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Leave a Comment / End of year roundup, The Slab, Uncategorized, Writing / By

It’s like a round-up, but more generic.

Many kinds of milestones have been achieved this year. Some more welcome than others. As a middle-aged childless woman who dotes on her nephews, I would love to say I’m embracing my Sank-Aunt years, but I’m afraid I have entered this new decade with an insistent sense of mild panic. I need to do all the things now, says this nagging feeling before it’s too laaaaaaaate!

And simultaneously, I need to calm the golly gosh down, and stop doing so much before it’s too laaaaaaaaate!

If my life were a story, this would be a juicy bit of conflict hinting towards a really satisfying conclusion. As a writer, then, I have a couple of options as to how I’m going to bring this about. I could be a plotter, with a planner on the wall, and sticky notes everywhere. Every character ambition, every denouement would be according to my notes and I would not let them run away and do their own thing, no siree. I could be a Christie, writing until it seemed like I’d reached the end, and only then going back and adding in a few salient titbits as if to say, look, this is where I was heading all along. Or I could be a meanderer, with only a rough plan, and no sure idea of how I was going to end a really long saga. Maybe someone else can think of the point for me (George RR?).

In any case, I do have some notes, and they say I am in the waffly middle bit, definitely not more than halfway through (I can hope), and I am going to fill the next few chapters with twists and turns that do not rely on me adding in various subplots that go nowhere.

Here’s where the different strands of the story are at the end of 2023:

Comedy and Performing

Neil and I returned to the Museum of Comedy in London with our new sketch duo Prison Biscuit. After just three gigs we made the quarter finals of Sketch-Off, and we got to play a show at Eastercon, as well as our eventful and crazy show debut at Leicester Comedy Festival. Here’s a mini-documentary I made about our journey.

We’re back next year too! Come see us perform at the Museum of Comedy on January 14th. Neil as Uncle Moist is in the 4.30 show, and Prison Biscuit is on at 7.30.

As for The Extraordinary Time-Travelling Adventures of Baron Munchausen, it might be the first time since my involvement that we’ve not been nominated for an award, but by golly, we’ve done really well. This year, we’ve done theatrical residencies, gone to Leicester Comedy Festival, plus, I’ve done a tour of Cheshire, attended Durham Fringe (and stayed in a castle!), done some nice shows in Bristol and also, we played Latitude, which was brilliant!

My own solo stuff has had some ups and downs. I took my show Badger to Leicester and Buxton Festivals and had a really nice time but started to feel a bit of a sea change occurring, and a need to move on from that time in my life, no matter how replete it is with jokes about gynaecology. I still look like a novelty nightdress case with the big zipper scar down my front, so that’s reminder enough.

I got to do more headlining gigs this year, loads of panel shows, and also did a stand-up set at Sci-Fi Weekender, which was amazing! Plus, I reached the finals of Some-Antics Comedy Competition. Comedy has been pretty good to me on the whole. I’ve got to travel to some lovely places and stay in tents, castles, wooden huts, and caravans as part of the adventure.

SciFi Weekender photo by Petey the Tall

Next year: so far, I have a panel show booked at The Royal and Derngate as part of a day of Beyond the Stage – Frogs, a satirical play performed by Spymonkey theatre group. I’m on a panel IS SATIRE DEAD? discussing satire and counterculture, along with Andrew O’Neill on 20th January, and you can get your tickets here. 5.30-7.30pm, free.

All change though, as I’m taking at least a year off the solo full show work and a small hiatus in solo performing while I get the rest of my house in order, that’s both metaphorically and literally, as I live in a crumbling Victorian money-pit. Some sketch work and some Barons stuff will still be happening… and you can’t quit comedy, because it won’t quit you. So, watch this space for a really long time and eventually I’ll be back.

Writing and Editing

My editing life took over, so apart from a couple of bits in fanzines and a reprint of my story “Smiley Wakes Up” in Dark Horses I’ve not had anything published under my own name this year. That is not going to be the case in 2024, I already know.

I have had two anthologies published in 2023: The Best of British Science Fiction 2022, from Newcon Press. (Currently working on ‘2023 – my 8th Best of antho to date!), and Dark Horses: A Science-Fiction Anthology by Friends of the Arts Lab.

I’ve been working on Dark Horses for a while, and it has been like herding cats at times, but I loved it! It’s out now, available direct from theslab.press or your usual online bookstores. There are stories in it by Arts Lab members from all around the UK, including me, Alistair Fruish, and Alan Moore!

And what is this The Slab Press? Well, it’s me! I’ve started a new publishing company. And yes, the next book (another anthology) is planned! I’m excited, thrilled and scared to death, but it feels wonderful to say, yes, I’m a publisher!

As a writer/editor I’ve appeared at a few conventions in 2023, and I’m glad to say I’ll be back at SFW for more literary panel fun next year, plus I’ll be at Fantasycon in Chester and Worldcon in Glasgow.

Me at Sci-Fi Weekender with Anna Stephens, Paul Eccentric and Bryony Pearce.

Travel

Google Maps has recorded 40 places visited in 2023, the vast majority for gigs and conventions. Having not travelled abroad since 2016, the carbon footprint was a little heavy this year with 2 trips to the med. Quite a lot of Roman ruins!

Music

From my Setlist:

Pretty eclectic mix, eh? Next year we will see Tenacious D, New Model Army, Foo Fighters, Suede, Manic Street Preachers and They Might Be Giants.

Films

Yes, I did Barbenheimer! Two amazing films there… which of them will be a canonical classic for years to come? Shall I say both? Absolutely. Also, I can’t get enough of “I’m Just Ken.”

Killers of the Flower Moon was also great. Kind of two films in one, really. Martin Scorsese hates dropping scenes, but this one at least had pace and flow. My MCU film of the year has to be The Marvels, not sure why others didn’t rate it so well… but better than any of them was Dungeons and Dragons. I did spot a continuity flaw, but only because I was scouring the scenery for bearded knights, as someone I know with a beard was in the film, having shot his scenes in Wells Cathedral. Not sure if it was him, but a non-speaking bearded knight got swapped in a scene so that someone with a line could be in frame.

I loved The Little Mermaid, and Netflix films Luther: The Fallen Sun, You People, and Leave the World Behind (Julia Roberts is brilliantly awful!). Let’s not dwell on the things I missed, or the films I wish I had missed. I enjoyed Napoleon too, but, yeah… that could have been more.

TV

I have pretty much indulged in TV in the last couple of months as projects have finished or come close to a close, so these skew towards Autumn/Winter TV. We hosted watch parties for the Doctor Who specials, and I adored Ncuti Gatwa’s first solo episode on Christmas Day. Yeah, so there was singing? So what you miserable curmudgeons. I liked it. This is my screensaver now:

It has a very implausible premise, but if you ignore that then The Vigil is absolutely brilliant. What a pair Rose Leslie and Suranne Davies are!

The Woman in the Wall started out intriguing…didn’t quite live up to its initial eeriness. I still liked it.

Also in the top shows of the year, I just watched Boat Story, and that’s well worth a look. The Long Shadow was a great piece of Crime drama too. and for pure joy, Good Omens. I love it more and more!

Only Murders in the Building – now there is a show that could not put a foot wrong. Steve, Martin, and Selena, I adore you! Now there’s a show not beholden to any stupid ideas about what you can and can’t do with a mixed age cast. Also, “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did it” is an absolute banger.

Ageism is why I’m not going to watch the new Chicken Run. Julia Sawalha’s role should not have been recast without a voice test, after the filmmakers said she was too old to play Ginger. Someone almost the same age did end up replacing her, but it just so happened to be the hot female lead from Mission Impossible, rather than the frump from Ab Fab.

Books

My best read of the year has to be Candescent Blooms by Andrew Hook – a superb collection of stories about the deaths of Golden Age of Hollywood stars.

Best novel – Broken Light by Joanne Harris – one of her absolute best! Wondrous and magical, and so recognisable.

Best non-fiction – Underland by Robert Macfarlane – a kind of non-fiction storytelling that weaves in many elements about things that are under the surface of the earth, from cave squatting, to potholing, to art – both prehistoric and modern, forces nature, and the evils of genocide.

So that’s my year. Here’s to the next. May it be exactly the right kind of busy you need.

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