Stewart Lee and Friends perform John Cage's "Indeterminacy"

I had never really heard of John Cage. I knew two facts.

1. He wrote 4'33", a musical piece with no sound other than the sound of the space it was performed in.
2. He was in The Velvet Underground.

That was John Cale. So out of the two facts I knew, one of them was wrong. I even originally thought J J Cale was in The Velvet Underground till I was forcefully corrected on Twitter.

I researched him (i.e. looked at YouTube) and found this marvellous piece from 1960.

My friend Mike told me about this show and I happily agreed to go with him. We met up at 7pm but were forced to sit in the cold with our beers outside as the musicians were soundchecking. The honks and parps echoed round Dalston. We got in at 8 and found a seat with a reasonable view (near the toilets - a good tactical decision) and awaited. Neither of us were sure what to expect, but after reading a review of an earlier performance I was hopeful Harry Hill would perform Water Walk. Unfortunately it was not to be.

Things started off with a piano and trombone improvisation by Steve Beresford and Alan Tomlinson, which showed us the madness that was to come. It was instantly funny, but people seemed scared to laugh. People were giving the performance a lot of chin stroking respect, but as soon as Tomlinson honked a bicycle horn into the end of his trombone as he played, we all relaxed and realised that, yes, it's fine to laugh!

Tania Chen performed an off the wall piano solo on her "prepared piano" and as well as some traditional jazz stylings she ended up climbing into the piano and plucking the strings from the inside.

The highlight of the first half for me, though was the trombone solo. (There's a sentence I never expected to write in my life.) 

Tomlinson explained Cage's unusual scorings, particularly the instruction to remove a piece of the trombone and use a particular mute, but as he explained, when you take that piece out, all the air goes out the wrong end anyway, so the mute would have made no difference. A little joke on Cage's part perhaps?

This was really odd. A lot of single notes at various volumes, pitches and timbres, evoking a didgeridoo at one point, and at another he span as he played, giving a slow phaser effect.

Here is a short clip. But I know it doesn't do it justice. I missed the funniest bits!

We had an interval and outside I overheard conversations about French philosophers and Becket. Yes, I was certainly in Dalston.

The second half started with Chen, Beresford and Lee sitting at a table with all manner of unusual instruments amongst them. The musicians would provide an improvised backdrop for Stew, who would read 40 of Cage's stories randomly chosen from selection of 90. Each one was read at different speeds in order to either fit them into, or stretch them out so they each lasted a minute.

It was a great 40 minutes. After a while the sounds sat in my head comfortably, but always surprising me, and I struggled to hear Stew on a few occasions when the sounds got louder, but this was the intention. We left the show happy and I had a quick chat with Stew at the end where I said that Tomlinson's trombone solo reminded me of Diamanda Galas's "Schrei X" and he said "Oh, I think he's played with her before"!

It's not a show I would normally go to, and naturally the draw for me was the always magnificent Stewart Lee, but hey, I'm a hipster now!

Thanks to @muzrobertson and @chillmaid for the live photos.

Eddie Izzard

I saw Eddie Izzard last month and forgot to finish writing this blog. The day was hard. I had been to see a Private Hell special the day before with Michael Legge and Stuart Goldsmith. Even though Stuart isn't the usual style of comedian I would go and see, I thoroughly enjoyed his set, and Michael's show was very nearly ready! I had a few beers with Michael and some of the audience afterwards and was planning on going home, but Nadia persuaded me to go to the other Phoenix to see Lou Sanders and Grainne Maguire. It was a great evening, but on the morning of Izzard, I had a brutal hangover.

I was excited about seeing Eddie Izzard, and have been for a while but 1115pm seemed like such a long way away. He was playing in the small room in Soho Theatre and it was a work in progress gig for next year's world tour, "Force Majeur". I have never seen Eddie before, but he is a true comedy hero of mine, up there with Billy Connolly and to see him in what I insist on calling The Gregg Jevin Memorial Room (ie a room with about 140 seats) is much more exciting than seeing him in a massive arena.

I left the house at 930 as I had arranged to meet my friend in The Soho Theatre bar at 1015pm. I thought it best to get there early in order to try and secure a good seat, but I guess in this room all seats are pretty close to the stage. We bumped into Rob Sedgebeer and his lovely lady and settled down to watch the show.

Eddie announced that there would be an opening act.A German comedian. Of course I instantly assumed it would be Henning Wehn. Eddie announced Michael Mittermeyer to the stage. I had never heard of him before and he had a few good lines, but most of the material was pretty hack, with talk of Germans getting to sun loungers first and the fact that the German language sounds aggressive rather than sexy. Things took a turn for the worst when speaking about the Beijing Olympics, which involved him speaking in a "comedy" Chinese accent for an extended period of time, which just ended his set uncomfortably. I had trusted Eddie to introduce us to someone amazing, but he let us down. I've never said this about any comic on this blog, but as I plan on avoiding seeing any more of his gigs in the future, I will. He was awful.

After a very short break, it was time for Eddie to take the stage. Now this is the embarrassing but of the blog. I thought I had written this and posted it 2 months ago. Turns out I hadn't. So I can't remember very much so the main part is going to be a little truncated.

He started a little unsure, as a lot of this was new material. I can't remember a great deal of it, but there was a fantastic truly improvised piece about opera singers microphone technique which made him laugh a lot as well as us. There was another part that I had seen before about the tigers massacring the animals on Noah's Ark. That's pretty much my memory of the gig. Sorry about that. Then we left into the cold dark night and had to get a night bus home as all the tubes were shut.

Nick Helm - This Means War

I first encountered Nick Helm at The Wilmington Arms about a year ago when he, Michael Legge and Bennett Arron were previewing their 2011 Edinburgh shows. I had never heard of him before but he made a big impression on me. I was terrified. I remember saying at the time that he is the one comedian who I wouldn't sit in the front row for. At Edinburgh he was nominated for an award too and now he is getting a wider audience after closing each episode of Live At The Electric with some rocking tunes.

Here's a clip from Channel 4's "Comedy Blaps". The sheer desperation and self-pity is fantastic!

Next time I saw Nick was at Michael Legge's Private Hell and found out he was doing an hour at The Hen & Chickens each week so I decided to go along. 

By this time I realised that Nick's onstage anger is mainly directed at himself (or the audience of course if they misbehave) so I decided to plump for a front row seat. I was the only one. Nick came on stage and immediately went to the back rows, ordering people to move to the front. They all complied. Of course they did. Only an idiot wouldn't!

This was just a preview so I'm not going to give much away, but the opening song, "This Means War" saw Nick ordering the front two rows on to the stage to sing along backing vocals. He berated us for not singing loud enough and then added more backing vocals from various sections of the remaining audience. It was a very inclusive way to begin and we all sat down with big smiles on our faces.

He launched into a selection of one-liners before some poetry. Don't worry about the "P" word. It's much more fun than it sounds! An extensive section about the best soft drink followed, along with some more songs. This is a show, that if I were going to The Fringe (I'm not), I would definitely go and see.

I decided to go and see him the following week too and he had an excellent new opening which didn't involve him saying or moving very much. The audience though were awful. There were 2 lads beside me who hadn't seen Nick before but had come because of Live At The Electric. These lads, however, were not awful. They were great, and one of them spent most of the show on stage with Nick, looking both embarrassed and proud at the same time.

A lot of the others though were chatty, interrupting dicks. Two walked out after half an hour or so, which was fine, but when a woman in the second row kept talking, he said that he wished it was her that had left. She left, to a round of applause by me! Dicks aside, it was a really fun evening!

Afterwards I had a drink and a chat with Nick. What a lovely man. He is surprisingly soft spoken, and generous with his time and conversation. Go and see it Edinburgh people. make sure it's on your list if you want to see lashings of impotent fury, self pity,  self loathing and have a right good singalong. And the ever hanging threat of psychological violence.

@ARGCOMFEST

I had been looking forward to "An Actually Rather Good Comedy Festival" for some time, but annoyingly managed to be late. I had planned to meet Heather, Neal, Sarah and Jack, and as I got to the venue Nadia was just arriving too. I caught the end of James W Smith who seemed to be going down pretty well. It's not often you hear fisting material before lunch time, but we dealt with it.

At the end of the first set I saw Neal so we went outside and were joined by the always awesome Lou Sanders who was compering upstairs. It's always nice to bump into Lou (one of the most enthusiastic and so far unrecognised comedians on the circuit - remember - she will soon be a star!) We were joined by everyone I was supposed to be meeting and we went through our viewing schedules with each other

Stuart Laws

Lou Sanders

ArgComFest was held in the Kings Cross Social Club, a venue I had not heard of before but after looking at Google Streetview realised it was an old gay pub, previously known as The Golden Lion. It had only really worked for a couple of years before changing hands. It's a pretty nice venue, though the main stage could have done with a bit more lighting, as from my position at the back of the bar, and having just come in from the bright outdoors, the first comedian was not much more than a silhouette on stage.

Neal and I followed Lou upstairs where we caught Stuart Laws. I had never come across him before, and he was immediately likeable. He clearly does a lot of compering as his style had a lot of audience interaction, skilfully done. He talked about alpha and omega males, and pointed out Cliff, a blue and black haired alternative looking type and asked him if he was the big spoon. It took me a while to work it out, and of course he was talking about who was behind and who was in front in a "spooning" situation. After helping Stuart fence him off with a coffee table I returned to my seat beside Neal. He obviously cast Neal as the big spoon, leaving me as the little one in the scenario. Later I had to be a mixing bowl on stage while another "little spoon" had to suck all the chocolate milk out of it. I liked Stuart a lot and will definitely be seeing him again, hopefully before we all go on holiday to Centre Parcs together.

Michael Legge

I went back downstairs, as next up was Michael Legge. You might have thought I'd seen Michael enough lately at Private Hell, but as he explained at the last one, it hadn't really worked for him as compering a gig is no way to prepare for an hour long show so this was the first chance I had. Michael is at an early point in his show, still using sheets of notes, but no one minded. We all knew we were seeing previews. The story about his journey to a gig in Manchester costing him over £200 went down really well, and the punchline about Jamelia brought the biggest laugh of the festival so far. Michael improvised a line about an "exciting watch" and wanted to remember it, so Michael, if you're reading this, write it down.

Sheeps

Footlights sketch groups "Sheeps" were next on. I took a spot near the door at the bar beside Michael. I always worry about acts I have never seen before, especially sketch groups, but it didn't take me long to get on board with their tales of how their sketch group formed and about their THUMP THUMP THUMP... what was that? Sorry, it didn't take me long to get on THUMP THUMP THUMP. Eh? .. about their trip to Hollywood. Upstairs there was a constant banging. But James Acaster was upstairs. What the hell was going on. I told Michael I was going to investigate, climbed the stairs and and as I got to the top, it had just ended and there was a big round of applause. I went downstairs and told Michael I had told him to shut the fuck up! I'm still not sure what he was up to but for such a slight man he made such a lot of noise. In the end, for me, Sheeps had a bit of a Trap vibe to them and I'm sure they'll be on BBC3 soon (That is not an insult by the way!)

Pappy's

The day was going really well, but every now and then a guy in a grey t-shirt would shout something out. I wouldn't even call it heckling. He was just saying stuff. Rob was getting annoyed about it and we chatted about it in the break. I hadn't actually heard anything at this time, but though I would keep a look out. He was sitting with 2 friends. But back to him later.

I have never seen Pappy's before apart from a drunken half an hour at All Day Edinburgh a year ago. (They were drunk, I was drunk, so my memories of them weren't that sharp). I am a big fan of Flatshare Slamdown so decided to watch them. I was originally going to see Sara Pascoe but I have seen her quite a few times before. This was Pappy's "Last Ever Show" and they came out as old men, trying to get the sketch group back together and relating their memories to each other. I was really enjoying them, but it was very important that I take a break for a bite to eat and 2 arguments.

I went to Kings Cross station to claim my free "O2 Priority Moments" Delice de France sandwich and drink. The only rule was it had to be between 12 and 6pm. But by the time I got to the station, the guy behind the counter had added his own rule - not on a Sunday. I argued with him but to no avail. I had picked a nice brie, bacon and spinach panini and was looking forward to it. I should have just bought it, but I wanted to make a point so I went to the Burger King beside it. That would teach him. I ordered a more expensive and much more shit Chicken Royale meal (£5.99). The guy asked me what I wanted to drink. I said I was fine for a drink and he whacked the price up to £6.08! After another argument with the manager I agreed to take a drink and he gave me my 9p back. I dramatically placed my drink on the counter and left. Again, that'll teach him.

Thom Tuck

I got back to the venue but still had some chips to eat so I chatted to the lovely bouncer outside. He seemed to be enjoying the day as he wasn't used to doing comedy gigs and I think must have been used to rougher events and kicking a lot of people out. In fact at the start of the day Lou Sanders had been making a lot of noise upstairs and he thought something had kicked off and got halfway up the stairs to sort it out!

I caught the end of Pappy's and found a marriage going on between one Pappy and an audience member. Back in their old men characters, a voice rang out from the audience "Poor old bastard". Off stage, I heard the guys say "Did he say poor old bastard?" but they continued the show and it was soon over. I got chatting to Thom Tuck outside and he was growing tired of this pseudo heckler too and vowed to destroy him.

Tony Law

I stayed on for Thom, missing the highly recommended Claudia O'Doherty upstairs. This year, Thom's set seems a lot more stand up based, and much looser than last year's show about straight to DVD Disney films. He was storming out. Then the voice rang out again. Thom gave him both barrels and a normal person may have got embarrassed and shut up by then. But no. He piped up just as Thom's set was coming to its end. Thom's anger was pouring out of his mouth directed at this dick. We never got to see Thom put his legs behind his head as we had been promised. I do think that this guy should have been told to leave by this point as he had been trying to wreck a few sets already. I went over to him where his 2 "friends" were asking him why he was being such a cunt. It turns out they just happened to be sitting together. I asked him if he could please not say anything during the next act. he seemed genuinely bemused. "But why is no one heckling?" I told him it was because all the acts were really good, and they were putting a lot of effort into getting their shows ready for Edinburgh, and that what he was doing is very disrespectful to both the acts and the audience. We had paid money to see funny people on stage, not to hear his idiotic utterances.

Bridget Christie

Stuart Laws was compering now, and I was at the bar beside Neal, and the next act, Tony Law. "What's better than going to your fridge and finding an extra ham in it?" he said. "I'm Jewish you arsehole" came the response. not form the original dick, but from a new one. Thankfully he soon shut up, and once I saw Tony make him laugh I knew it was going to be OK. I never get tired of seeing Tony Law. With his tales of 2 elephants walking into a bar told from both the human and elephant angles, together with some outrageous accents, he stormed it. I was sad that he didn't bring along his horse Tuppence, but after chatting to Tony afterwards, he will be back for The Fringe. Tony was asking Jack and I for some feedback about the end of the show, but what do we know? I think our "advice" was just "the more elephants the better"

Colin Hoult

Jack and I arrived just slightly late for Bridget Christie. She is continuing to work on her War Donkey show, but sadly no donkey costume or inflatable fat suit. This was a real "proper" preview with ticks and crosses and maybes being made after every joke. And her idea for the end of the show involving childbirth, donkey breastfeeding and a man with a fart machine is going to be astonishing when it happens...

And finally, there was Colin Hoult. I know him mainly for his role in Gutted, but I have seen him once or twice before. And he stormed it. With a suitably horrific opening combined with lots of characters, including the army veteran who was writing his "Hostel" type film, where I was chosen to play Mr Giggles - giggle giggle. A guy turned up late and was picked on. He didn't want to get involved but Colin insisted. He was in his karate expert character, and eventually he got him on stage for a martial arts lesson. I can't say what happens next though as it would be a massive spoiler.

Thanks to "Timidheathen" and James Lowey for putting this together. I hope we get more of the same next year, and who knows, perhaps another All Day Edinburgh?

Michael Legge's Private Hell - LET'S DO IT TO IT!

In order to prepare for his new Fringe show, Michael has put on 4 gigs, once a month (one of which he couldn't manage to turn up to) involving himself and his funny friends. He now acknowledges this is a mistake, because compering a show is no way to prepare for an entire hour of new material.

It wasn't a mistake for the fans though. We have got to see Paul Litchfield, Sarah Parrish, Dab & Tench, Richard Herring, Tony Law (and probably more that I've forgotten about), and today was the best line up of all: Caroline Mabey, Bridget Christie and Nick Helm.

The "Die Hard" fans met upstairs and comprised of, among others, myself, Neal, Neale (aka Hitch), Sarah, Sir Bob, Ian and Heather. We had fun. A lot of fun. It was Canada Day. We got stickers. But all good things must come to an end and we trudged downstairs to see the show.

Caroline Mabey

I love sitting at the front at gigs, but have always been wary of Nick Helm. Off stage, he is so lovely. On stage, he is fucking terrifying. But of course, even though we were late downstairs, we found the front row totally empty. Even the second row. Everyone was in the third row and further back. Maybe they were even more scared of Nick than me!

Michael didn't really have much time to give us a proper preview of his show but did throw in an story of his train journey to Manchester that, even after he was paid cost him £150, which happily ended up with Jamelia falling off a chair, as well as introducing a new slant: Michael's Indiscretions. Hopefully I will get a chance to see a full preview of his show next week in Kings Cross.

Bridget Christie

A heavy pregnant Caroline Mabey opened the show with some pretty close to the bone stuff mainly based around her pregnancy. But as she says, the jokes will be out of date in a week or two. But she is someone always worth seeing.

Jason the War Donkey as played by Bridget Christie was on next, kicking his way through Edwin Starr's "War". Aw, Jason is such a cutie, and as a donkey comic, touched on subject such as the issue about being related to a more famous donkey, and is that the only reason he gets gigs, to the prevalence of horse comedians these days. Bridget got out of the donkey costume eventually and revealed an inflatable fat suit so she could show us her Edwin Starr dancing when he was rather larger. This was pure physical comedy and totally funny. Unfortunately she was worried this might distract us from the serious points about feminism she was trying to make, and she was right to worry. She slowly deflated herself and carried on...

Nick Helm closed the show with a preview of  "This Means War", and he wasn't as terrifying as I thought / hoped. He started with a rock number, getting all the audience to punch the air, shouting "Helm Helm Helm" which we did, until he started singing. He berated us for stopping, so we continued. Of course when he split the audience in two to sing different parts this caused even more confusion and fury towards us. He told us to provide the pyrotechnic noises to the punchlines to his jokes, but very quickly spotted the problem, i.e. we had no place to laugh! A new catchphrase was born: "Let's do it to it" which he soon got annoyed by. A few more songs and poems and a run of about 20 awful jokes and it was all over. Nick Helm is on the cusp of stardom right now, and he will very soon be a household name. And, (keep this secret) off stage he is a lovely, sweet, soft-spoken man.

Afterwards we had a beer upstairs and headed home around 7ish. I headed to a bar in Kings Cross where my good friend and artist Donald was having his leaving do before he goes to Paris for a year and it was nice to see him warble along to some obscure musical numbers form some obscure camp musicals.

Next week, there's a show in Kings Cross comprising of 18 acts doing full Edinburgh previews. LET'S DO IT TO IT!

Talking Cock / Joy Is My Middle Name

I love Edinburgh preview season. I don't go to The Fringe, well I haven't yet, and for some reason really enjoy seeing shows being constructed. There's also an added bonus of seeing comics when they don't know their material that well, which makes for quite an exciting evening. The idea that things can go anywhere is quite appealing to me. As one comedian on Twitter said yesterday when he was promoting his preview, it's for people who prefer to lick the spoon than eat the cake.

Off I went to The Camden Head (in Camden, not Angel - it's always important to check which one it is*) and met up with my mate Andrew. He was just here for a drink, but we ordered fish finger sandwiches. I tweeted this fact, and The Phoenix had a bit of a hissy fit and chastised me. It's nice when pubs get jealous of each other. Anyway, after a couple of drinks Andrew soon abandoned me and headed home.

Catie Wilkins was on first. I had seen her and Richard Herring do these previews a week ago at Michael Legge's Private Hell, and things have come on in leaps and bounds since then. At that show, there didn't seem to be a lot of new material, but plenty of ideas, but by now she is heading towards a complete show, although one of her routines that she was reading ended with her saying "It just says 'write joke' here".

Catie's show this year is called "Joy Is My Middle Name", because, well, it is. She was much more confident in her material this time, although her nerves still show. However, I've always thought this endears her to most audiences. There was a little muddle when she tried to work out how to hold the mic and show us her rather large cards, which I imagine will be turned into slides, until audience member Alex heroically offered his services as an assistant.

The show focuses a lot on feminism (stop groaning!) and has a couple of ranting moments. All in all, like her last show it's quite sweet, quite rude, and very funny and I'm glad her AIDS joke has made a return, and I hope it stays in the final show.

This was the 3rd tie in a week and a half that I've seen Richard's preview of "Talking Cock - The Second Coming". Like "Christ On A Bike" a couple of years ago, it's a reworking of an old show from 10 years ago. He thinks it was a shame not many people saw it first time around, and is proud of it, and this gives him a chance to finally get it out on DVD. So he has a head start, although as the gigs progress, various new bits are being added.

*Remember my advice earlier about checking which Camden Head to go to? Well unfortunately Richard didn't heed it, and had arrived at the wrong one...

The show is based around an anonymous questionnaire all about people's attitude to penises. Gents, you can find yours here, and ladies, have a look here. This show is startlingly rude (as you would expect) and the looks the lady sitting near me on the front row was giving was a picture!

Richard discusses why people are ashamed of their penis, and why it is an object of laughter. Why is it not held in a higher regard? Through the show we learn where guys have put theirs for fun, we learn that even people filling in anonymous surveys probably lie about their cock size, and we hear tales about what happens when you snap your "banjo string". We also think about our dad's spunking cocks quite a lot.

At the end, as an audience, we are asked to declare our love for our cocks. Ladies have to declare their love for our cocks, and gay men have to declare our love for our cocks - and your cocks. And for the third time in a row I was the only one!

Afterwards I had a brief chat with Rich and Catie and as promised to Neale, got him a programme, as Richard has a surfeit of them from 10 years ago. And of course, Richard drew a cock on it.

I slightly let myself down at the end by attempting to briefly flirt with Catie's rather hot brother as I was saying goodbye, but I think it may have come across a possible prelude to something terribly sinister. Sigh, I'll work out how to do it properly one day.

Right, I'm off to the shops. I have made a list.

1. Toilet roll
2. Jelly
3. A spoon

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?"