February 3, 2006
OUT OF FOCUS GROUP 8
LIVE NEWS
SIT DOWN SUNDAYS, 12th FEBRUARY 2006
@ LANDOR PUB, CLAPHAM NORTH I’ll be doing 10 minutes of something here so come along. The details are in the November 2005 section from the last time I appeared which was highly enjoyable.
OUT OF FOCUS GROUP
My semi regular evening of amusing videos and live performance from myself and other comedy types is starting up again. It’s called Out Of Focus Group. You probably need a while to take in the brilliant hilariousness of that name so I’ll see you in a bit.
OK? Good. The details are on the flyer pictured so book a table and come along as long as you’re not a creep. That isn’t creepsim by the way because I’m fine with creeps. Many of my friends are creeps in fact but the room where we have the ‘Group’ is fitted with creep alarms that go off when creeps start being creepy and it ruins the flow of the performers. No one enjoys having their flow tampered with but for a performer it’s worse than an offensive cartoon of the prophet Mohammed is for a Muslim (this is like a topical news quiz!) so sorry, but none creeps.
OUT OF FOCUS GROUP 8 WEDNESDAY 15th FEBRUARY 2006
Confirmed so far:
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In 2005 she became the 2nd woman ever to win the Perrier Award at The Edinburgh Fringe! (The first was Jenny Eclair).
Here’s what her agent’s website says about her:
A subtle, brilliant writer and extremely versatile actress, Laura is able to turn her hand to a diverse range of hilarious characters and voices. Her comedy is dark and distinctive, crammed with acute observations and killer one-liners. Laura has previously appeared in BBC2’s The Sack Race and has written for several television shows, including the new BBC3 sketch show Man Stroke Woman, produced by Ash Atalla at Talkback.
So there you go. I agree with all of that and I’m very pleased and excited that she’s agreed to come along.
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Dave has performed at the Out Of Focus Group before as his internationally celebrated character Johann Lippowitz, a black clad genius who interprets classic pop songs (Torn, Daniel, Wherever I Lay My Hat, That’s My Home etc.) using his considerable mime skills. You may well have seen him in action on the net, at the Royal Variety Performance or if you’re very, very lucky, at one of Elton John’s parties. Indeed the character is now so well disseminated that Dave is threatening to stop doing him altogether as it’s becoming something of an albatross. When I asked him if he might pull one final Johann out of the mime bag for us he said maybe. Let me tell you, it’s worth seeing. It’s the simplest idea ever, executed very straightforwardly but it’s fucking impossible to resist so I do hope he comes through but it’s a bit like getting Thom Yorke along and asking to do Creep.
None of this should take away from Dave’s many other talents as part of The Hollow Men sketch troupe, a great actor and more recently the co creator of Between The Frames, a show featuring ‘top film critic Graham Poole, who takes a kaleidoscopic and sideways glance at, into and beyond the meaning of cinema’. I’m very grateful to Dave for coming. Of course if he pulls out at the last minute I’ll have something different to say about him.
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Mara is a lovely singer who I met when I hosted Antenna’s roundup of the best pop videos of 2005 last December. I always wanted to have some kind of live music at these things (previously we’ve had Fran Healy from Travis and Robyn Hitchcock from England) so I’m delighted to be welcoming Mara along for a few numbers at the end of the night.
Adam Buxton
Yeah, hi. I’ll be doing a bit of my Edinburgh show ‘I,Pavel’ and I think I’ll be doing my famous American actor character Guy again (more about Guy later. I’ll also be showing some old bits of video and some new bits of video. As far as I know none of my video stuff is floating around the net (apart from Ken’s movie reviews on this site) so this is the only place they can currently be seen!
So stop cooking and get booking! (that tag line may need a little work.)