Rob Rouse @ The Brindley, Runcorn – 27th May 2010
May 28, 2010 8 Comments
It’s been a while since I’ve visited The Brindley, so it was nice to be back. The gig was in the venue’s smaller room – The Studio – and it’s the first time that I’ve been there when they’ve sold enough tickets to get the proper seats out (probably 50-60 people). This made the room seem much more like a theatre and less like a quiz night in a school gym, as it has in the past. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.
Although I’ve seen Rob Rouse pop up on telly quite a few times, I had no idea what to expect from his live act. The first half of the show was mainly about how his life has changed after becoming a parent. The material seemed a little bit disjointed at times, but he’s a likeable and engaging performer, so this didn’t really spoil my enjoyment of it. After the interval, he performed his last year’s Edinburgh show, “My Family …and the Dog That Scared Jesus”. This was essentially two extended stories; the first was about his overly amorous dog and the second was about the birth of his son. There perhaps wasn’t quite enough material in the tales to fill the entire hour, but there were plenty of laughs along the way and some extremely vivid mimes that you have to give him credit for sticking with.
I only bought the ticket at the last minute, so it definitely made a pleasant change for a Thursday evening. At £8 a ticket, it was a bargain. If there’s some live comedy on in your area then go and see it. It sure beats watching the TV.
About sherby57
Hi! Are you from Runcorn? I have lived most of my life there. Never mind eh? I”ve now moved to Widnes; the one place on earth that’s actually worse! I also do a bit of writing;have done a novel. I was thinking of trying lulu.com; what has your experience of them? Hope you’ll check out my blog page.
Hi Jon
Actually, I’m from Warrington, but I also live in Widnes. The smell of poppers in the air is a constant delight to my olfactory senses.
Lulu has been nothing but a positive experience, and I highly recommend it if you fancy self-published. It doesn’t actually cost you anything to do (other than the time spent writing, editing and formatting your manuscript) and the books look really professional – like ‘real’ books. You even get a free ISBN number and your books appear on Amazon:
http://poursomegravyonme.co.uk/2010/05/26/amazonian/
The only ‘gotcha’ that I’ve discovered is to do with the different prices that they charge for the various paper sizes (although I think they’ve decreased the price on some since I published).. I discuss it here:
http://poursomegravyonme.co.uk/2010/05/06/more-book-stuff-lulu-advice/
All in all, I highly recommend it as a way of getting your stuff out there and available.
I’ll go and check out your blog now!
Thanks for that reply Sherby (Is that what I call you?). I’ve just tried to have a go at lulu.com and it looks pretty good although I’m not sure I have the technical; skill to upload my text docs with all the correct margins etc. Are you any good at that stuff? May need your expert advice at some point. Enjoyin your blog so will continue to check out. Thanks for Twitter follow too. Am also on facebook, formspring,me and brightkite.com. Yeah I know I should get out more. Talk again.
Jon
You’re more than welcome to call me Sherby or Sherb or Ste!
The technical side of Lulu is easier than you might think. You basically just download a template for your document that has all the correct margins etc and then you upload it and it converts it for you. I’m more than happy to help if I can, though!
Ste
That sounds ok. Will that work even if I’ve already written the book (40 Chapters!!) already with different margins and stuff? Also, does it have to be a pdf document?
The template are Word documents, so you’d have to copy your existing work into one and then just make sure that the chapters start at the top of pages and stuff like that. When you upload it back to Lulu, it then converts it into a PDF for you, so you don’t need to worry about that. I would recommend that you read through the generated PDF properly, though, as you have to double check that it’s all formatted properly.
Thats a big help. Thanks. Will try it.
Let me know if you need any more advice.