Admin Not Admax

SOMETHING ELSE PLAY DAY

Today’s blog starts with some admin. Yep tha’s right peeps. Admin. Its better than admax which is too much boring PR, and it will only be a little bit. There will be more later, but between that there will be some other words. See it as a working day blog with a nice wordy lunchbreak in the middle. Its not a great lunch but better than going to McDonalds. Probably.

So here’s admin bit number one as I’ve been in a meeting about this this morning and it looks like its going to be a lot of fun. On Wednesday the production company Somethin’ Else are experimenting with some live radio and one of the experiments is an improvised play in 3 acts. Myself, Brendan Dempsey, and John Voce from the London Comedy Improv are all taking part and so is the excellent Nadia Kamil. Essentially it could all go horribly wrong live on air, which is surely reason enough to listen? And if it doesn’t go wrong, you can make suggestions and send them in to make things go wrong and my life slightly harder. Or you can just enjoy it for 15 mins on Wednesday. Either way it sounds like it’ll be a lot of fun.

So check out the website at: http://playradio.somethinelse.com/

And if you’re on Twitter then follow them at @seplayday

TIGER BEERS

When I used to work in a restaurant in Canterbury while I was a student, I’d often serve the customers Tiger Beer. They had asked for it, I wouldn’t just hand it out willy nilly. That would make me the best waiter in the world according to the customers and the worst ever according to the managers. So when people ordered they would always say ‘two tigers please’. Well not always. Sometimes they would order just one or more, so excluding the number bit, they would always say that phrase. At the time I vowed that one day I would buy two tiny tigers, plastic ones or otherwise and when people next asked I would just give them those and walk away. I never did this and so today – for no real reason other than boredom – I have decided that when I next go into a pub and they serve Tiger Beer, I will ask for ‘a tiger’ and then be hugely disappointed when I only get a drink. I will also do this with Star, Spitfire and any others that fit, for those confused right now, that’s okay, these are things you learn from the Food trends in Gothenburg and other such places. Kronenbourg could mean I expect one of David’s harrowing films. Only problem maybe when ordering cocktails. I don’t drink ‘Sex On The Beach’ which is good as I may get charged with harassment when I demand the bar staff deliver on their promise.

PREVIEW NUMBER 9

Last night I had preview number 9 and apart from my very first preview back in February, it was the worst one yet. There’s nothing like a group of staring dissatisfied people and four different people leaving during the course of your show, to make you wonder if you haven’t just committed yourself to a month of peddling out something that’s really not very good. There are bits of this show I know work, and have worked several times, but yesterday they didn’t. Its one of those moments where I could easily blame the audience, but at the same time, it was an hour of me that caused that reaction so my head is back to the grindstone today where I will pummel it until it looks like a nice shiny pebble. I won’t have an Edinburgh show but everyone will be so impressed with my smooth head it won’t matter. Yes, that is the way forward.

I’m not too disheartened, and its actually probably what I needed to make me panic and work on it. Its a funny thing but often until something goes wrong, lazy evil Tiernan assumes he can just ride with what he’s got. Then when it all fails you realise all you have is a slightly lame donkey and you’d prefer something a tad better. Like a donkey with working legs. I’m not unrealistic. Next preview is Thursday at the excellent East Meets Jest in Clapham, then Saturday at the Cambridge Comedy Festival. If you live near either of those two or fancy a trip along please come along and not stare. Ta.

East Meets Jest website: http://www.eastmeetsjest-comedy.co.uk/therailway.php

Cambridge Comedy Festival: http://www.cambridgecomedyfestival.com/

JOKES NEWINGTON

Aside from my show, the rest of Jokes Newington, a mini comedy festival in Stoke Newington, was brilliant. I only got to catch some of Tom Craine’s show which is getting better and better all the time and Nat Luurtsema’s show which was also excellent. But I did get to witness lots of very happy punters racing from venue to venue in the lovely sun to watch lots of awesome shows. Its a top event and hopefully it’ll happen again next year.

MYSTRO VID

You should watch this. Its awesome:

MYSTRO – AROUND MY WAY

Right that’s it for today. I’m sure there was much more to discuss with ya’ll but I’ve had three coffees today and its a downward caffeinated spiral from there. I’m going to run round the garden now till it all burns off and then lie down.