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?"

Bob Mould plays Copper Blue

It's been 20 years since this perfect album was released. Bands such as Husker Du and The Pixies had made a small but significant impact on American music before Nirvana had conquered the world and soon, the ex-Husker Du front man was back, fronting the 3 piece Sugar. Copper Blue was a mixture of thundering guitars and beautiful melodies and Sugar were big news. What the hell, if you have Spotify, listen to it here.

I first heard about them when my work mate Simon gave me a C-90 mix tape containing the likes of Jesus Lizard, Janitor Joe, Mudhoney and many other experimental rock bands and my whole music outlook changed from liking just Numan, Nirvana and metal, and opened me up to the US punk and alternative scene.

I saw Sugar back in '93 at Brixton Academy, and it was probably the loudest gig I've ever been to. Perhaps Motorhead were louder, but it was a close call. One of the highlights of that was the journey to the gig and meeting Greg Norton, the bass player from Husker Du, and pestering him to sign my Sugar ticket.

Cheers to Paul Bailey for this photo

I was at that gig with Mike, the bass player in my band at the time, and it was Mike who came with me tonight. We met up in the pub next door and realised how old we now are when we spent the first few minutes pacing round the pub looking for a nice seat.

We arrived at the gig in time to see the last few songs by The Cloud Nothings. They were pretty good, but I didn't find them particularly memorable. We were based to the right of the stage and after a little Twitter exchange found out that Christian Reilly (from Richard Herring's As It Occurs To Me) was towards the front too but it was too packed to go and say hi. Instead I managed an improvised "YMCA" style AIOTM greeting which he duly returned. This was possibly the oddest and most obscure greeting I've ever made and poor Christian had to explain to his friends what the hell was going on! 

In fact, this is another excuse to link to Christian's excellent Lembit Opik / Lady Gaga parody, "Wonky Face"

Bob was soon on, and bulldozed through Copper Blue. "The Act We Act" is a great opener both to the album and the show, but the highlight for me was his rendition of "The Slim" which I have always thought is the greatest thing to hear live. The album version just doesn't do it justice. Bob's painful screams about the death of a friend from AIDS put a tear in Mike's eye, and it was an emotional part of the show for a lot of people.

The album finished, and Bob announced, "That was the past. This is the future" and gave us 3 or 4 songs from his upcoming album. It was a relief for me that they were great songs. Like most artists who have been around a long time and experimented and taken risks, for example, David Bowie,  Bob's had his fair share of albums of varying quality over the years, but the new guitar and rock based stuff sounds like he's got another great one coming up.

After the new stuff it was back to some old favourites and from the Husker Du back catalogue we got the likes of "I Apologise", "Chartered Trips" (which he often plays, but has never been a favourite of mine), "Celebrated Summer" and "Makes No Sense At All". Mike and I were tempted to shout out or old Husker Du tracks, but only request Grant Hart songs to be a little naughty, but the combination of volume and our own cowardice stopped us.

"Helpless" - Bob Mould 01/06/12 live at the Shepherd's Bush Empire

Mike was hoping for a guest appearance by Dave Grohl, but it wasn't to be. (Younger readers will be more likely to know Bob for his vocals and guitar on "Dear Rosemary" and occasional live guest appearances for The Foo Fighters.

The anticipation of this gig was exciting, but unlike a lot of events, the reality lived up to it. The night ended with a surprise for me. I was at the bar waiting for Mike before we left, and a stranger tapped my shoulder. 

"Andy?" 

"Yes."

"It's Nick Holland"

Fuck! I haven't seen Nick since even before Copper Blue was released. He was the singer/guitarist in thrash band "Killing Faith" who I used to go and see regularly round the pubs of Surrey as well as being their "official" bootlegger, and this was the first band I saw that made me realise that I could form a band myself.  Big coincidence and a nice end to the evening.

Just to finish off, it was Bob Mould who made me realise the power of Twitter back in 2009. I had forgotten to buy a ticket for his sold out solo show at the Islington O2 and I tweeted despondently about it. I got a reply from a stranger saying he would leave his spare ticket on the door, so I hared down to the venue and found out that he wasn't winding me up and I managed to catch half of Bob's set. I had promised to tweet him and buy him a beer, but I couldn't track him down. So if you're reading this sir, thank you so much! 

RHLSTP (rhlstp)

As you probably know, Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast is the London version of RHEFP (rhefp), the daily Edinburgh Fringe podcast which debuted last year, but running weekly and with higher profile guests. Upcoming guests I will be seeing in this series include Charlie Brooker, Stewart Lee, Atrmando Ianucci and Graham Linehan.

I wasn't planning to go to ths one as I was working a night shift and couldn't get leave, but once Jonathan Ross was announced as the guest, after a failed attempt to get Stephen Fry, I toyed with the idea. Rose said she wanted to go, and I was surprised to find that plenty tickets were available and there were two front row seats which I nabbed.

Unfortunately a few days later Rose told me she couldn't go as she had been involved in a bus accident (it's OK everyone, she is still alive!) and I asked my friend / landlord Ben to go, who sighs every time I mention the name of Richard Herring. He isn't really into comedy and don't think he's been to any shows before, but he surprised me by saying "yes".

We headed to Chinatown and he treated me to a meal before we headed to the theatre. We took out seats and bumped into Robin, who I had met at both the Christ On A Bike recording as well as an AIOTM (aiotm). Nice chap!

Ben was a little worried by sitting at the front, but I told him we were over at the edge, and Rich was more likely to chat to people nearer the middle. He was relieved. Although the mins point of sitting here was that even though we were in the front row we could only see the back of Jonathan's head, and the table between them rather obscured Richard.

At this recording, Francesca Martinez was also on as Jonathan had to leave early so Rich decided he was going to record 2 podcasts. This cut down on the stand up he would normally do before the show, and very soon Jonathan was introduced.

I'm a big fan of Ross, and it was great to see him chat with Rich totally unscripted. Of course Rich asked him about the Russell Brand and Andrew Sachs incident, and JR managed to handle it well, and not say anything stupid, but I imagine he has been asked about this enough in the past. Rich and Ross spoke at length about his history in broadcasting with some real laugh out loud moments, but Rich seemed more than a little nervous, and although he was a little bit naughty, he didn't quite go as far as he did in last week's Tim Minchin show. No prolapsing rectums discussed at all, and even more disappointingly, Richard had forgotten to ask Jonathan if he had tried to suck his own cock. Looking at Twitter after the show it seems Richard was holding back a little as he didn't know him that well and didn't want to go too far too soon.

Francesca joined the podcast for the last few minutes and she got a huge laugh when being "understanding" about Jonathan's speech impediment (Francesca has cerebral palsy in case you didn't know.)

After the break we had another podcast, this time featuring Francesca on her own, and this was much more relaxed for Rich, as it is clear they are great friends. Her parents were in the audience, which led to some embarrassing moments for her and at the end of the quiz (which I lost by answering "true" to "Does Richard have a long neck?) drew cries of "Fix!" when Francesca's mum won one of the prizes. I was getting a little annoyed by some chatterers a few rows behind me, but they weren't at a level that disturbed Richard, although they did shout out a few times. I guess they really wanted to be on the podcast!

A stand out moment for me was Richard's cutting edge reference when talking to a DJ in the front row, asking him "Are you one of those real DJs who does scratching, like Malcolm McLaren"?

I left literally 10 seconds before the end so I could get to the loos before anyone else and run off for my tube to work, which, I am glad to report, I arrived at with a minute and a half to spare.

As is tradition in Richard's live podcasts, the tickets are cheap to attend live, but of course, they are all released as soon as possible, usually the next day, for free on iTunes, and you can find them here

You know, when i bring non-comedy fans to gigs I always feel a little responsible if they don't enjoy it. I texted Ben afterwards and said that I hpoed he had fun. His reply... "It was great!"

Roll on Charlie Brooker...

The Hanson Brothers - The Lexington 15/04/12

"Mmm Bop! Ba Ba Mmm Bop." Ah, they were lovely boys weren't they? I wonder what happened to them? Well, keep wondering, because I managed to see the original Hanson Brothers live, on what looks like being their final tour ever.

The Hanson Brothers are the delinquent alter egos of technical Canadian punk rock band, NoMeansNo. Brothers Rob and John Wright play Robbie and Johnny Hanson, and Tom Hollison plays Tommy Hanson. The Hanson Brothers are, as you have probably guessed, based on The Ramones, and bang out dumb riff after dumb riff of catchy pop punk.

I had never seen The Hanson Brothers before, though I have seen NoMeansNo, perhaps 20 years ago, and tonight I had the fortune of them playing at a pub only 10 minutes walk from my house, The Lexington. I got there around 7pm. to find a lot of men of a certain age were congregating both outside and in. This of course, is what you would expect. The Wright Brothers (and indeed The Hanson Brothers) are fast approaching 60 themselves!

The opening band were The Invasives. They're not a band that were familiar to myself, or indeed any of the crowd, but they got everyone on side quickly. Nice chunky riffs, and great melodies. If Muse had decided to perform punk rock, then this is what they would have sounded like.

Soon it was time for The Hanson Brothers. Tommy, in his hockey mask, Johnny in his hockey gear with his baseball cap perched stupidly high on his head, and finally Robbie joined us, with his hockey shirt covered with a leather jacket. And wow. The energy from these grandads was unbelievable. Just take a look at this video below!

I took a few videos myself but frankly they were pretty crappy quality.

Even for an audience as old as we were, the mosh pit was pretty intense. I have recently learned to stay out of them these days, as it can take so long to recover. On stage were two hockey referees (form The Invasives) who stepped in to pull Johnny and Tommy back to their positions if they tried to grab any of Robbie's limelight! One guy was a bit pissed, and was apparently annoying Robbie and wouldn't leave him alone. Robbie reached down, grabbed his shoulders and pushed him to the floor, where he promptly passed out. There were a few cries of "He's faking!" but he really wasn't. The HBs didn't stop the show but they did pause just long enough for him to be helped out.

After the show I spoke to John and told him that I'm a long time fan of NoMeansNo but that this was the first time I had seen the Hanson Brothers, to which he said it would probably be the last chance as they probably wouldn't tour any more. I'm not surprised with the amount of work they have to do. They make NoMeansNo look relatively sedate! 

Rob (now out of character) came out and a few fans wanted to talk to him but he was concerned about the guy from earlier and he made his way outside to apologise to him. They guy took the genuine apology gracefully and had a chat. He was worried he didn't have his phone and the security wouldn't let him back in as he was both drunk and bleeding, but Rob managed to get him in to reunite him with his phone and bag (that he had forgotten about)

I told Rob I had seen NoMeansNo 20 years ago and after I had been stage diving, he had motioned for the crowd to push me on top of them back to the stage. Once I got within talking distance he had told me to give other people a chance and calm down! He didn't remember this of course, but thought it was pretty funny anyway!

A great night, and according to John, the new NoMeansNo album should be out by the autumn, and it seems fitting to add a lovely NomeansNo track to the end of this blog.

Bill Drummond & The17 - Damascus In London

A few days ago I received an email inviting me to take part in Bill Drummond's latest project. Here is an excerpt from the email.

"Bill Drummond was supposed to come with us to Damascus in 2011, where he was going to lead a performance around the Old City Walls there. Due to the ongoing repression in Syria it was not possible. Therefore he will recreate this performance here in London. He has drawn a map of the Old City Walls of Damascus onto a map of London. He will place all of us around the city of London to recreate these, and then we will pass one musical note around the circle, signifying the links.

From Bill: ‘To make a performance of SURROUND happen, you first take a map of a city, draw a circle on it, so that in reality the circle would have a circumference of five kilometres. Find 100 locals willing to become members of The17. Place each of these 100 members of The17 at 50-meter intervals around the circumference. Once they are all in position, you get the first one to cry out at the top of their voice ‘Way-Ho’ at his/her clockwise neighbour. The neighbour repeats the cry to his/her clockwise neighbour and so it goes on until the cry has been passed all the way around the 5K circumference, this takes between ten and fifteen minutes. After this the performance is over. Or the physical aspect of it is, if done properly it will continue in your imagination for years to come. I wont go into how great it feels to take part in this and what its musical qualities are. You will just have to instigate a performance of SURROUND yourself to find out.

I will instigate the performance of SURROUND that was to happen in Damascus here in London.’"

I've been a fan of Bill Drummond for many years since his days in The KLF, through The K Foundation burning a million quid, to some great books, such as "45" and "The 17". The 17 explores Bill's relationship with music and he tries to imagine what it would be like to start creating music all over again as if it had never existed in the first place.

The score that I and 99 other people would be performing was Score 328, called "Surround". This was conceived as being a trilogy with it being performed in Scotland, Lebanon and Syria. The Scottish and Lebanese pieces have been done, but obviously it is impossible to do in Damascus at the moment so Bill has recreated the city walls of Damascus in London.

I do hope I don't get placed south of the river though, and that I'm not in a busy shopping street. I am quite nervous about this as it does involved standing in a position, waiting, and shouting, then waiting again till the call travels right round London (aka Damascus) and shouting again five times.

This is the score we will be attempting

Well, I am going to get ready and head to the London School Of Economics where Bill will explain this in more detail. I'm also boyishly excited to get the chance to meet Bill Drummond as well!

-----

The17 - Me kneeling beside Bill Drummond at the bottom right!!

Well it is now the next day, and what an exciting day it was. I followed my map and arrived at Tower 1 of LSE where there were already7 or 8 others hanging around. A few knew each other, but most had arrived by themselves. We stood around and chatted awkwardly for a bit before eventually being led up to the 10th floor where the chatting soon got less awkward and we were soon discussing how we heard about this project and swapped various takes of art, music and comedy.

Bill arrived and addressed us all so we all knew what was going to happen, He spoke of previous performances of this piece and explained how we may feel both while we were doing this, and afterwards. He said it was common for people to try and run away, but when this happened the guilt would draw them back, because if one link in the chain goes, the whole circle is broken.

We were given our T-shirts and gathered downstairs for a photo or two. Then we were off. This was the longest part of the process: making sure everyone is in position. As we started walking I was at the front with Bill. I told him I was quite excited about this and also rather nervous. "Not as nervous as I am" he said as he chuckled!

We started at Victoria Embankment and Bill explained that he was going to pace out 50m intervals and each time he stopped he expected one person to stay there. This was where I made my mistake. I volunteered 2nd. I should have kept walking with everyone and tried to be last, as it meant that I had to basically stand there for an hour.

I had to keep number 1 and number 3 in my sights (we were self policing and had to make sure no one tried to leave.) I was nervous and excited all at the same time. I was glad I wasn't standing outside a Tesco, but I was standing in quite a touristy area and I really didn't want to bellow as a nice family were going past.

The girlfriend of number one kept coming up to see if I was getting lonely. I was. It was both a communal and very lonely experience. My phone battery had died. This meant that my brain had to think. I asked this lady how she found out about the performance and she explained she had links to the Syrian community. I asked her if she knew anything about Bill Drummond. She hadn't, and was quite surprised when I told her he used to be a pop star.

After a long wait, I saw number 1 waving at me and saw Bill running towards her. The circle was complete. Without pausing, both number one and Bill loudly called out:

"Way-oh!"

I turned to number three and repeated the cry:

"Way-oh!"

I heard this maybe 3 or 4 more times before it faded into the distance as it started to circle Damascus in London. I went back to the number one position and bid number one and her girlfriend farewell. Bill and I walked the 100m or so to the final place and we waited.

Courtesy of @Littlepixel

I asked him how long it would take to get round. He said that usually it is about ten minutes. Our small talk was soon interrupted though. I thought I could hear it across the river, but put that down to an overactive imagination. But I was right. Across Waterloo Bridge came the calls: "Way-oh!" They were getting louder and closer and eventually got to the final position. Bill had ran further on to receive the last call: "Way-oh!" he cried with a huge beam on his face.

We slowly started to come together again, and even though this was a very public display (I wonder how many people were on the route round London that heard it) it was also very private. No one who heard it knew why we were doing it. Even now, I don't really know why we did it. But everyone was happy. A hundred people united at the start and at the end, and soon we drifted our separate ways and will never come together as The17 again.

And I even got my copy of "45" signed. What an uncool way to end a very very cool day!

Freezing My Balls Off At #ACMS

The New Red Lion was cold. This tent in a warehouse was positively Siberian. I arranged to meet Rob and Richard here at opening time and after being a bit lost, discovered Rob Sedgebeer and he guided me safely to the almost impossible to find venue. A few other people seemed to have been in the wrong queue at a different venue too!

Isy Sutie & Nadia Kamil

Thom Tuck and John Luke Roberts opened proceedings at the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society by explaining the list of permitted heckles to us. These range from "We appreciate what you are trying to do" to "Would you like a woman to help with that", but no other heckles are allowed. One new one did make the list though after the microphones initially failed to work: "It's like Norman Collier".

Ben Target started the show by being hazed and being painted by a man with a roller on the end of his trombone.  He gave us sweets but warned us not to eat them. We didn't!

Tony Law

There was Nadia Kamil who was just learning guitar performing a song dedicated to her step mum, oops, sorry, I mean her dad's girlfriend - they are NOT getting married - ably assisted by Isy Sutie resplendent in Cher wig, bat wing top and leopard print mini dress and heels.

There was the always astounding Tony Law with his new African Elephant / Indian Elelphant / Morgan Freeman Elephant telling the story of 2 elephant's walking into a bar from both the human and elephant angle, ending with an extended Stewart Lee style conversation with himself.

Sara Pascoe and Boris Johnson (aka me)

There was Sara Pascoe, who was discussing the mayoral elections who came on as Mr Bean before revealing that she wasn't really, then pulling me on stage to be Boris Johnson. Another fellow was chosen to be Boris's opponent, Ken Johnson, but what hope did either of us have against "tiny mole". I even lost the race to the seats opposite, though did get to say a lovely poem.

There was a surly "French poet", Marcel Lu Cont, who taught us about sex and sexual positions. Unfortunately I have forgotten the name of Phill Jupitus's character who worked with all the greats from Sean Connery to Walt Disney (who plagiarised him) taking questions from the floor.

Phill Jupitus

Martin White sang a song about all the songs you can never really remember the words to, called "Something Something Something In The Morning", and the show was headlined by Howard Read and Little Howard who were fantastic. Big Howard reminds me in a way of Lee Mack, and this is a new spin on what would have been a ventriloquist act if it had happened even 10 years ago. Poor Little Howard. He had invited his "differently visible" duck friend that Big Howard just didn't seem to like. Little Howard ended the evening with another Q&A session, which was ambitious in its technical scope, but worked just fine.

#ACMS is moving on, and will next be in Shepherds Bush next month. I just hope this venue has some form of heating!

#RIPGreggJevin - The Gregg Jevin Memorial Concert

"Sad to say that Gregg Jevin, a man I just made up, has died". This was the throwaway little joke that Michael Legge came up with a couple of weeks ago on Twitter. It was retweeted. Someone else paid their respects to Gregg. It was retweeted. Within an hour or two it was the top trending topic on Twitter. I tried to Storify it as it went on, but the tweets were coming in more than one every second. Something about Gregg had caught the public's imagination and with Chris Addison, Peter Serafinowicz, Hugh Bonneville, Colin Baker, and others with a lot of followers joining in, this made a most unusual and entertaining morning. The Royal Albert Hall offered to put on a memorial show after Michael joked about the idea (unfortunately for a dreadful amount of money). Radio Times even tweeted about the changes to the TV schedule that night.

No one really knew Gregg. But suddenly everyone loved him. Though some people hated him. Songs were written. T-shirts were made. Newspaper articles were written. Proper newspapers too, none of your online blog stuff that doesn't really count. The idea of a memorial show stuck in Michael's head and soon it became a reality which happened last night at The Soho Theatre. Michael asked me how easy it was to project some tweets before the gig, so I came up with some of my favourite ones which are presented for you below.

I had met up with Robert and Heather at The Dog & Duck before the show and soon moved on to the Soho Theatre bar where I met Michael. The Trap were hanging around suspiciously as they often do, and I was glad to see that Bridget Christie was there too. But more about her later. 

Craig eventually met up with me just in time after a traumatic incident with a broken down bus and we nabbed some nice seats neat the front. After the intro slides, we had a message from Little Howard and Michael came out to welcome us to the show and we soon found out that this was a very twitter based show with only one person saying they weren't on Twitter. And surprisingly everyone was well behaved and didn't tip tap at their phones all the time during the show.

Polite Notice: I'm going to put up a few pictures of the gig shortly. There is the back of a young man's head quite heavily featured. Please do not look at that and focus your attention on the people on stage. Thanks.

Tony Law

Tony Law seemed to be running late but got here just in time to open the show. He's a Canadian guy who has been around for some time and was speaking completely off the top of his head trying to come up with jokes about Sport Relief (which this show was raising money for - I should have mentioned it earlier)

He was as chaotic and brain frying as ever, and as well as Sport Relief he touched on all the bad people that are killed by cancer, so there was a slight frisson in the room but Tony ploughed on, pulling ideas from his unusual brain. He is performing his full show at Soho Theatre in April, so that's one we have to go to.

Barry from Watford

I've heard a lot about Barry From Watford, but didn't really know what to expect. Well, he was great. An odd older gentleman. He was both endearing and repulsive at the same time, Barry brought out his rather grotesque puppet who he was at great pains to point out was not an official Disney character.

Barry spoke of the ongoing battle of the possibility of a strip club opening in Watford High Street, but the council have told him that they definitely won't be opening one.

Simon Evans

Simon Evans was next, who started with one of Gregg's favourite jokes about an Englishman, a Welshman and a Pakistani, ensuring a little tension in the room. Of course, the butt of the joke was the Welshman, but Simon was keen to point out that yes, it was racist, but not the bad kind. He told us he had the right to tell the joke as he had a little Welsh blood in him. But he was going to sue the transfusion service as he'd rather have tetanus...

The Trap

Without any further ado Michael brought on The Trap. I'm a big fan of The Trap (but don't tell Paul Litchfield). The Trap are 3/4 of Los Quattros Cvnts and feature Paul, Jeremy Limb and Dan Mersh. I had tweeted earlier hoping that they would do their Alphabetti Spaghetti sketch. It was sheer coincidence, but I like to think that my tweet caused them to choose that routine which was a sketch containing all the letters of the alphabet and nothing else.

After this Paul and Jeremy came on as The Two Nevilles, an old music hall style act complete with fezzes. When they boasted they finished their rather twee routine, they joked to Dan that they knew it so well they could do it backwards which Dan of course made them do, which brought a whole new dirtier meaning to the sketch which horrified both the Nevilles as it went on. The Trap are The Ronnies of today, and if you get a chance to see their shows, please take advantage of it.

"Louise Mensch" aka Bridget Christie

Michael came on to the stage for the serious bit that all charity shows have, and introduced Louise Mensch, the feminist Tory MP. I had seen Bridget do this terrifying character before at ACMS. Wearing the most grotesque costume which consisted of a military helmet and her child's mask (which was too small for her to see out of properly) she ranted about her commitment to feminism.

She asked the young lad at the front to pick her "baby" up from the stage as she didn't want to bend down in case he wig fell off. The poor boy!  "Is this really happening?" "I'm in my own nightmare" were two memorable quotes. Bridget Christie is in the top 5 comedians I have ever seen and will take every chance I get to see her perform.

Moose Allain

Moose Allain is someone that I've followed on Twitter for some time but don't really know much about. He is good Twitter value, a funny writer, and creator of cutesy demanding robot son Archie Allain. He has never performed a show in public before, but Michael loves him so much he invited him to this show. He read out a letter he had written to Gregg, both "as a useful framing device and because I don't need to learn my lines."

Moose is a must-follow on Twitter so if you're not following him already, go and do it now.

The Beatles were up next. It was quite fun to have a sing song, but perhaps a couple of songs would have been better rather than five!

Rachael Parris

Somewhat surprisingly, Ian Rankin had written an anecdote about Gregg which he had sent to Michael, which Michael read after the interval. I don't think anyone expected this, but it turns out that Gregg and Rebus became best friends. Originally this was meant to be delivered by Peter Serafinowicz but unfortunately he couldn't make it, however Michael did a sterling job!

After a slight technical hitch with the keyboard, Michael introduced Rachael Parris. She is very adorable and sweet, with an undercurrent of tragedy. She spoke about giving up drinking, well drinking alone, well drinking unbranded vodka at home, well she hasn't given up drinking.

She started with a song with the refrain "There's a little bit of sick in my mouth, and even more in my hair", followed by a love song to Gregg to the tune of Hey Jude.






Next up was the fantastic Shappi Khorsandi, but she was unfortunately beaten to her routine about having an affair with Gregg by quite a few comedians before her! she spoke of the relationship and how he changed his number quite a lot and that she often left 10 or 15 voice mails on his phone. She plays the stalker very well! She says she now gets on with his wife very well, and visits her frequently in hospital!

Nick Doody followed Shappi and touched on death quite a lot. He was at his mother's funeral and it was pointed out that he was singing along to the hymns and was asked if he was coming back to the fold. But of course he was singing along. It was a funeral...

Nick told us the worst thing he has ever said. It was recent, so he still seemed rather embarrassed about it. I won't tell the joke as it will spoil it for you. And I've also forgotten.

He ended his set with quite a grotesque mime, which I don't even dare to explain, but when some people gasped he did ask us if we realised there was no one there?

I've heard Nick on podcasts and followed him on Twitter for some time but this was the first chance I got to see him. He warmed up the crowd nicely just in time for the legendary Guns'N'Moses!






Guns'N'Moses are a "Rhythm 'n' Jews" band consisting of Dave Cohen and Al Murray. Rather than waste precious words, I'll let the video below speak for them...

After a slight delay due to a costume change, a slightly dishevelled Pub Landlord arrived wearing a Santa hat. No one questioned it. I mean, you all know Al Murray so you know just how well he can interact with the crowd. Al promised us that he would go further than Jimmy Carr or Frankie Boyle and push the envelope of taste by singing the edgiest song that exists.

Al Murray

He spoke to the young lads at the front and gave them some cash from his own pocket to get beers. He then sent one of them back to get a beer for himself. After more chat with the crowd we were ready to sing the song - "Baa Baa Black Sheep"

The only complaint I would have is that it was all far too short. I'd happily watch Al for hours. Mitch Benn brought the gig to a close with another singalong song, "Goodbye Gregg Jevin" As Michael said afterwards, the joke is now over and let's look forward to "the next stupid thing we all do"

After the show I hung out in the bar and got chatting with Lewis Schaffer, a friend of Heather's. He does a free show every Tuesday and Wednesday at The Source Below, and I've heard many good things about him so I will try to get down there next week if I have recovered from The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society the night before.

Many thanks to Michael for organising this stupid night full of stupid stuff, and I wonder what stupid thing will happen next.

RIP Gregg Jevin.