February 14, 2007
TV & FILM NEWS
RICHARD & JUDY/INSECURITY/HOT FUZZ PREMIERE!
Wow! What an intense 24 hours! Like a demented fast cut, sound FX heavy scene from Hot Fuzz itself! Let me tell you a bit too much about it…
Richard & Judy was great as usual. Everyone very polite and smiley. I was feeling good about being there although I was a tad self conscious have just read a message via my You Tube channel from someone calling themselves something like Donkeybasket or Slut300 or Rayjazz or whatever that said simply ‘Stop ageing! It’s starting to showâ€. Now normally I would of course ignore this kind of thing as it’s never a good idea to be too thin skinned on the scary internet as Rob Buckley will attest (peace Rob!), but this time I let my vanity get the better of me and replied saying ‘if you’ve got a problem with the passage of time, you’re in for a rough ride chief. Plus, it’s rude to tell people they look old, didn’t your parents ever teach you that?’ Yeah, that’ll learn him for calling me old!
A few hours later I was all dressed up in suit and tie, sat on the couch next to Richard & Judy watching some You Tube clips as everyone in the studio hooted with laughter. Quite odd. But fun. Dave Gorman was deeply impressive at being funny and relaxed and the couple who learned the whole Dirty Dancing routine for their wedding video were dead nice too. I had a whole bunch of amusing You Tube insights in my head but as usual when the time came to speak all I could manage was my goofy big-faced grin and some stumbly crap about legal strictures. They showed a bit of my You Say We Pay video though, albeit edited for daytime, but I have to admit it was a very pleasing moment to be watching it sat next to R&J themselves and have the circle of shite completed in such style. Not that Richard & Judy are shite of course, they’re excellent and I unreservedly love them.
From the Richard & Judy studios in Kennington I was driven to Leicester Square for the premiere of Hot Fuzz!
It was raining by then and I was keen to get inside but there were a few people asking me to sign stuff, (some of them even had Adam & Joe DVD’s!) so I wanted to oblige as much as possible. If you were standing there in the rain and I failed to do your bidding I apologise but my wife was feeling like a lemon over by the paparazzi so I had to re-join her.
Once inside I immediately saw about 5 or 6 people I know but hadn’t seen for ages and the anxiety of either forgetting their names or not being able to pull off the non-rude micro catch up chat started to overwhelm me. I imagine everyone feels the same at those things so a handshake or hug and a ‘how you doing!’ is all you can reasonably expect. I should explain at this point that I am in the film in a small but pivotal role, so I knew more people there than I would normally have done at a film premiere! Top name drop moments: hugs with Paddy Considine and Derren Brown, quick nods with Matt Berry, Chris Cunningham and Tim Dalton (though not sure if Dalton remembered me) and I also did a wee next to Harvey Weinstein! Soon the lights were dimmed and the movie was starting!
HOT FUZZ SPOILERS FROM HERE ON IN
I hadn’t seen any of the film before so I was nervous about how it had all turned out. By the time it was over I still couldn’t really tell, it was so overwhelming! The barrage of fast edits, bass heavy sound FX and ultraviolence as well as the multitude of very funny gags, some enjoyably cheesy, some utterly original were just too much for me to take in on first viewing. You’ve got to see it though, it’s quite something. Nick Frost is fucking hilarious and Simon Pegg anchors it all with proper A-list charisma. Edgar Wright is of course a kind of evil genius and if you find me in any way irritating you will, thanks to him, take great pleasure in seeing me die in an extraordinarily satisfying way.
I hadn’t mentioned having done the film before in this blog because I didn’t want to accidentally piss anyone off before it opened, but I hope they won’t mind if I post a few pics from the shoot now.
These are all from the few days I spent on the set last summer. I play the part of Tim Messenger, an annoying local reporter who accidentally unravels the (not desperately hard to unravel) murder mystery at the centre of the film only to get gorily despatched for his trouble. I had an amazing time doing it and got to hang out with people I admire and like enormously for a couple of the happiest weeks ever. I’m pretty happy with my contribution too, although, yes I do look older. But, well I am older.
When I got home after the premiere I had a quick look at my You Tube clips to see if Richard & Judy had had any effect and sure enough, a lot more people had checked them out and even sent me some nice messages. There was however also a response from the guy I had replied to earlier in the day. He was less happy with me:
Message header: lol omg lolzer wtf?!!!11111eleventyone
Message:
Whoa! Where did all that crap come from punk?
Sheesh!
Is that your default attitude to me & the other 7 people who enjoyed the shows you appeared in in the past?
You should have a tiny bit of gratitude here Adam. I am actually ‘talking to you’ buddy..so please don’t go down that road.
Clearly my jests seem to be a deep seated issue in you then Adam? – How boring.
I was indeed joking on your hangups which are VERY transparent in your hum-drum posts on (your?) website that noone visits.
Don’t message me again you pathetic failure.
Now, wrinkled Chinese-Anglo dwarf LOSER – be gone please!
The guy’s clearly disgruntled in all kinds of special ways but it’s always a drag when anyone gets pissed off like this and never an enjoyable experience to read, made worse by the creepy one way anonymity of this kind of on line correspondence. Sometimes I read comments and criticisms of other people’s stuff on line that conjure an image of the authors creeping round the web Gollum like, being driven mad by the power of their invisibility, flying into a rage when they see or hear something that doesn’t sit well with them and committing it to type before they’ve had a chance to take a second look. I’ve done it myself of course and I regret that I encouraged this bloke to get all bent by responding to his innocuous tease in the first place. Can’t we all just get along? I tried to send him one more message, saying sorry if I’d rubbed him up the wrong way, but he’d blocked me. Oh well. I’m pretty sure calling me a “wrinkled Chinese-Anglo dwarf LOSER†is some form of racist bullying though. Can’t the cops look into that when they get finished with Danielle Lloyd? Where are Pegg and Frost when you need them?!
February 13, 2007
YOU SAY WE PAY NEWS!
STOP PRESS! I’M ON RICHARD & JUDY TODAY!
R&J saw my You Say We Pay clip on You Tube and asked me on the show today at 5pm on Channel 4 to talk about the whole You Tube thing alongside the brilliant Dave Gorman and the couple that did a video of themselves doing a Dirty Dancing routine (haven’t seen that one yet). I think they’re planning on showing a bit of my You Say We Pay thing so I did them a clean version but ow much do you want to bet they run out of time and don’t show it at all. I don’t care though. As you’ll now from my previous Richard & Judy post, any excuse to hang out with R&J is good for me. I’m going straight from them to the Hot Fuzz premiere so expect pics and hot showbiz gossop in the next few days! Oh the glamour!!!
January 27, 2007
TV NEWS
NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS, COMEDY SHUFFLE & NO NEWS
Last Wednesday night I went along to BBC TV Centre and recorded my appearance on the current series of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. I wrote in a previous post about my unhappy experience of doing this show once before and I was feeling a bit daft about having agreed to appear again but this time it couldn’t have been more different. Apart from the fact that I’m a few years older and not so anxious about how I handle my ‘TV career’ or lack of it these days, the fact that Simon Amstell is now hosting made all the difference. From a guests point of view he’s kind of the opposite of Mark Lamarr in that he immediately gives you the impression that he’s pleased to see you and makes every effort to put you at ease and include you in the show. I personally find his shtick a lot fresher and funnier too.
Once again I was on Phil Jupitus’s team and as usual Phil was friendly as can be. Our other team-mate was Mel C of Spice Girl fame. I’d met her once before at Matt Lucas’s birthday party years ago when she’d introduced herself and said The Spice Girls used to watch The Adam & Joe Show. She said she liked BaaadDad’s review of Wannabe (“this song seems to me a very good reflection of the group: slim, fun and rather sillyâ€). She’s my favourite Spice Girl! On Bill Bailey’s team were Bonnie Tyler who was sort of sweetly addled and funny and Channel 4 news guy Krishnan Guru-Murphy who was straightforwardly nice and friendly too!
It turned out that Simon had actually read my previous blog entry quoted some of it back to me during the taping. I don’t know if they’ll use it but I ended up re-telling my Buzzcocks Nightmare story, as well as rambling on about one time when I took too many mushrooms at college and the alarming shrinking effect it had on my nutties. Apart from that I didn’t say that much and managed to get every single question wrong, apart from the line-up round in which I helped to correctly identify the guitarist from Terrorvision. Mainly I just laughed at Bill Bailey who continued to be highly amusing whether the cameras were rolling or not. If you’ve never seen him live, you should make the effort, he’s very good. Here’s a couple of pics of me grinning my stupid big faced grin with my showbiz chums!
Even the two hours spent with the writers trying to come up with jokes about a Babyshambles video was kind of fun. I still found it hard to contribute, mainly because my brain always shuts down in the presence of people who are able to conjure actual proper jokes at the drop of a hat, but partly because I actually like Pete Docherty. I was quite shocked by the level of antipathy toward him in the room, albeit comedic vitriol. Mel C even made a comment on the show about wishing he’d blow his brains out! A bit much from Sporty I think, but an indication of how much Potty Pete can wind people up. I mean clearly he’s a ridiculous drug ravaged ponce who may not be quite as good as his notoriety might suggest, but Jesus, he’s hardly Jade Goody. Neither is Jade Goody though come to think of it. I thought the interview Docherty did with Kirsty Wark on BBC4 a while back was occasionally charming and his rendition of Music When The Lights Go Out was a peach. In fact Jimmy Bignutz has uploaded it for you to check out here! Clock those dirty fingernails! Ooh! Stinky Pete!
Speaking of that Kirsty Wark interview, I used a chunk of it for one of six pieces I contributed to BBC3’s Comedy Shuffle, a new show hosted by Rob Rouse that features sketches and studio guests (of which I am one in show 4). The first episode aired last week and I didn’t catch it but as far as I know they’re using at least 5 of the video bits I did for them, which are more of the kind of things I did for the CADs pop video awards last year. I did a Pete Docherty bit, three Michael Moore bits and a couple of Madonna things. When I was on the show they played in one of the Madonna pieces and it was a laugh free zone. Oh well. The Pete Docherty one is funny though I think. I’ll post all of them (including a Michael Moore one that they weren’t able to use) in a while. There’s a similar show on ITV2 called Comedy Cuts, which I saw last week and it had a lot of good stuff on it. Great people like Dan Antopolski, Jo Neary, Rob Deering, Katy Brand and Jim Jeffries to name but a few. Check it out.
For the time being here’s a compilation of a few bits along the theme of ‘No News’ that I did for Time Trumpet last year. People tend to think that it’s all footage I’ve got from the BBC of newsreaders before they go on air (which I did have access to), but I made these from transmitted footage, which I tinkered with to make it look as if they weren’t saying anything. It’s not funny as such but it’s pleasingly odd I think. Enjoy! And by the way, should you be interested, my episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks airs on Wednesday 7th March at 10pm. I wrote it all out there as if someone might want to pop it in the diary. Can you imagine how much someone would have to love me for them to do that? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
December 12, 2006
HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU NEWS
I’M A TWAT AND I GOT BUMPED
So in my previous post I was joking about someone from Never Mind The Buzzcocks reading my blog and getting someone else to do the show instead of me. Well it looks as if someone from Have I Got News For You read it too and decided to take me up on the whole getting rid of me idea. I’ve been ‘bumped’ from this week’s show! That’s right, I will no longer be appearing on the legendary topical gameshow due to the fact that they’ve ‘had to bump the whole schedule around’ before Christmas apparently. They’ve said they want me back in the new year but I won’t hold my breath. Now I’m going to have to watch the show and see who they’ve got instead, then think ‘I am less entertaining than him/her’. Man, it better someone amazing or I’ll be even more depressed.
What a shitty few days it’s been! Cycling home tonight after recording our latest Adam & Joe Coke podcast (should be quite a good one, so for goodness sake download it you disloyal bastards!) I got in a barney with a man on a moped. I ran a red light at the big roundabout on the south side of Westminster Bridge Road and as he was passing me he shouted ‘the light was red! You’re supposed to stop!’ It instantly put me in a rage because I think I’m quite a responsible cyclist and though I do shoot the occasional red light, I only do it if I think it’s safe. Of course, that doesn’t make it legitimate and I guess deep down (well, not that deep) I knew he was right but it made me furious that moped man had busted me, Jimmy Responsible when I bet he would never go yelling at one of those fearsome youths that weave in and out of traffic with horrific disregard for safety! I don’t know, maybe he would.
Anyway, I yelled at him to pull over and asked him what his problem was. He said he was a cyclist too and people like me were giving cyclists a bad name. That made me even angrier because that’s exactly what I think when I see some cycle git lurching across heavy traffic against a red light, but that’s not something I would ever do! I consider my red light shooting an occasional reward, taken only when safe, for choosing an environmentally friendly mode of transport with few other obvious perks. I know in writing that looks like utter hypocritical ball crap and exactly the kind of shite you would imagine a twatty cyclist to come out with but, er, it’s not! I tried my best to put that brilliant point of view across to the moped man but instead got angry and defensive and said that I was not the one giving cyclists a bad name, HE WAS! BECAUSE HE WAS A SANCTIMONIOUS TWAT! He then pointed at the nearby red light and said “There’s a red light, why don’t you run that one too?!” So I came back with: “Yeah, thanks, I will!” So you can see it was a pretty productive summit.
I cycled the rest of the way feeling half furious and half very ashamed. Why can’t I hold my hands up when I’m legitimately busted for anti social conduct and learn my lesson with good grace? Well, it’s because I don’t like being told, that’s why. I’m trying to fix the problem, but I’m afraid nothing I do is going to get me back on HIGNFY. Fuck, I hate being humbled.
December 7, 2006
HUMILIATING TV APPEARANCE NEWS
‘HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU’ FRIDAY 15th DECEMBER 2006, MY BUZZCOCKS HELL & RICHARD & JUDY.
That’s correct, next Friday night I’ll be appearing on the legendary topical gameshow for the first time and it’s safe to say I’m slightly crapping my pants. The last show of this kind I went on was Never Mind The Buzzcocks about 3 years ago and that was no fun at all.
On that occasion I turned up to BBC TV centre around 2pm and was shown to my dressing room, which was pretty nice. It had a bowl of fruit anyway. As soon as I had hung up my ’show shirt’ (a comfy black number that I had come to rely on to disguise my sweaty armpits for TV appearances) there was a knock on the door. It was an assistant producer (or AP!) to take to me to meet my team-mates and the writers who would supply us with jokes for the show. “Put it this way†said the AP, “If I was going on a hot date, these are the guys I’d want feeding me lines. They’re two of the funniest men in Britain so if I were you I’d write down everything they say and you shouldn’t go wrong. I’ve seen people come on the show and ignore that advice and they’ve regretted it. Here we are. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Have fun!â€
The AP shoved me into one of the hundreds of airport lounge style rooms that line the basement of TV centre and there I found the two funniest men in Britain slumped on a couch alongside my team captain, the extremely genial Phil Jupitus and Midge Ure of Ultravox and Band Aid fame. Midge Ure had clearly been fed the same hoobah about writing everything down and was already frantically scribbling on a pad as the two funniest men watched the videos we were to comment on that evening and threw out amusing quips thereon. It was like being back at school. Every time we heard a good line Midge and I would start scribbling, eyeing eachother now and then as if to say ‘I’m having that one you fucking bastard!’ After a couple of hours of joyless note taking we were released for refreshments before make-up. I decided it was time to hit the booze and had the first of several bottles of Becks to steady my increasingly jangly nerves. Bad move.
By the time we were lead into the studio to take our seats in front of the audience I was a little tooty and very nervous. Even my show shirt was having trouble concealing the rivers of perspiration winding down my arms. Mark Lamarr, who had barely said hello before we got started was scrupulously charmless from the get go and I began to wish I hadn’t agreed to come on the show. Fairly quickly my face set into a petrified gameshow rictus as the team captains and guests unleashed their semi rehearsed quips between unpleasant and occasionally funny salvos from Lamarr, who clearly regarded me with utter indifference. Once or twice I piped up with a couple of bits from my note pad and sure enough, they went down OK-ish. I tried desperately to think of a couple of my own comments but it never seemed the right moment to take the plunge. Anyway, the spectre of a withering rejoinder from Lamarr was too effective a deterrent. I have seldom felt so lonely. Occasionally I glanced over at Midge Ure. I’m pretty sure he felt the same.
An hour into the taping the four bottles of Becks I had consumed were taking their toll on my tiny bladder and I was desperate to pee. I couldn’t concentrate on what anyone was saying. I was dimly aware of Suzi Quatro, sat beside Sean Hughes, sparring lamely with Mark Lamarr and I took the opportunity of whispering to Phil Jupitus “What’s the deal if you need to pee?” “Well, we’re taping as live†he whispered back, not altogether helpfully. I didn’t know what to do. After a while the pain was becoming so unbearable I just put up my hand, hoping to turn my toilet request into kind of a public school joke, with me as the pupil and Lamarr as the frightening teacher. “Please sir” I said “I need to be excused”. Lamarr fixed me with a death glance and spat “you should have thought of that before we started then shouldn’t you?” then continued with his spiel. After a little while he turned to me and sighed, “alright then, you’d better go, but hurry up”.Everything in the studio stopped as I got up to leave. As I did so I managed to kick over a couple of the empty Becks bottles at my feet, which clattered loudly on the stone floor. The noise echoed round the now silent studio as I skulked past the audience to the exit. Once in the toilet I seriously considered just making a run for it. ‘I will never do this again’ I thought as I zipped up my flies and trudged back in to rejoin the party.
So why am I doing it again and on a show that is highly likely to be considerably more terrifying? Well partly because I’m very grateful to be asked when I haven’t been on TV very much at all in the last few years and partly because I feel as if I might not get so worked up this time, having done a few frightening live gigs in the intervening years and building my confidence in the process. Also you get paid to go on these shows and nowadays every little helps. That said, I watched the Lucy Porter on the show last week and although she was great, I could see her wearing the gameshow rictus once or twice and I got terrified all over again. Christ I’m not making a very good case for myself am I? Here’s the really stupid thing though, I’ve also agreed to go back on Never Mind The Buzzcocks in the new year, albeit at the request of lovely Simon Amstell who is now hosting brilliantly but still. Will I never learn? We’ll see. Maybe someone from the show will read this blog and they’ll replace me with someone less neurotic and more funny. Like a tramp.
The best show you can ever appear on is Richard & Judy. I went on there a couple of times to publicise various bits and pieces and each time I was treated like a genius king! You get a very nice goody bag, everybody who works on that show is 100% polite and professional and R&J themselves are so kind, friendly and straightforward that you very quickly relax and end up not only having a good time but being far more entertaining as a result. Also they lay on a really good little aftershow drinks and canapees thingy at which R&J themselves hang out winningly! That clinches the deal for me I’m afraid. If you ever get the call from Dick & Judy, go my friend, go. Still I couldn’t resist screwing about with a round of You Say We Pay in the style of my Bin Laden Tape clip from a while a go, so enjoy and I’ll get back to you after my Have I Got News For You adventure next week!