February 27, 2007
LIVE AND TV NEWS!
GOOD GIG, SHIT GIG, & RUSH HOUR
Last Friday’s Out Of Focus Group at the Zetter Hotel was a peach if I say so myself. Martin White was great and Jo Neary was hilarious as usual. Sooner or later she’s going to be a big star I reckon. Have I said that already on here? Well, it bears saying again. Julian Barratt was in the audience and got up to sing a version of Port Of Amsterdam with Travis bassist Dougie Payne, which was amazing. Julian can really sing! The evening was rounded off with more music from Mara Carlyle and Robyn Hitchcock who were both on top form. Jimmy Bignutz has uploaded one of Robyn’s songs from the evening for you below.
I also did a couple of character bits that night. One was a new thing using a voice I do in Rush Hour for a character called Jolyon (a posh Marilyn Manson wannabe schoolboy), but applied to a character who could have been Jolyon’s Dad and the other was my Famous Guy character, which was on Comedy Shuffle last week. They both went down well I think and Famous Guy especially felt good and funny. Because of that I was feeling excited about playing the highly regarded Sunday Special at Up The Creek, a legendary comedy club in Greenwich on Sunday night. I was asked to do the gig a while ago and said yes not really thinking about what I’d do. I only really realised that I was technically headlining the night about a week ago and started to get a little worried because I knew I didn’t have a good half an hour of any one thing. The extremely genial organisers said that it wouldn’t be a problem so buoyed by Friday’s success I thought ‘OK, Famous Guy is in good shape! I’ll do that!’
I spent Sunday trying to write some extra stuff to get the act to run at more of a headline length but I made the mistake of checking out some of the videos of previous acts from the Sunday Special on line. I started to get a vague feeling of anxiety about doing a character bit in what seemed from the clips quite a traditional stand-up night with a large vocal crowd watching. Turns out I was right to be anxious and after a fairly over the top introduction from the reliably clever and funny Mark Watson (who was MC-ing with Welsh accent), I hit the stage and quickly realised I was in trouble. Not massive trouble mind you, because a good few people were laughing, but I was by no means thrilling a capacity crowd who seemed very happy before I arrived. It’s such a frustrating feeling to feel a night slip from your grasp like this and to watch a room full of potential fans become gradually disappointed. Maybe it wasn’t that bad but that’s how it feels when you’re not on top of it. Of course the moment you admit that to yourself on stage, you’re fucked. My confidence leaked out of me like air from a bad balloon and I felt the audience could see it. Gutlessly, I ditched the extra stuff I’d written and pegged it.
As I was unchaining my bike outside the venue afterwards a girl came up to me and enthused sweetly about having loved The Adam & Joe Show. “Sorry about tonight then,†I offered. “Yeah, your humour really misunderstood me tonight for some reason†she replied. I thought that was a good, if oddly worded diagnosis. Oh well, it paid for a couple of days of childcare, enabling me to spend my days thinking up more lame crap that’ll mystify people in comedy clubs.
Speaking of disappointing people, I was filming a promo for Rush Hour last week, and the very nice make up lady said she’d seen one of the shows in order to match the ‘looks’. She said she thought bits of it were quite funny but didn’t get a lot of it. Everyone knows that’s code for ‘I thought it was shite’ don’t they? My heart sank a little. When I got the job last year I was delighted to have actually just got a job and it was even better that it turned out to be a couple of months of very good fun working with a load of incredibly nice people. Plus it was enjoyable for me because I wasn’t writing it (apart from a couple of sketches) so that pressure of doing the whole shaboobah yourself wasn’t there. But then when the finished product comes out, other people start telling you whether they like it or not and that’s never fun.
I was staggered by how lavish the budget must have been for this promo though. There was a crew of about 50 with a fleet of cars, camera trucks and low-loaders all for this 30 second trail. A whole 30 minute episode from the series probably cost less to produce. This may sound churlish and I’m very impressed that the BBC are getting behind the programme but why not cut a trail from the finished show and put the money into producing a few new and more unusual comedy shows? Still, I’m glad they think Rush Hour is worth it!
Apparently the trail is going to feature characters from the series as if glimpsed from passing cars, all slo-mo and surreal with a kind of ‘ooh this is weird!’ whispery voice over (which I think I may be providing). It’s all being put together not by the team that made the show but by Red Bee (the BBC’s promo department) who usually turn out pretty impressive and effective promotional clips. I guess they’ll start running the trail in a couple of weeks or so.
As far as the finished show goes the only thing I’ve seen is this clip on You Tube. I imagine someone form the production company must have stuck it up there. It’s one of the sketches I wrote featuring a character called Rock Dad who tries to indoctrinate his young son with his musical tastes (although I think the idea for using NWA came from either producer/writer Neil Webster or Charlie Brooker who works out of Zeppotron too) . I think it’s worked out nicely.
Now to dissipate any feelings of unease that today’s rollercoaster of solipsism may have induced, here’s Robyn Hitchcock with a track from his lovely album You & Oblivion. If you’re interested in further investigating his magnificent canon, I’d start with Black Snake Diamond Role then head off to the first Soft Boys album. Then you can go where you like and it’ll always be a happy time. Now I’m off to put the finishing touches on a short video that made my brother laugh and he’s a tough crowd, so I’ll post it later this week for you. Stay tuned!