Interviews, reviews and all sorts of news about comedy!
Saturday January 12th 2013
Work in progress stand-up show from critically acclaimed comedian Tom Craine as seen on Live At The Electric and Russell Howard’s Good News.
“Wise, funny, lyrical” - Observer
“Wonderful” - Time Out
“Intelligent and effortlessly funny” – Three Weeks
Tickets: http://www.pleasance.co.uk/islington/events/tom-craine-work-in-progress
An all-new comedy night where comedians finally get to try out all the material that they always thought was too niche, too nerdy, too specialist to ever do in public will take place on Tuesday 30th October 2012 at The Black Heart in Camden.
Thom Tuck, Jessica Fostekew, Nish Kumar, Bec Hill, Jim Campbell, Hatty Ashdown, Matthew Highton, Alex Holland, Andrew O’Neill and Elise Bramich will give the audience the opportunity to hear what they have always wanted to make jokes about and find out what specialist subject the comedians are all obsessed by!
Comperes Marc Burrows, who has just returned from the Edinburgh Fringe after performing a very successful month run of An Indie Boy’s Guide To Sex And Girls and Steve Cross, founder of Bright Club and Science Showoff as well as being named one of the U.K.’s top science comedians by The Independent On Sunday, will introduce an astounding line-up of the U.K.’s top comic talent.
Tickets are £6 and can be bought in advance from WeGotTickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/187540
If you want to hear people being hilarious about wrestling, tube train numbering systems, linguistics, card games, the sixth series of Deadliest Catch and more, then this is the night for you!
“His routine is a tirade of unspeakable depravity” – Chortle
“Dark, Twisted, Tasteless…Jason Rouse is quite simply the most metal comedian on the planet” - Metal Hammer
Oyster Eyes are doing it again and this time they’re really doing it. Breakthrough stars of Where Did all the Dogs Go?, The Chicken Gang and Daddies Chocolates! bring you their really great new show. Hot on their own heels, Oyster Eyes want to show you a medley of cool jokes and nice sketches, all in the world famous ‘Good’ style. Come on down, take off your shoes, wash your hands and enjoy some rice for God’s sake.
‘The show is oversold, the room is crammed full, and we are all in for one of the funniest hours of our lives.’ ★★★★★ The Skinny
Comedy Blogedy: How long have you been gigging in stand-up?
Harry Deansway: I’ve been doing stand up for 7 gigs on the open mic circuit at the time of writing this, but I’ve been doing comedy since the age of ten when I read out a short story I’d written in a school assembly. I’m not going to lie – I stormed it. I’ve been chasing the dragon ever since.
Comedy Blogedy: How would you describe your comedy?
Harry Deansway: Nervous breakdown comedy
Comedy Blogedy: Which comedians influence your comedy?
Harry Deansway: Pretentious answer alert. I don’t think I’ve been consciously influenced by anyone. For me the most important things with my comedy, apart from it being funny, are that it is new, different and feels original. I’d rather do a half funny original joke than a really funny hackneyed joke.
Comedy Blogedy: Did you always want to go into comedy?
Harry Deansway: There was no real choice involved, see picture of me for details
Comedy Blogedy: How do you go about writing your material?
Harry Deansway: I am incredibly blessed to be so talented; I literally sit at a computer and gold flows out of fingertips. At this point in the questionnaire I would like to say it is by choice that I still live at home with my parents. I’ll also add it’s perfectly fine to have an alcoholic drink with breakfast if it is going to help with your writing.
Comedy Blogedy: Do you gig as a stand-up full time or is it more of a part-time hobby? If so, do you find that your main job influences your material?
Harry Deansway: I gig as a stand up full time (unpaid) as I am unemployable (I have a 100% sacking record, every normal job I have had I have been fired from) I do however direct and produce other people’s shows. Recently I directed Rich Fulcher’s and John Kearns’ respective Edinburgh shows. I also have an online comedy channel raybot.tv. I’ve worked in the comedy industry for ten years and am hugely respected but have the income of a homeless man. Actually that’s an exaggeration, there are dead people earning more money than me.
Comedy Blogedy: What do you find the most enjoyable and frustrating parts of the amateur comedy circuit?
Harry Deansway: The most frustrating part is the nights where they say bring a friend, if I had any friends I wouldn’t be doing comedy, I’d have a proper life, a job. A family. The most enjoyable part for me is when someone really awful goes on and completely dies on stage.
Comedy Blogedy: What’s your favourite type of audience to perform to?
Harry Deansway: I hate all audiences, with their not laughing and shouting, “you’re shit” at me.
Comedy Blogedy: Have you been heckled a lot since you’ve started gigging? Do you enjoy being heckled? What’s the best heckle you’ve had?
Harry Deansway: I very much feel I’ve been heckled by life so I’ve had a lot of practice at answering back. Dealing with a heckler is a really good skill to have as it shows that the comedian has natural wit, which is something that cannot be learned, only sharpened. As the ten hours it took me to fill out this questionnaire shows I definitely fall into the natural wit category of comedian.
Comedy Blogedy: What advice would you give to new acts thinking about starting out in comedy?
Harry Deansway: Fuck off, stop cluttering up TV commissioners inboxes and get a proper job. You are not funny.
Comedy Blogedy: How long have you been gigging in stand-up?
Max Fletcher: I’ve been doing comedy for about two years now – I was in the sketch group ‘The Oxford Revue’ – but I only started doing stand up a year ago. I was interested to try it out, why I have no idea; at the time I didn’t even like stand up that much, let alone know anything about it, but somehow buoyed on by mysterious and unknown forces I asked a friend for a five minute spot at a college comedy night. I’d like to say that I enjoyed it, or that I was particularly good. I’d also like to say that I knew why I kept doing it for another year. All I know is that life is full of mysteries: ask no questions and you will hear no lies (which is a strange thing to say in an interview).
Comedy Blogedy: How would you describe your comedy?
Max Fletcher: So when I did that fated college comedy night a year ago, I sort of vaguely assumed that to be good at stand up, all you had to do was be affable and charming, and talk a little bit about yourself. But when it came down to it I realised I could do none of those things. When I got on stage I just sort of clammed up, said a few airy things and drank a lot of water to fill time. After that horrible experience, I decided I would come up with a shtick that could accommodate my nervousness and the fact that I had no idea what to say onstage, with the result that I eventually emerged with this stand-offish stage persona that would archly spout very heavily written bits and one-liners. After a while though it loosened up and became more improvised, and the bits became sort of one man sketches, which is where it is now. It’s sort of a muddle, and its hardly even stand up anymore. Actually, that last sentence will do as the answer to the question.
Comedy Blogedy: Which comedians influence your comedy?
Max Fletcher: Larry David I love because he’s such an idiot. The blurb on the back of the series one to eight boxset of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ describes him as ‘an incomprehensibly successful writer’: he wrote ‘Seinfeld’ using obnoxious and self-centered characters in plot lines with barely any emotional content and Curb fits pretty much the same bill, but with a lot more looseness and fooling around. I love that he’s become wildly successful for following these idiotic premises, I love his willingness in Curb to use unbelievably low production values, and I love that while he was writing Seinfeld he was constantly praying for it to be cancelled before the next series so that he wouldn’t have to do any more work. I love the sheer unprofessionalism of it. Comedy that’s polished, slick and professional I don’t think ever works. Shows like that always have an arrogant, stand-offish and even earnest atmosphere about them that’s not at all funny and even quite alienating and cold. There’s something warm and accommodating about wilful idiocy and plain shitness in comedy.
For this reason I love Doctor Brown, Sheeps, Zach Galifianakis, Tony Law, The Pajama Men as well as some new(ish) American sitcoms like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Parks and Recreation and of course Arrested Development. My all time favourite show is The Simpsons, and my favourite joke in it is Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes in the Cape Feare episode.
Comedy Blogedy: Did you always want to go into comedy?
Max Fletcher: No. I used to want to be a pro-skater, pro-basketball player, pro-American football player, guitar hero, and at one point a high-flying ad-man. I still wouldn’t mind being a pro-basketball player, even though I’m quite shit and literally never play. But I think we’ve already established that that, if anything, stands in my favour (see answer above).
Comedy Blogedy: How do you go about writing your material?
Max Fletcher: I use You Tube and the Internet as sources. Things ripped off from conversation with friends (thanks go to Karl Dando for giving me around 50% of my Edinburgh show). I like writing with other people but since I left the Oxford Revue that’s been less easy to do.
Comedy Blogedy: Do you gig as a stand-up full time or is it more of a part-time hobby? If so, do you find that your main job influences your material?
Max Fletcher: I have never had a proper job, neither do I do comedy full time. So I guess you could say that I fit in comedy as a part time hobby around life in general.
Some day I’d like to be a pro-basketball player (see one answer ago), ideally for the Harlem globetrotters. I’d like to be able to do a stand up set where I weave tame jokes around awesome basketball tricks (for example slam dunking and just generally throwing and catching the ball).
Comedy Blogedy: What do you find the most enjoyable and frustrating parts of the amateur comedy circuit?
Max Fletcher: I wouldn’t really know yet given that I’ve only just started, but I can anticipate the worst part will be waiting for hours in a shit venue a zillion miles from home to do a five minute set in front of people who don’t even care about you, and the best part will either be leaving the amateur circuit to do proper shows, or leaving comedy all together and finally being able to follow my dream of playing for the Harlem Globetrotters.
Comedy Blogedy: What’s your favourite type of audience to perform to?
Max Fletcher: People who’ve paid to come and see me: they’re financially invested in getting the most out of the show, so they’ll probably laugh more, and stick it out to the very end. Hopefully even through the long section where I play my audition tape for the Harlem Globetrotters.
Comedy Blogedy: Have you been heckled a lot since you’ve started gigging? Do you enjoy being heckled? What’s the best heckle you’ve had?
Max Fletcher: I don’t mind heckles at all really. They allow for a good opportunity to give my improv skills an airing (as well as maybe providing an opening for me to whip out some basketball tricks to make myself seem cool in front of the heckler, and anyone scouting for the Harlem Globetrotters).
My technique with hecklers is more or less to agree politely with whatever insult they hurl. I hate seeing comics trying be badass by rebutting insults with witty reversals or sharp repartee. It always comes across as conceited and unnecessarily violent. The performer telling an audience member to shut up in a pretty informal format like stand up comedy tends to make the atmosphere too hostile. If a guy is being a dick, don’t be a dick back to him, it will just make the hostility even harsher. It’s better to soothe the tension that follows a heckle by being super-casual and super-nice. You can always fuck him up outside the venue.
That said I don’t think I’ve ever had a hostile heckle.
Comedy Blogedy: What advice would you give to new acts thinking about starting out in comedy?
Max Fletcher: Don’t worry if you fail: there’s always Basketball.
David Mitchell is back with Series 4 of David Mitchell’s Soapbox, sponsored by Dell! He’s already had a rant about carb-free diets, pointy shoes, wine-tasting and ending phone calls – but he still has many more issues to get off his chest!
To celebrate the success of the latest series, Dell and Channel Flip have teamed up to offer viewers something special: a competition to find the next “David Mitchell” – asking people to ‘get on their soapbox and tell us what annoys them’ about, well, practically anything.
The winner will be given mentoring sessions with David Mitchell, their own Channel Flip YouTube Soapbox Channel AND a £10,000 cash prize!
To enter, all you need to do is simply upload a video with your “rant”, based around the theme of what angers you, onto YouTube for a chance to win! Entries will be posted on YouTube for public viewing and whittled down to ten finalists going head to head in a live final hosted by David Mitchell.
Check out the latest competition listings for the AmusedMoose LaughOff 2012 Competition, supported by leading UK owned DVD company 2entertain.
Details about the semi-finals in London as well as information about the competition in Edinburgh and Ireland.
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