about his train ride down and getting his migraine, which was utterly brilliant and better than most people could manage with a script, then he did the hour and a half show without the interval, and as he got sidetracked (migraine stuff) a few times, it ended up being two hours. Which is a long time without a break, no matter how brilliant you are.

I also now know that Kitson has kissed 43 girls (paltry at 30) and that he has them saved as a word document called 'the list.doc'.

I have also stolen the phrase...

"Sometimes loving someone means letting them go, sometimes being friendly means shutting the fuck up and reading a book like everyone else."

On Sunday I saw Josie Long's Edinburgh Preview, the name of which escapes me... 'Trying is Good', I think. Josie is as likeable a stage presence as ever, anyone who doesn't want to spend time in her company has a heart as black as tar. The show was OK, some stuff worked very well, but it felt flabby and she still can't provide the belly laughs of someone like Kitson. Talking to Josie afterwards, she thought it went much worse than it actually did. She's got a lot of work to do before Edinburgh, but there's a very good streamlined show in there somewhere. And hey, even if she doesn't manage it, people will still go and enjoy their time watching her, because Josie is Josie.

Go and see Daniel Kitson. Or, if you're a lazy cunt, you can listen to some of his older material via your computing device here. I saw that show last year, it was brilliant. Did I mention I think Kitson's brilliant? Brilliant.

Not bad. You definitely sound as though you've gained tremendous confidence.

It's a bit rushed, though. I realise you've got to keep the vibe going, but it's a bit too fast at times.

Just my opinion, however.

It's like being shot in the face by a submachine gun of comedy.

'Twas entertaining.

Really enjoyed that matey, very good set. Liking the new material too.


And I agree with these comments:


In places, agreed. But a definite yes on the confidence, too - and you handled the very few brief silences deftly, I thought. Good show, M.

Cheers folks. The speed of the set is for a few reasons, chiefly that I only had ten minutes and a lot I wanted to get through, but also that that speed of delivery works better on sober, tired or unwilling crowds. The speed of topic shifts however I'm not happy with (although it panders nicely to the limited attention span of a drunkier audience) and is something that will be remedied with time.

Kitson I have complex and purely speculative opinions on. They will not be divulged.

Speculative? What's to speculate on, surely you either like him or not. You got some dirt on Kitson, Captain Enigma? Have you grounds to suspect he's running a comedy sweat shop using migrant workers to write his jokes? Or do you think the stutter is all an act to garner audience sympathy?

He's teetering on the edge of his own arse a bit.

A friend in the know was making some rumblings about him cancelling the first Lincoln date because he 'couldn't be arsed'.

I don't know whether that's true, but even if it is, the new show is good enough for him to get away with being a bit of a tosser.

i'm hoping to see Bill Bailey in November........

I am going to see Bill Bailey in November...Woohoo! I saw Russell Brand last week. Hugely entertaining and much better than I really expected. A lot of ad-libbed stuff as well as some good new material. It didn't seem as though he was going to do any of his previous material until members of the audience specifically asked him to in his encore....which struck me as quite odd at a stand-up show like requesting someones "greatest hits", but he was happy to oblige and it was still very enjoyable!

I'll be seeing Russell Howard in October. Front row!!


Wife Of Rolex

ahhhhhhh!!!
i love Russel Howard!!!
i'm soooooo jealous!!!

I saw Al Pitcher last night. He was very likeable, but not very funny. This can be a difficult combination, especially when a comedian get heckled and the audience respond with, "awwwww". When asked if there was anything we'd like to see included in the set, which wasn't already, someone shouted "some jokes".

The annoying thing was after an hour of gentle humour and self-deprecation I couldn't face sitting through another post-interval hour and left for a beer garden. Annoyingly this means I missed Jim Jeffries set, which was the reason I'd left the house in the first place.

Edinburgh previews can be exhausting, especially since the smoking ban and when you're wearing a short skirt so can't get comfortable in your stupid chair.

Jim Jeffries might have been great, I dunno.

He would have been. He's fantastic.

Rub it in.

I only went to see his preview, should have known they'd put Pitcher on first.

Fuckers.

I missed most of Seymour Mace's Edinburgh preview last night. My own fault though, stupid smoking ban. What I saw I liked.

The smoking ban has ruined flabby Edinburgh previews for me.

Al Pitcher just sent me a very sweet myspace message. Shucks.

I sometimes think likeability goes further than jokes in the stand-up comedy biz, especially if he sends nice myspace messages to everyone who attends his gigs.

Alyssa also said that his previous Edinburgh show about Werewolves, was very funny. And it wasn't like last night was bad, it was just a bit messy, and for an interactive comedian the audience were being very cagey. I just like a few more punchlines and a tighter structure... I really should have given him the benefit of the doubt.

See? Likeable. Dagnabbit.

Saw Abigail Burdess and Alistair Barrie last night.

Burdess performed character comedy which overall was a bit hit and miss. In addition she was performing the whole show from a wheelchair due to an ankle injury. Amusingly, manouvering this around the stage resulted in her bringing her own set down around her ears at the end of the show but she dealt with it well and went on to perform a spookily accurate Bart Simpson finale.

Barrie was better but suffered from a rather sparse audience and people who couldn't hold their bladder for 60 minutes. His material wasn't blindingly new but it was well performed and engaging enough. With a bigger audience I'm sure the show would have a bit more spark.

Barrie's a great act. Like most comedians though, not sure I could sit through an hour of him. I take it you're at the festival? I recommend Jason Cook's show.

I am. I'm reviewing up until the 17th so I have a big ol' schedule of shows to get through. I'll keep an eye out for Cook and see if I can fit him in.

Tonight I've got Janey Godley and The Bad Film club with Nicko and Joe.

Ooh, who for?

A website called one4review.com. It's a bit of a shonky looking website (which I'm going to have a right fiddle with after August) but the two main guys on the site have been reviewing at the Festival for about 10 years now. A few years for one of the local radio stations and 4 or 5 years on the web. I think all in all they're aiming to hit 400 reviews this year, and from a 4 man team it's a fairly busy schedule.

As for tonight's shows, Janey Godley was excellent. I used to read her blogs a fair bit but this was the first time I've seen her stand-up and she was fab. Her stories were both funny and rather touching. I went up to her afterwards to give her my card and say that the review would be up over the weekend and she was ever so nice.

The Bad Film Club was a bit hmm. The bad film in question was Top Gun and to be honest there's only so many times over 2 hours that you can point out the blatant homoeroticism and Tom Cruise's midgetism before it becomes repetitive and annoyingly smug. And encouraging the audience to shout out whatever they're feeling only encouraged one rather pissed bloke and his annoying bint of a girlfriend to bellow out their 'hilarious' insights. After a while it became a bit like being in the most annoying cinema in the world. With no popcorn.

I'm all for giving Tom Cruise a bit of stick, but in this case isn't his height actually correct for the role?


Now of course that could be nonsense, but it sounds reasonable and I'd wager they didn't do a lick of research in that area.

I wish I'd known that 2 hours ago. It may have alleviated some of the 'oooh he's a midget', 'aint he small' and 'look, look, they've just stood him next to the camera because he's a small, wee midget man'.

And gay apparently. Repeatedly. Eich.

Up at the Stockton Riverside Festival yesterday, I saw "Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf", the one-man show by Toby Hadoke in which he explains growing up without a father and basically how Doctor Who filled his life, and still does.

Strangely lovely and funny at the same time, it's not quite a laugh out loud festival of fun, but it's still well worth going to see. I think he's taking the show up to Edinburgh now so anyone going there should try and go and see him.

Two years in a row? Lazy sod.

He's got posh excema.

It's a diseeeeeeeease.

Off to see Richard Herring tonight. Then off to see Stewart Lee on Wednesday. Unfortunately not seeing them together at any point.

Ooh, I was there too. As was 'young' rebelstar. Again, I wish I had known this afore the show.

I'm planning also to see Tony Haboke since I did miss him last year.

Over the weekend I went to The Late Show and saw Adam Bloom, Reginald D Hunter, Steve Day and Carey Marx, who were all good fun. Although the star of the night for me was Jarred Christmas who was very, very funny indeed as MC for the proceedings. I think he's my new Fringe favourite.

Sunday night I saw some bod called Roland Gent who did a show about bad marketing ideas. At least that was the plan. In reality he fired a load of open questions like 'who's had a shit job?' and 'who likes pies?' at an increasingly weary audience. It was quite uncomfortable as he pretty much died for the whole hour whilst pointing out how badly the whole thing was going and laughing nervously at his own jokes, piling misery onto torture. Poor thing.

heh, whilst there I did wonder whether you would be. I don't know why, it's just what my brain said to me.

He scared with that skateboard, it nearly hit me in the face at the end. I'm so glad he caught it.

No need for the quotes there - I'm younger than Mr. Herring. Just.

Naked Comedy, sounds interesting.