Oh Cana-DUH!

I had been looking forward to seeing Baconface ever since I heard he was visiting the UK for the first time. Baconface has been performing in Canada for many years, since the early 80s I believe, and credits himself for being one of the greatest innovators in what we now call alternative comedy.

I met Sarah in the Soho Theatre bar and we headed downstairs and got a nice front row seat. Soon Baconface was on stage. He is quite a striking sight, and within the first few minutes one rasher fell to the floor. Not to worry, Baconface had brought a whole pack of spares just in case this situation happened and soon a new piece was applied.

I do wish I was Canadian like Sarah, or the other lady in the front row who understood a lot more of his local references, but I got the basic gist! The other Canadian lady was told off for yawning in his eye line, and the audience who joined in with the traditional response to his catchphrase "It's all bacon - EAT IT!" were chastised for patronising him.

The hour long set that Baconface played was much longer than any North American comedian had performed before, as he reminded us more than once, and it went by all too quickly. He criticised the press adoration of Louis CK, spoke to us about Bigfoot, Neil Young, and his home town of Chilliwack, impressing the Canadian audience members by not changing any of his reference points in the British run of this show. He also attempted to speak about his comedy philosophy at some length too, but we didn't quite find out what it was.

He did speak about what he had found out since he had been in the UK including the love the Scots have for eating haggis, and the love the British have for eating horses, and his attempt at an English accent was hilarious. All American comics think they can do this, and of course, none of them (barring Tony Law) can.

 Tony got a mention in a long story involving bears and bacon and we found out how to release a bear's mouth from your penis if your hands are trapped under the bear's hind legs.

On the way out, we saw a few people coming out of the show including Ed Gamble, Ben Goldacre and Stewart Lee, who we had a brief chat with, and mentioned how much we enjoyed it. He said that he would pass this message on. It seems Baconface is certainly pulling the crowds in as he has caused quite a media stir lately, but I imagine there were a few people in out of sheer curiosity too.

He is taking this show to Edinburgh, so I advise you to book a ticket if you are going, especially when he pointed out that just because we didn't laugh at a joke doesn't mean he is going to drop it from the show.

It's all bacon.
Eat it.

My Penis Is Like A Thermometer

I saw Richard Herring's "Talking Cock" preview for the second time a few days ago round the corner from me in Angel. I'm not going to go into the show here, but may do a write up next week as I'm seeing Rich yet again, along with Catie Wilkins in Camden.

We all received programmes from the first time this show was performed in 2002 which must have been cluttering up his flat for some time, adding tension and peril to the Me1 vs Me2 snooker podcast.

Anyway, I came across this gem of a poem by Stewart Lee, and thought I should share it with you before it gets lost for all time.

(One of the other penis-based poems in the programme is called "Mr Spock" and was written by the actor Kevin Eldon. It simply says:


"Mr Spock
Do you have a cock?"

Stewart Lee - Carpet Remnant World

I wonder if I go to Leicester Square Theatre too much. The manager today queried my choice of seat. "R14? That's not like you". R14 is the seat right at the back of the theatre which no one would generally choose, but as I just needed one ticket decided it would be fine.

Stew hovered at the top of the stairs while his intro music played and strode down the aisle once there was enough dry ice on the stage. He explained near the beginning that he had no real narrative, but he had to choose a title, and that 2 minutes from the end of the show he would mention the title while some sad music played. So it was good to know what to expect.

Stew started with a great opening line asking who remembers where they were during 9/11. You know, the bolting horse? (Spoiler / punchline not included!) He touches on travellers, and has a decent stab at a few Muslim jokes. His usual technique of gesturing at a large swathe of the audience and casting them as the new fans who only know him from his Comedy Vehicle series (who he hates) and the old fans (who again all happen to be sitting in the same general area of the theatre). He reminisces about the jungle canyon rope bridges from the 80s and the fact that they are all broken. This turns into a routine about Thatcher and Scooby Doo, after which Stew reveals that he and Richard Herring wrote a list of 10 topics they would never cover as they were too cliched: 2 of them being Thatcher and Scooby Doo.

Seat R14 was actually awful. If it wasn't the staff wandering around in front of me it was the audience getting up and down to go to the toilet. I moved to prop up the bar for the second half.

In this half he touches again on comedy and that being a dad and also constantly travelling from provincial theatre to provincial theatre means that he hasn't done anything. The modern comedians all go on adventures. Richard Herring even grew a moustache and that was funny. He calls Dave Gorman the Mr Benn of comedy (but as is often the case when talking about his contemporaries, it's just harmless ribbing! The back of the stage are various rolls of carpet remnant of various colours and lengths, which transfer into a gorgeous city skyline at the end of the show.

I quickly spoke to Stew on my way out and told him how much I enjoyed both this show and Bridget Christie's sitcom and scuttled off into the night. From his brief reply it looks like something will happen with it but I don't know whether it's destined for radio or TV. I don't know why but I feel so intimidated interacting with him. Anyway, go and see the show. He's only on here till February!

Stewart Lee tackles social networking

Stewart Lee is not known for his social networking. In fact, he's quite the Luddite. However, here he is discussing web strategies with BBC marketing.

Comedy Vehicle

Most of my "real" friends have never heard of Stewart Lee. Or Comedy Vehicle. But my friends in the comedy scene look upon it with great reverence. And rightly so. When it was announced that the BBC had commissioned a second series, we couldn't contain our excitement. Well, we pretended we could so as not to embarrass ourselves by looking like excited girls in front of all the other "cool" comedy geeks, but we were all really wanted to whoop and dance with glee. And squeal a bit.

If you haven't seen it before, here is a great clip from the first series.

I was at a Soho pub waiting for my (then) iPhone hating friend - (oh it's all changed now since I wore him down and he finally got one. I shall forever cherish one of his texts to me: "I'm sorry I ever doubted you") -  when the news came through on Twitter that tickets were available. I immediately applied which was quite frustrating with a really crappy Internet connection and texted my friend Rob to do the same. A few days later, both of us had 4 tickets.

Tuesday:

So on the Tuesday I had arranged to meet Rob, Richard and Sir Bob at the venue. It's a great little working men's club in Newington Green called The Mildmay Club. (Is that patronising? I think it may be. But it's not meant to be.) We met a good hour before the doors opened and I ended up only 6 from the front. There was a bit of a worry when Rob Sedgebeer explained that SRO Audiences often give out a large amount of priority tickets so I had almost assumed we wouldn't get in and had thought of seeing Mark Steel at the nearby Hen & Chickens.

But the doors opened. We were in. All the people who couldn't be bothered to get to a previous SRO recording on time had their special pink wristbands, but we, the true fans, had the scummy green ones. We were directed by a lovely and incredibly camp man to the bar with a free drink ticket each. Luckily we were so close to the front as the queue for the bar soon became enormous, but I got a bottle of cider and we grabbed a table. There was a TV set up in the bar which was showing a live feed from the main room so I presume that the people who couldn't get in had the option of watching it here.

The barmaid was very efficient at collecting empty bottles. She approached my bottle and I explained there was some in there and went to rescue it. She decided to help out by filling up my glass and pouring the rest of it all over my iPhone. That's a new method of customer service I hadn't seen before. Anyway no damage done, and the priority people were called in. Soon afterwards the green wristband scum people (us) were called in and again, we needn't have worried as 60 of us were allowed in. (We were numbers 7-10)

Well I'm not going to put any spoilers in here, but Stew came straight on to do 2 x hour long sets with a break in between. There was no warm up act which was quite an unusual move for TV comedy, and it did mean that the audience were a little quiet for the first 10 minutes or so. Topics included his grandad's obsession with crisps, commenting at length on Adrian Chiles and Russell Howard's efforts to raise money for charity, moving to the countryside, visible otters (including a 15 minute one way conversation with an estate agent about how the show was going), a rant against emigrants (massive prawns!), and Mock The Week.

Stew, as in the first series, used an off stage cameraman to directly address the TV audience at home, the assumption being that they were hating the show and having to explain any difficult material to them. This worked a treat on the first series and there was a point where the cameraman was shaking with suppressed laughter which has to be a good sign. No warm ups, no retakes, just a great 2 hours of comedy with none of the usual faffing that is often the case with TV recordings.

We went to a pub the other side of Newington Green afterwards to wind down and headed off home. Now Rob had never seen Stewart Lee before and is coming again tomorrow. I'm going to tweet that I have spare tickets and if you are free and have any sense you will come along too.

Wednesday:

Bob and Richard couldn't make the Wednesday show, so I had two tickets to get rid of. I never thought it would be so hard to offer people free tickets to see Stew, but it was a bit of a trial. My brother was going to come but since his mobile phone stopped working it's been difficult to get hold of him, so eventually I managed to give my spare ticket to my friend Marco. he did tell me that he didn't "get" a lot of comedy so I was slightly worried as Stew isn't really an "entry level" comedian. I needn't have worried though because within 10 minutes of the show I was worried that at any moment he would accidentally spit a mouthful of beer over the person in front of him. (Incidentally I ended up sitting behind Sideshow Bob which I found rather typical and irritating.

So I got there again with plenty time to spare and was again right at the front of the queue. I had decided to wear my Richard Herring "Virgilio Anderson" t-shirt as some sort of subversive act. Marco and Rob joined me and we got into the bar rather quickly. Now, as I said, they have a TV set up in the bar so that anyone who can't get into the live recording has the option of watching it, but they had set out the seats in rows already which, bearing in mind how packed the bar was yesterday seemed like a mistake. However the bar seemed much quieter which was weird. However within 15 minutes it was heaving. They had been letting people into the venue much slower this time which certainly helped the congestion at the bar.

We got seats in the third row; the same row as yesterday, but this time towards the left and much more face on to where Stew was standing. This time, the camera he would address the viewer was stage front rather that stage left which was just in front of where we were sitting. The first part of the first set was a routine we saw yesterday about moving to the countryside, and this time his imaginary conversation with the estate agent took a rather different direction. Next was a discussion about how comedy today is different to comedy in the '80s: "In the '80s all the comedians hated the Tories, now they hate their electrical appliances", as well as a great routine about Al Qaeda, and how he finds them rude  - "I can't bear them."

This set was enlivened by 3 walkouts. Now I've since seen it reported on Twitter that people had stormed out, but in reality I think they were simply desperate for a wee. Stew however had a lot of fun with this with a very bemused response about having never, in all his days, seen people walk out of a TV recording. One was bad enough, but by the time the third guy tried to sneak out in a rather optimistic hunched way, the audience erupted with laughter. Stew later told us that he would try to include this in the final edit, as it would make a change form the usual Live At The Apollo cutaways where you see Lulu pissing herself! He finished this set with a song I wrote about in my last Stew blog about hack lines used by lazy comedians.

The interval came and went. Rather uneventful. Nothing to report.

The first half of the second set was his long story about his grandad and his love of crisps again. Stew seemed distracted and we could see the odd smile and smirk on his face. He stopped the routine for a few minutes and picked up an empty bag of crisps from the front row of the audience and said he had to move it as whenever he saw it he had to stop himself laughing. The end of the night saw a long story about how he thought he was friends with David Cameron when he was a student and how he organised pop groups for parties held by himself and other Bullingdon club members. This was a lower key set with fewer laughs and more poignancy but when they did come it was really worth the wait.

In fact you need patience when you see Stewart Lee. He delights in his silences, and pauses far longer than any "normal" comedian. This of course, as well as the anticipation of the punchline is often funnier than the punchlines themselves!

At the end of the show someone in the front row (not sure it was the same person with the crisps) dropped their glass, which smashed on the floor. Stew asked for it not to be cleared up so they could get a close up and asked the person to stay in their seats at the end to get a close up of their feet.

A very funny, unusual, odd and satisfying night.

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle will be broadcast at some point in the future. I'm guessing spring time. Watch it!

Are there...visible otters?

I had been looking forward to seeing Stewart Lee for ages. Ever since I saw him do an Edinburgh preview at Fat Tuesday back in July I was convinced that he is the best comedian on the circuit today. For those not in the know, Stew first came to prominence as one half of Lee and Herring who in the late '90s created both "Fist Of Fun" and "This Morning With Richard Not Judy". He seemed to disappear for a while before returning to national fame as the co-writer of "Jerry Springer The Opera" and will soon be recording the second series of "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle".

I couldn't find anyone to go with me, however this was actually fortuitous. When I got around to booking tickets there were only single seats left which meant I could get one in the third row. I've been to the Leicester Square Theatre on a number of occasions, mainly for Richard Herring's AIOTM (aiotm!) as well as Herring's Hitler Moustache and The Collings and Herrin podcast live, so it was nice to see someone else here for a change, even if it was his ex comedy partner.

Lee arrived at 7.30 prompt and before he got on stage began berating the audience for being late, ordering them to sit down. He was using this current "Vegetable Stew" show to try out sets for his upcoming Comedy Vehicle series and was going to do 3 x 25 minute sets tonight.He is well known for giving his audience a hard time and making them work and tonight was no exception. He started slow. Very slow indeed. He pointed out that he knew that as it was Christmas that there would be some office parties in, probably booked by "Alan", an enthusiastic fan of his, while "Geoff" the boss and everyone else looked on bemused. He told the audience off for laughing at a joke he did about a single mother. "Do you think that was funny? I don't. I hate it. I've been told I could sell that joke to Tramadol Nights."

The first set was about moving to the countryside, and how awful the countryside is; the constant repetition of the words both frustrating and hypnotising the crowd. Most of this set was taken up with an imaginary phone call to an imaginary estate agent - hence the blog title: his friend who moved to the countryside had bragged about being able to see otters from the window - which turned into a conversation about how well or badly the gig was going, and that perhaps only a third of the people were enjoying it.The imaginary estate agent told Stew that he should have bailed out of the routine after the phrase "visible otters". This entire monologue went on for perhaps 15 minutes, with his back to the audience with the occasional sly look to see if more people were laughing.

The second set was about charity. Or, as Stew told us, it was to be about Adrian Chiles, but the BBC said this would have constituted a sustained attack, so he had to change the title. However this was still a sustained attack on Chiles before he moved on to Russell Howard, however without malice and extremely funny. This also focused on the amount of benefit gigs he does himself, which started as an estimate of 30-40 a year but by the end of the routine had slowly climbed to 80. This set was much more upbeat and climaxed with one of his trademark off stage off mic rants, shouting at someone moving about on the other side of the theatre when it was clear that if they "had ever seen anything ever" that this set was reaching a climax. Although Stew often claims that some sections of the room are quicker to react than others and tries to get the others up to speed I could see that tonight  it was certainly true. The guy sitting beside me looked terribly confused, disappointed, and possibly upset. I don't think he had been prepared by his friend who seemed to be having a whale of a time.

In the second half I decided to lean nonchalantly by the bar. I was being slightly annoyed by the grumpy guy beside me, and found myself standing beside the world's biggest Stewart Lee fan. Oh he was laughing alright. Laughing so hard at every line. Once he even slapped his thigh. However I liked him even though other nonchalant types were glaring at him.

Stew had given us a choice of topics for this final set: the difference between comedy now and comedy in the '80s or "some sort of political stuff about the government". The room was split, but my '80s comedy choice won, and Stew felt guilty that some of the audience would be disappointed and said he wished he hadn't given us a choice now: "This is why democracy can never work".

He sat on a stool for this set, clutching his guitar, explaining that having a guitar or a piano to use as a prop means that the audience would let him get away with substandard material and then explained the problems he has trying to get a gig at the O2 (I wonder who he could have been referring to?).

He explained that in the '80s all the comedians hated the Tories, and now all comedians hate their kitchen appliances before attempting to do a "Live At The Apollo" style routine about a toaster that either slightly warms the bread or burns it charcoal black. Naturally this went on for longer than you'd expect before explaining that the toaster was clearly broken and he should really take it back. he went on to remind us of the importance of keeping the receipt, although the staff in the shop shop he buys his electrical appliances from all know him so he might not need the receipt. "My observational comedy might not be very good, but at least you get excellent consumer advice." The show ended with a song on the guitar comprising of loads of very hack observational comedy lines which was rather pointed towards a rather popular current comedian. I'm not sure who, but the last two lines were "You're a liar. Your name is Michael..." but we never got to hear his surname.

I actually quite like Michael McIntyre (in small doses). I've said it now and it cannot be taken back. Deal with it. Though I do wish he's stop crowbarring accents into all his routines.

Great gig. It couldn't have been better. Maybe some more off stage off mic ranting but I'm just picking hairs. I grabbed a few pictures afterwards for this blog and on the spur of the moment bought his triple CD "What Would Judas Do?" which tells the story of the last week in Jesus' life from the point of view of this misunderstood disciple. I recommend it. You can get it from Go Faster Stripe as well as loads of other great DVDs from other very funny acts.

He finished his run on Saturday but has booked 5 more dates in the new year, so get tickets while you can. I'm up for it!

Oh I nearly forgot. One of my favourite lines of the night: "I hate Al Qaeda. I know its politically incorrect but I find them rude."

Law, Lee, & Legge - Collins, Jones, Douieb.

Show Time !!

I'm proud of that title. It kind of rhymes you see. And scans quite well.

On Monday to Wednesday I went to 3 gigs in a row. I enjoyed all of them in different ways. The first comprised of my second visit to The Camden Head in Angel. My first visit wasn't great when I went to (attempt to) see Catie Wilkins. I wrote about it here

Anyway it looked like I was in for more of the same. The Fortnight Club has been running for 2 decades and is a place where professional comedians can try out new material. A number of weeks ago after London Improv, Tiernan Douieb had recommended that I see Tony Law. I had checked him out on YouTube and found him good. I guess you could descibe him as Eddie Izzard in cowboy boots.

I got to the venue at opening time and went upstairs to find the tech guy sitting forlornly. He explained that not only was there no audience but none of the performers had turned up! I went down for another pint. I tweeted my situation and someone suggested I could do a set of Keith Chegwin's recent stolen material. I'm glad I was sober or I may well have suggested it! I popped up again to find that all the comedians had arrived as well as another audience member. The acts actually thought they had 3 in the audience until it turned out the 3rd person was a barmaid collecting glasses. I made a little small talk, fully expecting the gig to be pulled, but Tony Law insisted on doing it. Two of the comedians wimped out (but who can blame them?) and the gig began.

Tony Law

The compere found it odd to compere considering we had all been sitting and chatting for the past 15 miuntes but he did a good job. Tony Law was up next and he did remarkably well in front of 2 of us (plus 2 of the performers) I found myself subconciously laughing louder than I should have, and I do hope it didn't come across as sarcastic.

I can't remember the name of the next comedian, but she was reasonably good, going through a lot of one liners and getting us to judge if she should "Tweet or Delete" them. Though because I don't know her name I don't follow her so can't see if she did or not...

Milton Jones

In the middle of Tony's act, Milton Jones had arrived and sat at the back. MJ is one of the better performers on Mock The Week and I was very glad when he decided to try out some of his new stuff as well. The other half of the audience was an American guy, so was quite fun to see Milton explaining some of his jokes as he went along for his benefit!

The next night was my long awaited Stewart Lee gig at Fat Tuesday. I have never seen him before other than a quick 10 minute set at a benefit at Hackney Empire and think he is probably the best stand up performing today. Tonight just confirmed it. I had also met up with @Misswiz and we managed to get good seats at the front.

Tiernan Douieb opened with a preview of his new show. It was rather odd as Fat Tuesday is Tiernan's club, and he usually comperes, but he got the chance to perform his full show tonight. He was a little worried at first as originally Stewart Lee was scheduled to open the gig, and I don't think many comedians would want to go on afterwards, but luckily for everyone, the running order was changed. Tiernan put in a sterling performance and if you do go to Edinburgh please make time to see his show.

Stewart Lee came on and the crowd roared their approval. He told a long-winded story about being in the same school as David Cameron, very similar to last year's story about Richard Hammond. I'm sure it won't spoil it for you by telling you that he confesses at the end that this story is not true. He also managed to speak for around 20 minutes about crisps.

Surprisingly, he ended the set with a lovely acoustic ballad all about The Bullingdon Club. I wish i could say more about this gig, but I was looking forward to it so much that it vanished from my mind in all the excitement. I had a couple of quick words with Stew after the gig and wasn't told to fuck off, which was a nice susprise. I was much more nervous than usual and determined not to make a dick of myself. I think I JUST got away with it! He was less grumpy than I expected.

On Wednesday it was another return to my comedy temple, The Phoenix, to see Andrew Collins completed "Secret Dancing" show. I have already blogged about a previous show here. I met up with my mate who I occasionally bully into coming to comedy clubs if no one else is available. Though it was his birthday the next day and somehow my treat to him was to buy a beer and a comedy ticket for him. It was almost a present to me.

I also met my new comedy plaything, Richard who I used to work with and basically lost touch but have now been in contact with a lot more as he has enjoyed seeing Legge and Ince, as well as Richard Herring.

Other people I arranged to meet were Yan, aka @MightyBlackout as well as the legendary Reverend Peter Organ (the legend beginning during Herring's warm up one time befiore an AIOTM (or was it a Collings & Herrin live podcast?)  when he pointed at Peter and told everyone he looked like a comedy vicar. Peter tweeted back to say that indeed, he was a vicar!)

Anyway, it was lovely to meet Muki as always, even if she was hungrily devouring a fish finger sandwich (the BEST sandwich as I hope we all know.)

Michael came on and did around 20 minutes of material, bantering with the audience as usual. He read out his Quinola blog again. Now I've heard him read this before, but it works very well in a live situation. Both times, michael has found it hard to stifle a laugh when ever the phrase "Then, something worse than Lion-rape happened" arrives. It's a phrase I want to weave seemelssly into conversation but haven't managed yet.

An inspired comment went down a storm when he apologised to a man for calling his wife a bizarre love triangle. Yes I know it doesn't sound that funny reading it out but it's all in the context! Michael pointed out Andrew Collins' wife in the audience to us and we felt special. She has always been a nebulous figure; never spoken about, but I can confirm she does exist. Now let's say no more about it.

Andrew's act has moved on since the last time I saw it. It seems more structured and starts with ACTUAL dancing, then Andrew talks about the concept of a journey, and the fact that journeys are not what we see on Masterchef or reality TV shows, but comprise of actual movement from A to B. He discusses his wishes to be kissed (voluntarily) by a duck and his experience of walking next to a pigeon and hoping onlookers thought they were mates, as well as discussing the mystery of the asterisk without explanation on a bottle of Plax. He demonstrated Secret Dancing and got a rather drunk volunteer up on stage who seemed a little over confident and talkative for a Secret Dancer. He certainly had nothing on the Precious Little takeover at the Hen & Chickens show !

All three evenings were very different but all were fun in their own way. Tony Law and Milton Jones on Monday was totally bizarre, Tuesday with Tiernan Douieb and Stewart Lee was completely awesome, and Wednesday with Collins & Legge was ... well, Wednesday was confortable. If I have to choose between totally bizarre, completely awesome, and comfortable, I'd probably go for comfort.

(Actually I only wrote that in case Michael Legge reads this blog. Of course Stewart Lee was the best !)

Thankfully, I managed to finally get rid of that chocolate oat milk! Enjoy Andrew.