Wedding gigs, new material...

I've not had a day off for a long time. August, in fact, but I've got one this Sunday. My priority for that day is simple: get a haircut, because I'm looking like a skanky mess. When I said in the last post that I was going to say 'yes' to everything work-wise, I certainly did...and as a result I'm now knackered!

It's all good, though, the lessons have been ticking over with a nice balance of limb independence challenges and (early I know) Christmas songs. Long hours, but everyone seems happy. Apart from my car, but you've heard enough about those issues already. 

But talking of which...the Many Cars show opened on Thursday, my 'house show' exclusive show. It's the fifth new show I've written this year, and the nearest to stand-up I've done in a while. The joy of it being in a non-conventional venue is that I don't have to keep it to an hour, so I did nearly an hour and a half for the first one around Nicole's flat. It was lovely...sprawling, conversational, but still pacy. I like it a lot. I want to do this one a hundred times. 

Also, it was a nice excuse to catch up with Alex and make plans for next year's show, which will be a proper theatre play. 

A few gigs last week, too, a wedding gig where they booked the blues band and then heckled a lot because we weren't lively enough, and then a lovely Wednesday evening gig with Vicky H and session musicians that was buzzing with energy. 

Filming next week, on location for a few days, which inevitably has led to a lot of schedule clashes I haven't fixed yet...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dinner parties, movie readings and the good folk of Ely

Being self-employed is a tricky one, isn't it? I go from "help, I don't have enough work!" (because in one of my schools, 12 out of the 17 students are in year 6 so they're about to leave) to suddenly "help, I've got so much work coming in I can't breathe" which is where I am right now. Which is probably a good thing, apart from the lack of breathing, obviously, because fringe accommodation costs waaaayyy too much but I have no choice but to pay it and my car is making so many rattling scraping sounds people are actually looking out of their windows at me.  But it also means I'm massively late in updating this, and I have some good times to write about - mostly about last weekend. This all came after a fun script reading of my very new show with Izzy and Alan, and a much needed catch-up with Esther, the first time we've seen each other since the fun/many arguments of the Brighton Fringe; no arguments this time, just two excited people wit...
Read more

Double gig Saturdays

I've missed doing this. I've missed doing this with this band. A two gig Saturday with my Fred's House chums, two festivals. We used to do this stuff all the time, but we're all so busy with other things these days. When we do get together it's a bit of a treat, though and that was the case at the weekend. Two festivals; the first one a REALLY packed sold-out show in the afternoon. Whilst the rest of the line-up, particularly ours on the main stage, seemed to be on the heavier side of things, I like the fact that we never compromise - we play our nice, happy, summery, original tunes.  We then headed over to Bedford to headline a festival there, which was a little smaller but really lovely.  The gigs were fine; we were tight, we should be after all these years, and we're clearly still into it despite barely gigging. But it's not just about the gigs, is it? It's about the backstage chat, the catching up over grub, the long car chats. Lovely stuff.
Read more

Odd gigs, cracking review

Schools out! Although I seem to be teaching more than ever...lots of drum courses, in some cases for the really young kids it's bordering on babysitting. I already have a business called, 'Team Building with Drums', maybe next it should be 'Babysitting with Drums'...I'm a VERY expensive, noisy babysitter, though... Alongside the courses, I've been writing, lots, as always. Edinburgh is creeping up, I like what I'm doing with those (despite a bit of a panic earlier about the 'Band Playing...' show although it's pretty much worked wherever I've done it apart from the first day in Brighton), but also launching two new shows in October. I like being a one-man theatre company. I also like working with actors, but I don't like the constant Doodle Polls for availability.  Played an odd gig on Saturday with a makeshift blues band, a 70th birthday party in the rain, but it still worked. Although massively under-rehearsed, stick good musicians ...
Read more