Blog

Hi.

Unsurprisingly, my blog efforts have been completely crap. Sorry about that. Blogs are fucking boring anyway.

I’m sitting in Heathrow terminal 4. I’ve been here for an hour and I still have an hour to wait – a result of my compulsion to leave room-for-error. Admittedly, in this case I left so much room-for-error that I probably could have been the victim of an underground bombing incident, crawled to safety, gone to hospital, had some skin grafts, been fitted with an artificial leg, undergone a series of counselling sessions, found a new lease on life as a wheelchair basketballer and completed a phd in comparative religion and still have got to the airport in time to buy some duty free vodka and a sunglasses strap before boarding. Which is obviously absurd, cos I hate vodka.

A point-form analysis of what’s been going down:

– I went to Edinburgh,
– I did my show 25 times and lots of people came and saw it.
– I got some nice reviews.
– I won a prize which – it transpires – was a really good prize to win.
– I flew to London.
– I had lots of meetings and managed to secure a manager. (www.pbjmgt.co.uk)
– I performed “Inlatable You” and “Canvas Bags” at the Royal Albert Hall in front of 5000 people. It was really fun and made me feel really good about myself. If I’d had a couple of fish and a loaf of bread, I swear I could have fed the cunts.
– I did my show twice at the Soho theatre (in Soho, surprisingly) and it went really well.

Other good things include:
– I’m going back to London in October to do my Perrier Award show at the Lyric, which is a big, beautiful theatre on the West End. 23rd October for you Londoners.
– I’m going back to London again in February to do a proper season at the Soho Theatre.
– I filmed a couple of bits of stuff for various tele and radio things. So I’ll be getting some nice exposure in the UK in the next 12 months.
– I got invited to the Montreal Comedy Festival. Which is really good cos it’s a way in to the US market.
– There’s a couple of DVD-making companies who want to sign me up to make a DVD of my show some time in the future. So that won’t be soon but when it happens it’ll be proper.
– I think Sarah and I are going to move to the UK within the next 12 months. I don’t know if that is good or sad… but there’s no choice really, career-wise.

So. Not a very entertaining blog, but perhaps an informative one. It’s been a swell couple of months. I hope everyone else has had nice stuff too. Next stop for me, Tasmania. Launceston on the 30th and 1st, and Hobart on the 6th, 7th and 8th. Come and see the show you crazy Taswegian people. (For the geograpically challenged, Tasmania is the little island thingy on the bottom of Australia. It’s nice and they sell fish there.)

tx

Hi guys. Another uncreative post. Me tired. Lots of meetings with producers and managers. All good.

Couple of bad reviews this week, which I won’t post because they’re bitchy and I like to pretend they don’t exist.

The good ones are now posted on the comedy review page.

My lady-friend, Sarah Minchin, arrives tomorrow. Ace.

I have a night off tonight. Really ace.

I hope you are all extremely well.

Hey. Still crook, but I think I’ll survive. I’ll just stop my farking whinging eh?

Couple more articles:

SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY FEATURE

BBC ARTICLE

You don’t have to read all this shit… it’s just so my mum knows want to tell her friends about.

xxx

So. The throat’s doing its hilarious thing again. Tonsils all grubby. After some hysterically unfunny interactions with the National Health Service, I managed to talk my way into some antibiotics. Who knows if they’ll do any good… but at least I get to swallow some pills. While the nurse was out of the room, I stole a pair of purple latex gloves. Which I imagine will come in handy.

I’m feeling pretty crap in general. Have cancelled all extraneous gigs. I just need to get through tonight and tomorrow night… and then I get a night off. Although I have two radio things on the monday, both of whom require songs. (In fact, the BBC Radio2 folk are trucking in a grand piano for no other reason than my 10 minute set on Monday night. Silly buggers. The show’s being recorded in front of about 650 people at the Assembly Rooms Music Hall. Should be fun.)

Got my second review today. In The Times, no less. It is extremely positive, but there’s a bit of criticism and they only gave me 3 stars. Stupid fuckers. And I swear if I get called “classically-trained” one more time, I’m going to find some sheet-music, roll it into a tube, and insert it. I think they get fooled by the length of my jacket. Probably the most obvious thing about my dubious piano skills is that I’m far from classically-fucking-trained. Why does it bother me? I’ve no idea. Anyway, click on to read: The Times Review.

If you haven’t read the first review, it’s here: The Scotsman Review. I have read a few other reviews she’s written since mine came out… and I escaped a potentially lethal pen. She’s caustic as fuck when she wants to be.

While we’re media-watching, there was an article in the SMH yesterday about the Edinburgh Fringe. Check it if you want: SMH Article.

Also, they tell me that an article on Dark Side is to be the lead story in Time Out magazine, which is a weekly entertainment guide that everyone reads in London. Aparently that’s really good.

Apart from the (stressful goddamn) health issues, all goes swimmingly. A few producers and managers still showing interest. I’m just listening and trying to be patient. We almost sold out last night, which is amazing.

Hope everyone’s having fun. Thanks for your posts. They make me feel all tepid in the trouser. Franklin, Turbank, Gwenyth, Jorge… I love yez all.

xt

Hi.
It seems I’m too lazy to do this blogging thing with any regularity.
It’s now a week since my show opened. Feels like a month. It’s all going remarkably well really. Got a great review (see Comedy Reviews), have had pretty ace crowds, my voice is holding up, the piano is really good, everybody is nice to me, the weather is fine, I’ve had about 2 drinks over the entire week, my body is standing up to the stage falls thanks to a high-density crash-mat, my friends are all ace, my sister is wicked, there are excellent people helping me with flyering and stuff and i’ve met a few producers who are interested in helping me take my show to various places. We shall see.
The only thing I don’t have is easy internet access. thus my grammatically unsound blog.
Thanks for posting comments on my site. I particularly like the work of Franklin, who I suspect is actually my mum. Hi mum. Thanks for everything.
I hope everyone is good.
I’m definitely going to post some pics at some stage. Promise.
xt.

So, the beginnings of a blog. A travel diary published for those people who have the patience for such things. The type who not only look at other people’s overseas photos, but ask questions beginning with “Which art gallery…?” and “So she is related to…?”

Just so you know, I’m planning to indulge in the kind of floral loquaciousness typical of the fuzzy-brained traveller who fails to realize that not every physical journey has to be a heart-of-darkness-esque spiritual journey into literary hell. (“Edinburgh’s most famous landmark hunches over this ancient city with avuncular familiarity, casting its comforting shadow over the late afternoon coffee-tasters and caber-tossers. i think i’ve found the genetic source of my ginger pubes…” etc) And that no one really cares about your fucking spiritual journey anyway.

To begin again: I’m in Edinburgh. Which is in Scotland. I’ve been here for 3 days. Which feel like 6. I’m not-very-well, but I’m always not-very-well before shows. I think it’s psychosomatic, but maybe it’s just all in my head.

The venue I’m going to be playing is part of the Uni of Edinburgh. It is both neo-gothic and totally fucking ace. Two hundred years old, perhaps. The building is like a warren. Or a gavin. Or a barry. Loads of rooms, all of which are in the final stages of being converted into theatres and bars. And everywhere you look my silly head on bright pink posters. I’ve finally reached omnipresence. I can now retire. (But really, I can’t believe there are other people doing my publicity; I feel almost extraneous.) (Which could be an interesting title for a road movie starring Kate Hudson.)

Dark Side will be playing in the biggest room at the Gilded Balloon, the debating chamber: ceiling like a chapel, balconies on 3 sides. Amazing. In contrast to the ornate old-ness is a huge lighting rig and bigass sound system. Floor is wood and the stage is only about 5 foot high… so we’ll see how often I can fall of it before I need surgery.

Tomorrow morning the piano arrives. It is to be a Yamaha, and it is to be white. Roll over Elton, I wanna make you my bitch. I thought I might get a whiteboard marker and write on it during the show. Hmmm, as long as it sound bright and sparkly and doesn’t break when I hit the shit out of it, I don’t care.

I am staying in Marchmont with my friends, Neil, Jane and Cam. They are both nice and have a coffee machine.

Orright. More in a couple of days perhaps. Leave a comment if you have something to say. I like feeling like I have friends.

Hope you like my website. It’s kind of informative, eh.

t.x

Orrighty.

This is my blog.

Which means I have to think of interesting stuff to say.

Which is shit.

Blogs are meant to be creative outlets for people who have stuff to say but no forum in which to express it. Which is the opposite of my issue. I have too many fucking forums and have to think of shit to say when I’d quite happily just have a cup of chai and a nice lie down.

Why have I got a blog?

Just shut up for one fucking second of your life, Minchin.

Good point.