Upcoming Gigs

No upcoming gigs at the moment! Sorry. Giving stand-up a little rest for a while…

Previous Gigs

As much for my benefit as for anyone else’s, here’s a list of all the gigs I’ve done so far, in reverse chronological order. 

2008

1. Wednesday 10th December: Get Happy, Goodge Street
2. Monday 8th December: Electric Mouse Big Ben, Westminster
3. Wednesday 22nd October: Knock2New, Shepherds Bush 18, 26. Saturday 9th and Saturday 16th August: Journey Central @ The Meridian, Edinburgh 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Daily, Saturday 9th to Saturday 16th August: “Of Mics and Men” at the Voodoo Bar, Edinburgh
4. Wednesday 23rd July: The Roebuck, Hampstead
5. Thursday 19th June: Kings Head, Crouch End
6. Friday 23rd May: The Ship, Borough
7. Monday 19th May: Electric Mouse Big Ben, Westminster
8. Sunday 20th April: Milan Bar, Croydon
9. Thursday 17th April: 142 Lounge Bar, Ealing
10. Monday 14th April: Bedlam @ The Blue Posts, Piccadilly
11. Thursday 3rd April: Knock2New, Shepherds Bush
12. Wednesday 2nd April: Laughing Horse, Camden
13. Friday 14th March: The Adelaide Pub, Teddington
14. Monday 11th February: Electric Mouse Big Ben, Westminster
15. Sunday 27th January: Laughing Horse, Richmond
16. Thursday 24th January: The Whoopie Cushion, Camden

2007

1. Thursday 13th December: Monkey Business, Kentish Town
2. Wednesday 5th December: The Washington, Chalk Farm
3. Thursday 29th November: Monkey Business, Kentish Town

Quest 4.04 is now available.

If you’re a Quest Pro user, you can download your update from the new “My Downloads” area at http://www.axeuk.com/mydownloads

Otherwise you can download Quest 4.04 from http://www.axeuk.com/quest/download.htm

This is a bug-fix release, which addresses the following:

Quest

• fixed run-time error displaying collectables in Quest 2.x games.
• a run-time error occurred if a game’s default font name was invalid.
• a run-time error could occur if variables were accessed using different cases.
• CAS files with resources which used “define menu” blocks wouldn’t load correctly.
• verbs defined with capital letters wouldn’t work correctly.
• an object inside a container which was itself inside a closed container could still be taken. The container logic has been improved to recurse properly through the parent containers of an object before allowing it to be taken, opened, closed, added or removed.

QDK

• fixed various crashes when running using JAWS.
• fixed bug with “else” script being corrupted when nested “if” statements were used which only contained one-line “then” and “else” statements.

I have two gigs coming up and I’m planning to do a brand new Christmas-themed set. So I’d better bloody well get on and write it.

Monday 8th December - Electric Mouse Big Ben, Westminster Red Lion Pub, 48 Parliament Street, SW1A 2NH. 7.30pm. £1/£2. Map

Wednesday 10th December - Get Happy, Goodge St/Oxford Circus Green Man, 36 Riding House Street, W1W 7ES. 8pm. £5. Map

Bleugh. I seem to have caught whatever bug has been going round the office, so I’ve spent the last couple of days on the sofa napping, watching terrible television and making wimpy wailing noises even though there’s nobody around to listen.

I’m sure being ill used to be more fun, but in recent years they’ve completely ruined daytime television. This morning BBC1 had “Homes Under the Hammer”, then “Buy It, Sell It, Bank It?”, then “Bargain Hunt”, and finally “Cash in the Attic”. Four titles lasting three hours, but essentially all the same programme. I’m not saying Kilroy and Wipeout were pinnacles of broadcasting achievement but compared to what passes for daytime TV now they deserve Oscars.

Even Working Lunch, which used to be the highlight of a day off for me, has been ruined by the recent changes they’ve made to the format, the studio and the presenters. I used to quite enjoy the amiable amateurishness of it all, but now they’ve basically turned it into the One Show. Even worse they’ve got rid of the fish-themed set and title sequence. Now admittedly that never seemed to make a whole lot of sense for a business news programme, but at least it had character - something that seems to have gone out the window in the latest revamp.

A door to door seller/scammer knocked earlier. He was dressed in a white boiler suit for some reason, and instead of launching into a sales pitch, he asked me if my parents were in. No, you did read that correctly. He asked me if my fucking parents were in! I’m not sure when the last time that happened was but it was probably some time in the early 1990’s. I’m clearly so ill I’ve now taken on the appearance of a 12 year old. I closed the door in his face and he then started shouting something before moving on to harrass my neighbours instead.

That was the most interesting thing to happen today. I think I would have preferred going to work.

And so at last, after some delay, we arrive at the fifth and final part of my reviews of the shows I saw at Edinburgh. It’s been quite a long and drawn-out process. I hoped I might finish these reviews sooner to be honest. But never mind, we’re finally here, and there are only three shows left to talk about. Here are links to part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

Adams & Rea at Pleasance Courtyard. Adams & Rea.

We did an “Of Mics And Men” “preview” “show” with Adams & Rea, so once again I’ll excuse myself the embarrassment of a full review, but if you like silly musical comedy about corner shops, picking up litter, and the BBC’s “Test The Nation”, this is for you, so check out their website for dates of upcoming gigs.

Chortle give them a 3 star review.

Alex Horne: Wordwatching at Pleasance Courtyard

I’d never heard of Alex Horne until I saw him in the pretty shitty “We Need Answers”, which I reviewed in part 2. Although much of that show was sub-par, I did enjoy Horne’s geeky PowerPoint animations which he’d clearly spent far more time working on than was strictly necessary. So we decided to check out his full show, “Wordwatching”. This was all about his mission to introduce new words, and new meanings for existing words, into the English language. There are various reviews of the show on the man’s own website, so it seems pointless to repeat their various points here.

His attempt to have three Alex Hornes conversing with each other - one on a big screen, one on a small television and one real Alex Horne - was a jolly good attempt, even if his laptop crash ultimately turned it into more of an endearing failure. Jolly entertaining stuff though.

Rating: 7/10

Knock2Bag (Free) at The Jekyll & Hyde.

Mark Restuccia was MC for this, our final free show before getting the train back to London. Also present were Albion Gray, Rupert Majendie and Mark Dandy. I won’t do a full review as I know Mark from my stand-up course, and the others vicariously from various open mic nights - but I will say I was impressed with the quality of the filmed sketches used as inserts between the comedians. Nice work!

And so, at last, that’s all 20 of the shows I saw at Edinburgh, reviewed or at least pseudo-reviewed, or, at the very least, listed. I think the only thing I can conclude is that reviewing is a waste of time. Especially since Edinburgh is now over, and so, except for the few which are currently touring, you can’t even go to see most of the shows any more. Which must make you wonder why I bothered writing all of these reviews in the first place - and why you bothered reading them, since most people I know probably will have given up reading these pointless reviews long ago.