Everyone @ Chortle

Hello! Welcome to the all-new John Robins’ Blog for Edinburgh 2008! Now featuring less despair! Mild amusement! And edited shenanigans!

But that’s not all! I am proud to introduce the all-new John Robins as well!

I had written a far more bleak and self examinatory opening to the blog, but that was before the unveiling of the all new John Robins. By Jon Richardson’s reckoning we’re on the sixth ‘all new John Robins’ or John Robins Mk VII as I refer to him, but this one is here to stay. The others were just inventions, false epiphanies following regrettable incidents, but oh no, not this bad boy!

The old John Robins got very drunk last night and was a total/slight cunt/ass-hat, depending on whose version of events you believe.... In my version I look a lot more handsome, so let’s stick with that one. So, John Robins Mk VII doesn’t drink or rub people up the wrong way. I say try not rubbing people at all! Now that’s the new John Robins talking!

Sorry for writing my name so many times, I’m not entirely comfortable with it myself, but you get the picture.

When I’m sober I’m remarkably self-conscious in company (see last years blog entry concerning the all you can eat Chinese). But alcohol is not the cure, so some new tactic is required. I’ve not tried Red Bull Cola yet so I’m expecting some pretty big things

Our tech today took six minutes, leaving us with two hours and fifty-four minutes to spare. The Baby Belly Three seems nice, but wetter than I’d hoped. In fact, not having water drip on the audience is something I like about most venues. It’s the sort of place you can imagine catching a Victorian disease like rickets or chillblaines. Afterwards Carl and I sat in the C-Soco Urban Garden. They have a skate park and a lot of sand there, which seems needlessly annoying to clean up. I’d go as far as saying that sand and water are the two things I look for least at a comedy gig, but what do I know?

I’m living with professional giggler Mr Matt Forde, incessant wearer of hats Mr Dan Nightingale and the very special Mr Damion Larkin. What more could a man want?!

Much more to follow, this is just to let you know it’s all on.

As someone who spends about a fair part of his week working on my club in Brighton (the Komedia), I'm always aware - sometimes too aware - just how much work it is to get an audience into a show. Thankfully at Komedia we have a ten year reputation and an enviable venue and location and that helps get 1000+ people through the doors each weekend. But the main reason why this happens is that there aren't another 800 comedy shows also on at the same time, fighting for the same audience.

Which may seem an obvious statement, but in Edinburgh, you don't have that luxury. So, to make sure show and audience may actually meet eachother, you rely on your foot soldiers - the flyering team - to go out there and push, push, push. In the early stages of your Edinburgh career it's considered the done thing to join them on the pavements, regardless of how demeaning it might feel. I still raise a wry smile when I remember the expression on Steve K Amos's face, flyering on the Royal Mile for the big value show at Cafe Royale back in 1998. You've never seen pissed-off like it.

I'm guessing Steve doesn't flyer that much these days (and to be fair, neither do I) but even he turned up at our 'meet and greet' night when Bound and Gagged (the producers - from now known as 'B&G') made sure the acts and their flyering team got to know eachother prior to kick off. I'm totally aware of how important this is - no matter how impartial they attempt to be, the gang will only put their heart and soul into promoting something where they like both the act and the show itself, but I find this gig as tough as any Saturday late show.

Firstly, each year the flyering team seem to get younger. They aren't; but at 35 I'm nearly double the age of half of them (18 and 19) and so that day isn't far off at all. And this year, Nigel Klarfeld (head of B&G) has elected to pick about 15 girls - half of them drama students. Even though they're studying towards a job not too dissimilar to my own, I just scratch my head as to what we might have in common to talk about. Small talk with an 18 year old can't be far off 'grooming'.

And secondly, like a surprising number of comedians, I find 'social occasions' uncomfortable and difficult to manage. I always thought I was in the minority for this - but it turns out I'm not alone. Jon Richardson (not even with B&G) had turned up for a quick drink and his shoulders were practically at ear-height from the awkwardness of it all. However, there were exceptions. I was watching in awe as the real Edinburgh pro's, like Lucy Porter, glided effortlessly from group to group wowing and charming different flyerers and making them all feel like long-term personal friends. I'm years off that skill.

Thankfully though, I had nothing to worry about. This year's group are so wildly enthusiastic and positive they could probably revive dead puppies just by smiling at them. I'm hopeful they can squeeze a few more punters through my doors. Here's a few pics from the do, with a full range of act comfort zones; from Nick Doody (camera shy) to Paddy Lennox (barely able to restrain his sexpesting urges surrounded by young girls (hence the branding)) all the way up to Tom Craine, who could only repress his sexual urges by kissing me.


A genuinely camera-shy Nick Doody


Maff Brown and Ian Stone, who were able to control themselves.


Paddy Lennox, who was on the verge of doing something bad. So we branded him as a warning.


The lovely Abbey and Tom Craine, who had to hold this pose for about 45 long, long, seconds while the flash recharged. The key phrase here is 'uncomfy'.


Some of the flyerers. Most are called Amy, though there's a Bernadette and a Laura IIRC.


Eva and Cat. If I've got that wrong, I imagine they'll spam my facebook fanpage with swearies.

Stephen

Our first day in Edinburgh, and our producer Kev F makes us watch him on BBC 1's The One Show...

I am now chez Fringe – drove into a very foggy Edinburgh on Monday evening, via the very definition of ‘plenty of stops’ (as parents continue to advise). Here they are in all their glory:

- Left Guildford on Sunday afternoon
- Stopped in near Bedford to pick up a keyboard
- Stopped in Newark to do a gig at ‘New Wine’ festival. It went rather nicely.
- Drove onto Sheffield and stayed the night there, chez Days Inn. More bearable than I thought, for a roadside motel.
- Monday Breakfast near Leeds
- Stopped in Newcastle to see The Dark Knight, which was excellent, and I’m no comic book movie fan. Heath Ledger was great. Oscar for him, I reckon.
- Checked my email in a McDonald’s in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Bizarre that McD’s now do free wireless at some outlets – just didn’t seem right surrounded by kids, eating a Big Mac, firing up my laptop.
- Arrived in Edinburgh Monday night.

Found my accommodation – an odd room near South Bridge (which is quite central), where the kitchen and bathroom is all part of the one big bedroom. It’s very ‘studio’. A bit soulless to be honest, but I’m only here for a week, as to save money I’ve 3 different accommodations for a week each. I must enjoy the centralness of this while it lasts.

The city doesn’t seem ready for the festival yet. There are very few posters up, the Royal Mile contains only one street performer, I drove past my venue last week to try and drop off props but I didn’t even recognise it as a venue – it was just a street. Even walking down the street today, the amount of locals here is vastly more than I’m used to. I guess they’ll mostly be buggering off on their holidays at the end of the week, when it becomes unbearably artistic. What’s amusing at the moment are the coachloads of tourists who have clearly misjudged their visits – there are loads of them, all reading fringe guides, staring at the only street-performer they can find, piling into Buffet King to work out what to do now they’ve realised the festival doesn’t start till Thursday.

Hello, we are The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre.
- And so am I.
And so is he. And we have been given permission to write an official Edinburgh Chortle blog for the first time! Hooray. We don't have to keep sticking it up on "Comedy You Made", but we probably will anyway. So, we're setting off for Edinburgh now. But first we took a quick break in Weston Super Mare (click and the video will play)...

I regularly get asked if I still get nervous going on stage. Well, I used to - all the time - my first two years were so wracked with nerves that my favourite bit of every show was the bit when I left (and on half of the occasions, that sentiment was shared by the audience). But then I found the solution - not 'breathing exercises', necking a few drinks or any sort of meditation - monotony. Gigging near enough every night made the process of going on stage feel almost ordinary, and the nerves got fed up of being ignored and went off to sulk.

However, I will still from time to time get nervous - when I'm going to get reviewed; when there are important people in the audience; and when I've invested a large amount of time, effort and expense in what I'm doing. And therefore, by ticking all 3 boxes, Edinburgh typically reinvokes those open-spot emotions, and with some force too.

So with this being my 6th Fringe, I was hoping that repetition would help dull those jitters, and therefore on arriving yesterday I went off and did all the things I typically do on arriving in Edinburgh to see if re-establishing a routine will help calm my fears for the next four weeks, of which I have many. In fact, my need for routine was so great I even decided to drive up past the angel of the North even though my in-car traffic management thing was telling me the road was jammed. Familiarity: Check.



So after arriving at the flat (which I've stayed in before - check) and unpacking and making myself a peppermint tea using the weird brown-tinged water only Edinburgh locals think is clean (check) I went for a walk, bumping into my tech from last year (check) and putting my head round the doors of my favourite haunts (check). I'm even performing in the same room, the Pleasance Upstairs, at the same time, 6pm. (Double check). So far, the only indication you'd have that this was 2008 was the fact that half the roads have been cut up with tram tracks and that between every Starbucks, someone seems to have built a Starbucks.

So far, so normal. I nipped by the Pleasance Courtyard where the place was still a building site (check - it always is even with just 48 hours to go). I had a mild panic when I saw a building had suddenly sprouted proper air-conditioning, but relaxed on realising this was the box office portakabins.



Thankfully the main rooms will still be roasting hot and sweltering even on muggy days, so no break from the norm for me to contend with there - phew. In every sense.

Heading on to the Royal Mile, I even stopped for a burger just down and opposite the fringe office, before completing my lap of nostalgia, and I was already feeling chilled with familiarity. This was going to be a fantastic routine break from the old routine.



But then, I stupidly put my head round the door of the fringe office. Except I couldn't, because it was closed. The ticket problem here - which was recently upgraded from problem, to calamity, and then crisis - has now developed into a full blown state of emergency. No tickets for sale (as per the websites) and the office would only be open the following day for collections - assuming those tickets could be printed - or even found. A few phonecalls to people in the know has revealed the full horror of the ticketing nightmare; the fringe still can't take nearly all orders, the website is failing, and only the venue's own offices can deal with the sales, and not always either. That's all well and good if you're with the big four, but for some venues, no fringe box office equals no box office whatsoever. And there's a very real rumour going around that sales in June have been lost from some of the systems. This could actually shut down whole venues, it's that bad, I'm not exaggerating.

It is now just 24 hours until my first show and I have no idea how many tickets I have sold, and those ever-present internal neuroses I'd almost managed to placate has found this fact a perfect springboard to get those pre-fest nerves jangling again in full effect. Bugger. The woman I stumbled across painting the 'self-service box office' sign may end up having to use those skills to draw those tickets when they fail to be printed, ordered, or collated. No wonder the ticket guys and gals have the best aircon this year, they're performing the trickiest gig of the lot.



Stephen

Damn it, now I just look like an idiot. My link's been deleted but the blog still goes up on the main page. Not that anyone cares. I shall do a little dance now. Bye

I've got deleted off the main page of Chortle, which is fair enough, as I don't think I've actually posted anything in about a year.
But the wicked thing is, my blog itself doesn't seem to have been deleted, which means I can continue it for my own private amusement, like most things in my life.
Like thinking.

In fact, I think so much of the time blogs end up being written so much with an audience / reader in mind that they cease to be what I think they should really be - which is thoughts typed on a little screen (or a big screen if you are rich and have a fancy computer).

So. Hi there.

I've been writing songs recently. I'm trying to get my act together (literally and figuratively) and start a monthly comedy night, but I keep being tired and falling asleep instead. It simply won't do. It's also tricky to find the balance between a venue that charges £50,000 plus 99% of the ticket price, and one where it's cheap but I fear I may be mauled to death by large red-faced men with beer-stained man boobs.

I love that my blog hasn't been deleted! So happy!

I HAVE A LITTLE FRIEND CALLED DAVE NOW.

(I didn't mean to write that in capitals, I just knocked the button on by accident).

Dave actually belongs to the people in the flat upstairs, but he comes to visit to scrounge for food and do his impression of a cat (he does this quite well, it entertains me for many hours). Clever Dave, so good at looking like a cat.

We had to sell Peggy - did I mention that before? Well, we did. Turns out a car in London is a bad and expensive idea, let alone a car that feels like travelling inside a small tin can and that makes disturbing noises and doesn't like it when you try to turn corners or reverse or drive faster than 40 miles an hour. Poor Peggy.

I must go - I need to see if posting this actually works before I spend ages writing it.

Love to no one (as in, no one will read this as it's now a secret blog) xx

I haven't blogged in a week or so, as I've been busier than I can recall ever being. I've had an Edinburgh show to write, and a sitcom script to rewrite and send off, and a wedding to plan, and a house to buy. Four things that you should probably dedicate a good month to each, and I haven't allowed myself that luxury.

I'll just talk about Edinburgh here, cos the other things are all at least partly under wraps. And my, July can be a rollercoaster month. Two days ago I had a lovely preview show in Bedford. Then last night a not-so-lovely one in Brighton. So it's very tricky when I'm banking so much on each show - trying several new bits specifically that night - to judge what's working and what isn't.

Last night for instance was pitched as an Edinburgh preview show, and introduced as such by me, but being the middle of the party bit of Brighton at 6:30 on a Saturday night, we had a few groups there seeing this as the start of their big whoop-whoop night out, so a hen do and a too-cool-for-school birthday group were there. Not quite the forgiving arts-centrey audience that I probably could have done with. I'm ready for this cos the show is lots of me trying new things, so it's always going to be a gamble, and at some previews it's paid off. It largely worked last night, but with that sort of party-party crowd where only one person had the idea to come to the comedy and the rest followed dutifully, all it takes is one or two less polished bits and they lose their interest. To give them their credit, bless that lovely hen do for being nice throughout.

This year's show is introduced as being about me leaving my musical comfort zones - ie. stop listening to the stuff I normally do and try some styles I'm not normally into. But it's expanded to be about leaving comfort zones in a way I'd never intended: Somehow it now contains 3 songs, and I've never sung professionally on stage in my life, before Bedford two nights ago.

But I'm not sure the songs are working - a shame, having spent ages writing them and begging friends to record them as backing tracks. Hmm. Is it that they're not funny enough? Or that they're just a change of pace from my normal stand-up and the audience find it hard to adjust? Do I just need more confidence with the performance of them? Do they need cutting completely? Or trimming to a verse or two rather than six? Or a bit of choreography? It's at times like this I think I should have had a director. So I don't know. If anyone would like to give me direction on this without having even seen/heard the songs, feel free to just pick one of the questions above as being what you think I need to do with it. I am more than happy to take random direction from someone who hasn't even seen the show. Well it's cheaper than getting a real director...

Oh, and since my last blog with my big surreal to-do list, you'll be pleased to know I've ticked off all those things, apart from 'Buy a whistle'. That should be easy. Thought about getting on Ebay for one to save money, then I thought, "Second-hand whistles... Maybe some things are best bought new."

Well, I've just lost an hour's worth of blog, clicking the 'save' button which crashed the blogging software as it tried to save what I wrote.

I'll try the blog entry again tomorrow. It was quite interesting, so hopefully will be again, when my red mist about losing it all has subsided. Moral of this story: cut and paste it into notepad and save it there instead - web browsers are not your friend.

That red mist is somewhat prophetic as my Edinburgh preview at Fat Tuesday tonight had all the notes printed in red. My Hewlett Packd-up printer decided to run out of black ink when printing out the script and I could only get it done by turning the text red. If you saw my performance tonight and was wondering why it was so angry, that's the reason. Before going on stage Phil Nichol warned me that he'd done that before - highlighting important notes in red - and found the red spotlight 'wash' on stage rendered them invisible. Thankfully, no such problems here.



Still, not hugely annoyed as my debut on Radio 4's political animal went out tonight and I got a healthy large chunk of the airtime. Very cleverly edited and good to see how radio editors are able to take out chunks of your set-up that you always thought was essential, but clearly, isn't. You can hear me alongside Chris Addison and David Cross (yes he of Arrested Development fame) alongside Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver here.

Yesterday I got up at 4am, today I'm off to bed at 3:45 am. I'm already on Edinburgh time it appears.

Stephen

Edinburgh 2008 - Sleep, interrupted.

I've just woken up at 4am, dreaming about my show . I'd like to believe that this counts as 'rehearsing' but unfortunately I wasn't reciting the lines to this year's performance, so I'm not sure that qualifies. Which is a pity, as my aversion to rehearsing has now got so great that I sometimes mistakenly refer to it as 'revising'. As someone who gave up schooling at 17, I last did any form of revision over half my life ago so the whole creative process must be waking some dormant memory, and not a good one at that.

So, I'm blogging again, and hopefully this time for nearly every day in the run up to, and during, this year's festival. I'll also be including some pictures and maybe even some video, courtesy of the very expensive and yet strangely inflexable hard-disk drive based camcorder I bought from Hong Kong last autumn. I'm always dead impressed by those comedians who now how to edit video at home and stuff their own showreels and stand-up segements onto YouTube (I always have to get someone else to do it for me) so I can't guarantee that it'll work, or have audio, or be synced, or not just be 3 minutes of green lines. I feel immense guilt for abusing my time management; so when I'm doing anything OTHER than working on my Edinburgh show even when at the festival itself (and that includes time spent blogging) if a part of my show falls flat or I get my words muddled up, be prepared for me to blame that on a nicely edited video sequence that I shot outside the Meadows for no discernable reason (other than giving me an excuse to say why bits of my show have gone pear shaped).

Looking through last year's (and the previous year's) blog, I realise the first thing I do is a 'catch up', of where I was, where I am now, and what's happened inbetween. Its probably important I don't over-elaborate so I don't lose everyone before I've even started, so here we go, September 2007 to June 2008:

I... am in middle of seemingly never-ending divorce from hell (in a literal sense also? Quite possibly. See my show this year for details), moved home twice (and Edinburgh will count as thrice - I'll explain in a later blog), decided to leave my radio show (on discovering that decision was going to be made for me anyway), won the 2008 Chortle award for best compere (still happy about that), turned 35 (was always going to happen), flown my second plane (technically my first plane as the first one I got into 30 minutes beforehand suffered mechanical failure - see picture below), filmed and helped edit my second DVD (you will not believe how much work this was) and got, according to my peers and the odd punter, a bit funnier.

Doesn't sound like much, does it? But that's because so much of this year already has been taken up with getting ready for this year's Edinburgh - which I have been reliably informed is likely to be my make or break year. And that's not a baseless, arbitrary statement; those people I work with regarding production, PR, and venue management have given me (and been given) targets on everything from ticket sales, press coverage, critical expectations and the work that I need it to generate as a result. No wonder I can't stop thinking about it. It's going to be an equally tricky effort this year just to enjoy myself. But no worries, I will.

I'm going to try to get back to sleep now. This blog has taken me over an hour and a half to write - pathetic. I could have used that time to revise, sorry, rehearse my show. It's not as if not doing that is interrupting my sleep or anything.



Stephen

The odd things you end up needing this time of year. It's the same every July, as my over-ambitious plans for the Edinburgh show slowly get either trimmed back or scarily realised. So this week my jobs include:

- Find a 7yr old ginger boy, to play a young version of myself in a video
- Buy lots of packs of Cadbury's Fingers
- Find someone with a Mini-DV camcorder
- Try and fit into some leather trousers I last wore a decade ago
- Learn the ukulele
- Buy an "I am 3 today" badge/card
- Edit a medley of Christmas carols
- Buy a whistle
- Buy a suit that's about 1 or 2 sizes too big for me
- Invest in a fan that spells out words on it
- Rewrite the lyrics to Mack The Knife
- Write the lyrics for a spoof musical theatre song
- Research the history of rock music
- Watch Emmy-Lou Harris's Ten Commandments of Country Music, that I recorded last Christmas
- Email Roxette's manager

I have already this week bought two very cool hats. One is an alligator-skin (fake) cowboy style country music hat, and the other is a very comfortable trilby that I liked so much that I wore it all day at home on Monday, plus to the pub.

Some days I wish I was one of those comedians who just turns up to a stage and a microphone, talks for an hour, then goes home. Then I remember that that would mean I don't get to wear the hats...