This won’t be a long post – I’ve mostly got my editor hat on this week, so I’m a good way through my reading list for Best of British Science Fiction and keen to get a table of contents ready soon. That’s before embarking on the next reading pile for Laughs in Space, which I’m launching at Worldcon in Glasgow. Speaking of Worldcon, the hotel bookings just opened up for that, and I’m chasing up bits and pieces to do with my very first time being a vendor at one of these things. Busy bee, that’s me!
I’ve also confirmed I’m going to Eastercon in Birmingham to do a stand-up set, most likely the Friday, but I won’t swear to it just yet. And I’m on two literary panels at the upcoming Sci-Fi Weekender in Great Yarmouth. You can’t keep me away from that place, I know!
Plus, I’m on an ongoing mission – to give my office a declutter and refresh. I flipping hope I won’t be discovering any new lifeforms anyway. It is basically a stock room with teetering piles of books (bookvalanches), various bits of bathroom fittings and wallpaper won at auction, a drum kit, and my desk. I aim to get it looking less like this and more like an actual office – a pleasant space to work, read, hang out with the cat, etc. Maybe even have room for guests. What dreams! What unimaginable luxury!
I’ve got a few spots booked at Leicester Comedy festival – not many, as I have no solo show, and this is the year of BOOKS. But a little bit of comedy chaos continues to clutter my life… My, what a sentence that just was. I should get Stacey Solomon to look at it.
Anyway, last weekend the focus was satire. I took part in a panel for Beyond the Stage, arranged by Royal & Derngate Theatre, but taking place just over the road by Vulcan Works.
On the panel were myself, Esther aka Poetic License – the current Bard of Northampton, Jen Strike (comedian, improv queen, Baron Munchausen companion), and comedian, actor, musician extraordinaire Andrew O’Neill.
I have borrowed this image from Esther’s Instagram. It’s her, me and Bard number 10, Paul Giffney, who was in the audience. Bards Assemble!
I also shameless borrow this photo from Jen Strike, and plead clemency by instructing you all to go and see Canny Funny Improv at the Pomfret Arms in Northampton this Friday, 24th.
A great discussion was had following some excellent stand-up from Andrew, and Esther and I read out poems. This was mine:
How Much is a First-Class Stamp?
The price of a stamp might at first seem a lot But it's so much cheaper than a garotte. Besides, you've got to factor in all the Post Office costs Like the price of decent henchmen, and keeping your fingers crossed. See, back in the 90s, a stamp cost 26p When all the books were on paper, and a smack in the mouth was free. But a change was on the Horizon. There had to be a way To not just raise the price of a first-class stamp... but make even more grannies pay. Old sub-postmasters had invested their savings and pensions. PO soon got their claws into that It was worse than when Granny Dryden Got booted from Postman Pat. The system recorded shortfalls and the No Help Desk made things worse. Some poor sods carried off in a Bridewell taxi and some got a ride in a hearse. How could priestly Paula Vennels allow such devastation to pass? She denied the bugs in the system, as well as the one up her arse. So how much does a first-class stamp cost? It depends on who's wearing the boots. Now the boots are off, it's all toes bared. The excuses no longer compute. Give some steel toe caps to Alan Bates. Some Nurocks for Betty Brown. Jo Hamilton, lace up your DMs Cos the real crooks are going down. We've been paying too much for a first-class stamp And these folks who've been getting the licking. On Nick Willis, On Private Eye, ah, there you are Guardian! Let's hope your message is sticking.
A bit of rough and ready doggerel does the job sometimes.
Afterwards, we went to the theatre to go and watch Frogs! Adapted from the world’s earliest known comedy double act.
Spymonkey’s tragically funny attempt to pull off Aristophanes’ classic comedy Spymonkey’s Toby Park and Aitor Basauri are at the end of the road. The other Spymonkeys have taken themselves off to a better place, and they’re about to call it a day. To their rescue rides mega-rich philanthropist Patty Getty and her theatrically ambitious niece Pamela with an offer they can’t refuse! But does this beleaguered comedy duo have what it takes to perform the classic Greek comedy The Frogs at Patty’s legendary amphitheatre in Hollywood? Shot through with Spymonkey’s uniquely surreal comedy, The Frogs is a delirious trip through Greek theatre, a monster-filled Underworld and classic vaudeville double acts. Promising more existential angst than Clash of the Titans and more bronzed oiled torsos than Waiting For Godot – oh, and there’s a jumping chorus of tap-dancing frogs!
It really is very funny, combining clever and surreal with slapstick and pathos, and I heartily recommend it. Very entertaining – and still on in Northampton until February 3rd. Go see!
