Gig 75a: Marmite Junction on All FM, Manchester – 9th September 2012

September 13, 2012 1 Comment

Hey gang! Get ready for another post where I don’t really have that much to say! I also have a strict deadline of 8 minutes to write it, so I can’t go into detail even if I wanted to.  You lucky, lucky people.

So, I was asked by Adam Blaize – who I know through Magical Animals –  if I wanted to make a guest appearance on a show he’d be co-presenting with Sam Smith (another Magical Animals alumni).  As I’m writing this post then I clearly said yes.  I’ve made a few radio appearances in the past (I’ve written about them elsewhere on this blog, but can’t be bothered finding the links. As I say, I’m on a tight deadline.  To be honest, I’m wasting time telling you this. I’d better crack on).  All those other appearances have been with my close friend Vic McGlynn.  These shows have been pretty easy to do because we know each other really well and she’s a consummate radio professional.  It felt like it would be good experience to appear with people I don’t know as well, and to see how I’d cope.

In short (as I only have 2 minutes left), it was a lot of fun. We basically just did a bit of a daft chat in between songs. I think I came up with some funny stuff.  My girlfriend told me that I did, but she’s biased, so I can’t say for sure.

And that is, literally, it.  Don’t worry, one day I will start writing interesting blog posts, but you’ll need to keep reading to find out when that happens.

P.s.

The show was called Marmite Junction. That’s why it says “Marmite Junction” in the title.

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Gig 29a: Quizzilingus @ The Bowling Green, Chorlton – 26th January 2012

January 29, 2012 Leave a comment

English: Michael Jackson at the Cannes film fe...

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Incredibly, it’s been 7 months since I last made a guest appearance at Quizzilingus (see here).  I actually can’t believe that it’s been that long, so much so that it’s making my brain want to explode.

You might be forgiven for wondering how doing a 10-question round at a pub quiz vaguely relates to performing comedy, so I had better explain.  The round is euphemistically entitled “The Experimental Round”, which essentially means I can just do whatever I want to.  This week saw me perform as Jack Michaelson (Chortlon’s 14th-best Michael Jackson impersonator).  The questions were all based on Michael Jackson songs and were of the form of “jokes” that were so bad that they end up becoming weird riddles (e.g. Q:  Which MJ song is about his demands for a non-electrically powered alternative to a hoover?  A: I want Ewbank).  To be honest, the aim of the round isn’t necessarily for anybody to get the right answers.  In fact, the last few times that I’ve done it, far too many teams were getting 8 or 9 out of ten, which was disheartening.  I’m pleased to say that on this occasion the highest score was 6 and that next to that was 3 out of ten.

The format also really allows me to play about and just say some stupid stuff (in an attempt to be funny).  I quite liked the fact that ostensibly I was “in character” but essentially making up who the character was as I went along (Michaelson’s catchphrase is “ha ha”).  It’s also a really interesting performance experience as what I’m basically doing is attempting to do a comedy performance in a completely non-comedy situation.  Although some people seemed to really enjoy it (there was a round of applause at the end), obviously some people are there because they want to do a quiz and don’t want to hear some idiot waffling on.  There’s definitely something to be learnt from it, but I have no idea what it is yet.

The last time I did Quizzlingus, it led directly to me performing proper character comedy as Gary Barlow (most successfully, here), so perhaps we’ll be seeing Jack Michaelson again soon.

To be fair, we might not.

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