Play Doh Fun Factory

Ahhhh, Monday morning.

I'm sitting in the office at 7.30am, looking out across the lawn. The sun is rising behind St Paul's church and bringing an warming amber glow to a cold morning. A squirrel scurries along the thumb of the five-fingered Ash and a robin is wrestling with a crust on the bird table.

And slap bang in the middle of the garden, a freshly laid dog turd is curling steam into the crisp early air. It seems quite symbolic.

A theme is developing in my life at the moment and that theme is this: poo.

Baby poo to be more specific. It's bloody everywhere.

Poor little Maggie has just started on solids and... I'll spare you the details but last night she did one in the bath. This morning I awoke to find Sarah 'helping' her by rotating her legs while Maggie...

it was like a Play Doh Fun Factory, but without the fun.

Poor thing.

I sat and watched and thought - should I be filming this?

deadlines

Aaargh... how do they do it. How do deadlines manage to creep up like this. They're like buses. There's none for ages and now there's two at once.

Douglas Adams once said - I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

But he was Douglas Adams so he could say that.

I'm just sat here contemplating tidying the office and putting all my DVDs in the order of birth date of the director.

No... must get on. After a quick update...

This weekend I was at Nottingham Jongleurs. Had two gorgeous gigs and on the Friday saw someone wee on a scally. Honestly. Not in the club it was the Waterfront Bar which is close to Jongleurs, you can see it when stood outside having a fag. Anyway there was a private party on the first floor and they have a big balcony when three hoody little muppets walk underneath and someone urinates on them.

Fair enough if you ask me. Off they go and get their mates and a battle ensued - which I missed - in which they took on 30 blokes apparently.

I also met two comics I haven't worked with before - Ian Coppinger, a thoroughly lovely Irishman who stayed and got drunk with me on the Frtiday, and Rob Collins who stayed but doesn't drink. He's a lovely man as well.

On Saturday I went for a Chinese Buffet sat the May Sum just around the corner from the hotel. I had:
1. hot and sour soup
2. 4x pancakes with shredded duck, hoi sin etc
3. 2x Satay skewers and 3x ribs
4. 2x Sui Mai 3x mini spring rolls
5. noodles and a selection of main courses.
and two bottles of sparkling mineral water... all for £9.40. Brilliant.

Rob and Ian went to the more chavvy £5 buffet next door called Big Wok where everyone sang Happy Birthday to a girl whose boyfriend had taken her there for a treat. Bless.

Errrr... that's it.

Filming a small part in Coronation Street on Wednesday -I have four lines - and tomorrow meeting a producer about making a short film.

I really should get on now.

swollen kangaroo

There's a little game I play, every time I find myself in a bad mood. Which is more and more these days. In fact I'm quite astounded at the sort of things which can set me off. I can't park in a supermarket anymore without fuming at the inconsiderate idiots I'm forced to share a car park with, there's very little TV I can watch without feeling I'm being treated like an idiot. Shows which are essentially dull as dishwater - David Dickinson's Real Deal and Jimmy's Farm spring to mind - try to use creative editing to build tension where there really isn't any and never will be.

And the pauses... why has every show on TV started ... using... dramatic................................................................. pauses.

I despise those big drawn out silences usually punctuated by some sort of heart-beat as if a were a life and death decision when all it really is, is usually the announcement of which luckless warbler is going on to annoy us for one less week than the others, or which lucky Johnny has been chosen to prove they're just like you and me by eating swollen kangaroo testicle live on TV.

I might start keeping a log of things which annoy me. It might help me understand it.

Anyway, here's a hint for you if you ever find yourself in a bad mood. What I do, when I'm in a bad mood is I find someone who is in a good mood... and annoy them.

Meh... I knew I wouldn't keep it up. Let's be fair the Xmas gigs were all going pretty well, so it makes dull reading. There was one bad one. Black Friday, the last Friday before xmas. I was at Opus with John Scott, Steve Shanyaski and Steve Harris and the audience were giving us NOTHING.

Not a thing. Not even heckling really. Just sitting there staring and hating us. It's bizarre. I don't understand how a whole room can go like that. Jokes which are normally bankers failed to raise a titter. It felt like they despised us for even trying to make them laugh.

I'm sure Karl Jung would have some stuff to say about it. It's very bizarre though.

Finished my film treatment. Bit nervous about sending it off to the BFC. Got loads to crack on with though, loads of notes on Scallywagga sketches, have to re-write Sunday Lunchers for the Comedy College showcase in April and ... and... not that much to do really.

Oh no, that's it. I'm going to write a five min set for Steve Bishop and try performing him live.

Probably.

Well, this is bound to be the kiss of death, but so far so good with the Chrimbo gigs. I've heard some great stories of spectacular deaths, but so far I've managed to avoid them Not for long I'm sure. I've got The Frog and Bucket this Friday and Saturday. That's always a struggle in December: full of xmas parties who don't want to be there listening to people they don't want to listen to when all they really want to do is get wasted on the bosses money, dance like fools and indulge in sexual malpractice.

I've just finished a first draft of a treatment for a film which I'm going to submit to the BFC in the new year. Apparently they have a giant pot of money to help first time feature film writers, to develop scripts. It's an idea I've had knocking around for a while and I'm in love with it. It's a feelgood british comedy. That's all I'm saying. I hope they like it, a friend of mine took them an idea recently and they've given her £12,000 to write the thing.

You have to pay it back if the movie gets made, but a payout like that would certainly make it a lot easier to take a few months out to write the thing.

I've never really written a treatment before. Not a proper one outlining all the beats of the story. I found a few examples here
Some are helpful, some are awful. I found it a weird process and my first draft is actually my third draft. The real first draft was just the story, the second draft was the story with all the problems ironed out and the third draft - which is where it came alive - was where all the emotion and character went in.
That's what I've got at the moment, I'm going to put it away for a week and then do another rewrite of it before sending it off.

Good news this week: I've got some characters in the next series of Scallywagga on BBC3. The doctor says the little bump behind my ear isn't going to kill me and I made the world's tastiest ever roasted red pepper soup.

Bad news this week: lost two TV warm-up gigs because of a change in scheduling which is a real ballache.

one good

See, I told you I'd update it and I'm updating it...

Last night, same venue but different line-up apart from me. That means four comics including compere. All good acts who play top flight circuit clubs.

We had:
One proper death.
One near miss/recovery
One good
One alright.

The crowd were about 90% women. Mainly nurses. I left straight after the show. I imagine some poor men were ripped to shreds in the Printworks last night.

I think tonight is when it starts to get really tough. I'm going on with Fairytale of New York loaded on the CD player so if the shit hits the fan we can have a singsong. that usually keeps the baying mobs happy.

Happy christmas

bunny

It's Christmas time and that means a stand-up comedians worst nightmare. Playing to drunken works chrimbo parties. It's a weird dynamic because hardly any of them want to see a show so what you get is 60% who just want to spend the bosses money on booze, 10% are the office clown and want the night to be about them, 20% are probably conducting an affair and the remaining 10% are either:

a) Trying to get Tracy from admin pissed in the hope of a snog or...
b) Are Tracy from admin.

Either way none of them want to listen to what you've got to say. Which is horrible, but also good because they pay through the nose and you double your wages. I have to focus on the money because in December I leave each gig feeling like a little bit of my soul has just died.

The story so far - I'm going to update this. No I really am. Not like the Sunday Sport list I was going to post every week, but never got round to - this is going to be a catalogue of Christmas gigs. The good the bad and the ugly.

It started for real last night. Opus, Manchester Printworks. Two large parties in: nurses from a burns unit - comedy gold - a large table of solicitors and some French people. I dunno why either.

It was alright. I got laughs. They were looking the right way and they paid attention. That's it really, nothing more to report. If they're all like that I'll be a happy bunny. I'm back there tonight and through to Saturday. The fun is about to start... I can feel it.