The Show Time Series with Jonny Pelham
CB: What is your show about?
GM: The show is about incorrectly believing an upbringing in a small village would adequately prepare me for the outside world. Alongside that, it’s about perception, memory, conformity, other key buzzwords, and playing the recorder.
CB: Why did you want to write this show?
GM: I’ve been going up to the Fringe for the past three years as part of my sketch double-act Thunderbards, and as I do stand-up outside of that, I wanted to be an attention-hogging bastard and do a show on my own, without some bloody freeloader sharing the jokes. This year, we’re not going up as a duo because we’re writing a kids TV sketch comedy show, so I figured it would be the best time to go up and do it.
CB: What comedians and comedy writers have impacted the way you develop your show structures and material?
GM: The comedy writers of TV shows like 30 Rock and Childrens Hospital have had the biggest impact on how I try to write, just because I’m constantly so taken aback with how many jokes they can pack into a script. Often the offbeat jokes will have nothing to do with the scene in hand, but crucially, those lines aren’t dwelt upon for any extended amount of time, so they don’t act as a distraction from the plot.
CB: What is your advice for new comedians and writers who want to write their first show?
GM: Don’t judge your material based on one performance. Try stuff out multiple times, and if you do a bit for the first time and it’s a disaster, go to another new material night and try it again (unless the routine is truly, very horrible and it’s astonishingly apparent that it got spurned by an audience for good reason). Possibly more importantly, if it storms it the first time you try it, then dies the next 10 times, that first time may have been a fluke. I have foolishly held onto dreadful bits of material before for months, watching it die night after night but thinking “Well the audiences must be wrong, because it went down really well that one time at The Chuckle Bunker in Lockslead-Upon-Shit.”
Glenn Moore will perform his new show Glengarry Glen Glenn at the Edinburgh Festival. Tickets
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