Comedy news: Such Small Portions's blog

In part two of his mini diary of the Far East, Carl Donnelly heads from the laid back town of Phuket to the lions den of Pattaya and on to witness the protests in Bangkok.

Pattaya

 I think there should be a sign as you enter Pattaya saying “WARNING – Sexually aggressive prostitutes roam wild. Stay in groups” as nothing could have prepared us for our post show wander. This was probably the quietist of the gigs in that half of the town was deserted due to the volcanic ash cloud hovering over northern Europe.

Most visitors had to delay their journey meaning the hotel we were staying and performing in was pretty mush deserted. Despite the small numbers, the audience were great fun and again allowed for us to mess around a bit more than in Hong Kong where it felt like a gig you really had to get to the point!

After the show was when the real fun/terror started. We went for our ritual post-show drinks and decided to head into the busy bar area of Pattaya. We came to a corner and looked up a road that seemed to have loads of bars and looked like fun so we agreed this would be the route to take. Within twenty yards of entering the road the first group of prostitutes attacked.

Like tigers separating a group of Gazelle we were split up and groped individually while they tried to convince us to enter their establishment (this is meant literally and as a euphemism)! We managed to fight through and re-group only for the next group, this time of lady-boys to jump us.

They were equally as aggressive but also equipped with the strength of men making them some sort of super prostitute! Basically over the next 300 yards and what felt like an hour we fought off group after group of sex workers. Initially we were laughing and joking about it but by the end we were pretty much sprinting for the end of the road! 

A few drinks settled us down before we took a different route back to the hotel as had an early set off to Bangkok for our final leg of the tour.

Bangkok

We were warned off going to Bangkok by a lot of people as the night before there had been a bomb attack on a major train station as part of the anti-government demonstrations that had been going on for a fortnight.

Over breakfast though we agreed that “It’ll be fine” and then off we went into the danger zone. Based on the BBC news reporting I was expecting us to be driving in through burnt out cars and bodies but the truth is that in Bangkok it was business as usual.

The city carried on as if nothing was happening, the gigs were full and at no point did we feel in any danger. It is a testament to the Thai way of life that even when bombs are going off they are still cheery and chilled out. London grinds to a halt if there is an inch of snow! 

The first nights journey to the gig was fun in that we were stuck in traffic on route and it was looking like we were going to be very late so had to hop out and jump on the back of motorbike taxis. Imagine the site of three comics and a promoter being delivered to the venue like a pizza!

The gigs in Bangkok were the perfect end to our tour. Both nights were full of funny eccentric ex-pats who were great fun which meant we had as much fun as they did during the show.

All in all it was my favourite overseas tour I’ve ever done and will be hard to beat. It was also the perfect trip to kick me back into gear as sometimes as a stand-up you find yourself complaining that you have to travel a lot and go to places you might not like but it is tours like this that remind us just how lucky we are doing what we do.

For details of these gigs in the Far-East check out www.punchlinecomedy.com/

Carl Donnelly is currently touring the UK with fellow Fringe Award nominee Pete Johansson, for more information and tour dates visit: Carl Donnelly's Official Website

With the violence in Bangkok becoming so severe that Foreign Office has advised against travel to Thailand it's best to give old Siam a bit of a wide berth at the moment, unless of course you are a comedian. Carl Donnelly has just returned from a short tour of the Far East, here is part one of his On The Road blog he penned for SSP.

I have just returned from a tour of the Far East during which I did shows in Hong Kong, Phuket, Pataya and Bangkok. All in all it was a successful tour with good shows and much fun was had.

The first question you get asked when you tell people you are performing/have performed stand-up in the Far East is “Who to?” They seem to think I decided that the comedy circuit in the UK holds nothing for me so learnt Chinese & Thai and headed off to create my own circuit! 

The truth of course is that I was performing to ex-pats, a mixture of Brits, Irish, Americans, Canadians and maybe a few other Europeans scattered around. It is basically no different to the audience demographic at any large weekend club in any major city.

Here a brief description of what we got up to on each leg of the tour:

Hong Kong:  This was my least favourite place on the tour but we had three very good shows. The locals are basically like Londoners in that they walk around looking miserable viewing any outsiders/tourists as a hindrance. I’d normally be into that but after a couple of days I just wanted to see some cheery local people as It didn’t feel right that the only happy people I saw in the whole of Hong Kong were the westerners that were at our shows! 

On the second day I did stumble across a theory that it was the diet that made the locals so moody. This was all down to the worst tasting item of food that has ever entered my body: Melon Soup.  I have always been quite an adventurous eater. If there is something that sounds odd and like it is clearly a mistake on a menu you can rest assured that I am going to order it. On this night ‘Melon Soup’ stood out as the weirdest sounding thing.

I ordered it and awaited it with baited breath. It came last which was the worst thing that can happen, we had eaten a massive array of tasty dishes so as the Soup came, there was a lot for it to live up to. Unfortunately rather than be the perfect end to a perfect meal, it basically ruined my day.

It sounds like an exaggeration to say a bit of food can ruin your day but I love food so much that I expect a lot out of each portion. I am very judgemental of food. During each meal I have there are two things happening. One is the physical act of me eating.

The other is the episode of Masterchef going on in my head! I turn into Gregg Wallace for those moments and if you had been able to hear my Gregg impression during my Melon Soup, the air would have been blue, Jon Torode would be getting a kicking and the dish would be on the wall! It was basically a bowl of hot sick with seaweed on top. It tasted like someone had eaten a melon and drank some tea and then vomited into my bowl and said ‘enjoy’. 

We did three shows in Hong Kong and all were good but nothing could make up for that soup!

Phuket – This was probably the most chilled out leg of the tour as we were there for four days and only did one show which meant we spent most our days by the pool drinking and coming up with swimming based games. By the fourth day we had a whole selection of events such as ‘Pushy Offsies’ and ‘Spinney Roundy’. I think we had a reputation around the pool as the four grown men who act like twats!

There is literally nothing to dislike about Phuket. It is as if they have collected up all the friendliest people in the world and whacked them on an island. Then just as they were thinking they were done they also decided to make everything incredibly cheap!

I think the show in Phuket reflected our visit in that it was probably the most laid back show where the audience allowed us to mess around and do some weirder stuff. It is probably a good thing that we didn’t spend more time here as a few more days by the pool and I would have been so relaxed I think I would have been performing lying down!

(part two, including Bangkok and Pattaya coming tomorrow)

Carl Donnelly is currently touring the UK with fellow Fringe Award nominee Pete Johansson, for more information and tour dates visit: Carl Donnelly's Official Website

If you have ever become even slightly infatuated with a celebrity you will know that the place to go for the latest news on them is not the papers, it's the fanclubs who seem to always get the inside scoop. But what is it like to run one? We asked Didy, who runs The Velvet Onion for, er, the inside scoop. Read on...

In the early part of 2004, I saw a new spoof horror comedy on Channel 4, entitled Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.  Despite being instantly hooked, if you'd told me then where this little known cult favourite would lead my life, I'd have scoffed and looked for the nearest available exit.

Six years and countless treasured memories later, I find myself running what has fast become a daily fix for hundreds of readers. You see, Darkplace led me, via a convoluted but eventful path to The Mighty Boosh and it wasn't too long after this that a long term friend of theirs was setting up Modwolves - the official unofficial fanclub.

Naturally I signed up, friendships developed, and by the time the Future Sailors tour came along, the Modwolves were meeting up, in costume, up and down the country to share in the joy.  I was lucky enough to meet the Boosh themselves a few times during the tour, and their warm, approachable nature further cemented my admiration for them.

I realised last year however, that whilst whatever the Boosh (or at least, Noel Fielding) does inevitably gets out there to the fanbase, a lot of the material by those that encircle the show goes unnoticed.

Most of the viewers for Alice Lowe's Lifespam pilot last year seemed to come from her fans on Facebook, whoring the news of its transmission to anyone who cared.  Clearly something had to be done - and I felt this, coupled with a need for somewhere for the Modwolves and other Boosh fans to be brought together led me to start a news blog with a few carefully selected fans - people I could trust to share in this passion of mine, without resorting to drooling over the shape of Noel's face or Julian Barratt's legs every five seconds.  People who were more interested in the art than the artists themselves.

To my surprise, it appears to be working.  We're regularly getting reader numbers I could only have dreamt of.  Both Rich Fulcher, and the ever wonderful Dave Brown [seriously - that man's a saint, I tell ya!] have given it their support, and we've had lovely messages from Matt Berry, Alice Lowe, Antony Elvin, Robots In Disguise, DeadDogInBlackBag - the very people whose work we wanted to point out was often ignored unfairly.

It's a hard slog sometimes, finding the news stories to post, and looking at fresh ways to present the information and bring our audience some exclusives and interviews along the way - but we're getting there, learning together.  

The ultimate compliment for me, was when one of my heroes asked me an important question: "Why aren't you a journalist?".  That sort of thing makes you WANT to do what we do, and thanks to that question, I've decided the time has come to stop wasting my life in dead-end jobs, and am applying to undertake a Journalism course in the Autumn.

Darkplace and The Boosh have found me a whole host of great new friends, led me on madcap adventures in ridiculous costumes, and even found me the love of my life - I met my partner through Modwolves, and I'd be rubbish without her, quite frankly.  And now it seems they make actually be giving me a career option too.  I owe them so much, that The Velvet Onion is the very least I can do.

Find out more about The Velvet Onion here at www.thevelvetonion.com

There is something stirring in the Welsh hills. A town which was once home to a prince and a parliament is set to take centre stage once again as it hosts a weekend-long artistic invasion. 

The historic town of Machynlleth in mid-Wales, which was once home to the first Welsh Parliament under Owain Glyndŵr, is set to play host to some of the biggest names currently touring the UK comedy circuit this weekend for the inaugural Machynlleth Comedy Festival. 

Described by some as ‘the new Hay’ and others as an alternative to the Edinburgh Fringe, though new, the Machynlleth festival hopes to follow in Hay's literary footsteps to become a home for live comedy in the country.  

Over 30 acts, including Robin Ince, Jon Richardson, Pappy’s Fun Club and Isy Suttie are set to perform over the festival weekend while Rhod Gilbert also planning taking time out from recording his DVD in London to take the train up to the festival on the Sunday.  

Small towns in mid Wales are rarely the places you expect to uncover comedy gold, but for independent promoter Henry Widdicombe, who came up with the idea for Machynlleth while organising the comedy stages for other small festivals such as Green Man, the town, near Aberystwyth, could become a new epicentre for comedy. 

“We took the inspiration to start Machynlleth because Wales didn’t really have anything like this going, yet it has some excellent small market towns which lend themselves perfectly to these kinds of events.  

Although comparisons have been drawn with Edinburgh already according to Widdicombe, the appeal of Machynlleth is its ability to offer something different. “In many cities you barely know a festival is happening, but if you take something small you can have a big impact. 

“Edinburgh is wonderful for what it is but what we are trying to do is the exact opposite. We want to put on the kind of festival which is ok with being small rather than trying to become a comedy behemoth.  “We are small, quirky and select, but not exclusive,” Widdicombe says. 

Boutique festivals have grown in popularity in recent years, with a plethora of spoken word, science, fringe, theatre or comedy gatherings springing up across the UK. But what is it about the Welsh countryside which attracts people to come from across the country to perform? 

According to Robin Ince, who is appearing at Machynlleth twice over the weekend, the appeal is in the nature of festivals themselves: “Festivals are a place where people are able to share a common ground, a place for people to expand ideas. 

“At Hay I am performing at the Philosophy festival, at Machynlleth I am hoping to try out some new ways of presenting my material.” Ince adds. “The experimentation and unpredictable nature of festivals is what makes these kinds of performances exciting.” 

“There is a looseness that you don’t have anywhere else than the summertime fields of the United Kingdom.” 

Machynlleth isn’t only offering comedy, during the weekend visitors will be entertained by a number of street performers as well as being able to take part in a range of events including Scrabble Sunday – where people can partake in a large-scale competition of the traditional board game, complete with its own referee. 

Machynlleth is funded in part by a grant from Glasu, a fund run by Powys council which aims to provide funds for festivals and events which enhance and benefit the local community, and  

“The funding I received has been key to the festival,” Widdicombe says. “It has given me an opportunity to put a marker down and I wouldn’t have been able to put the festival on without it.” 

“A lot of people have been really positive, and we had to hold a few meetings to introduce ourselves to the town and answer questions. A lot of feedback has been that this is what the town has needed.” 

Looking beyond 2010, the festival organisers are keen to improve more next year by finding a sponsor, developing the line-up and grow the festival. 

“There has been a lot of enthusiasm for comedy in Wales” Widdicombe adds. “It’s good for Wales, good for the welsh comedy scene, and reap the benefits in the longer term” 

The Machynlleth Comedy Festival takes place between 23 – 25th of April for more information and tickets visit: http://www.machcomedyfest.co.uk 

Travel may broaden the mind, but as most circuit comics will tell you, eventually it also broadens the belly. At that working hour occupied by truck-drivers, joke-tellers and serial killers, the pickings are slim when it comes to our dining options. Even the latter of those three needs some salad to go with his brains every now and again.

Unless you're lucky enough to be en route with Paul Foot, who has been known to pack an entire picnic, complete with hamper, the midnight delights on offer to a comedian on the road rarely stretch beyond a packet of service station Monster Munch, a Wimpy (still going!) or a kebab three doors down from the venue you just played, shattering any illusion of showbiz glamour instantly when half the audience walk in, just as you're handed a cardboardy pitta bread packed full of a dogfood-like substance.

To compound this, the sad truth is that often you only just have enough cash to cover this meaty treat, as you await your 'cheque to follow,' which duly follows 2 or 3 months later...

What prompted this midnight snack critique is that I am typing this blog post-gig lying on a hostel bed (look, we shattered that showbiz illusion back at the kebab house) while, for the first time in my life, a little section of my belly is attempting to peak over the laptop resting on my lap.

I've been away from home for 2 months now, playing the Australian festivals, and although the late-night food options are marginally better here (you can always buy a banana from somewhere at 3am), my addiction to the BBQ Pork Bun has now reached such levels that this foodstuff has become breakfast on more than one occasion.

Being situated, as I am, on the corner of Chinatown, these cheeky little parcels of sweet-and-savoury fun also become all-too accessible, 24 hours a day.

I mean we're not talking full-on man-mary glands here, just the beginnings of a paunch. At 31, I guess I can't rely on that inherited fast metabolism anymore, or even running or cycling to or from London gigs. I may genuinely have to consider the packed lunch salad option.

The thing is, I bloody love food.

I especially love the gigs where you’re offered food before going on. Brilliant! “Steak and chips?? Hey, forget the fee” are words I’ve come close to saying, but have fortunately never said. And it’s shocking the number of times I’ve forfeited giving 100% on stage for the sake of shovelling a free curry into my gob 6 minutes before being on that stage.

Everyone’s suffered a food coma at work, I’m sure, but when your work involves being sharp and agile of mind, it really doesn’t help to have your body’s functions wholly diverted to processing a stodgy and hastily-ingested feast.

For all the athletic implications of the word “circuit,” I just want to assure readers that this is far from the truth. The late-night eateries that are effectively our office canteens simply don’t allow for it.

And the thing is, even if I could buy an apple from a service station at 1am, would that be the option I’d genuinely take? If they start making them in Roast Beef flavour, then maybe we have a deal.

Alexis Dubus will be performing two shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - Marcel Lucont: Encore at Underbelly, 9.30pm Aug 5-30 (not 18), and Alexis Dubus: A Surprisingly Tasteful Show About Nudity, 5pm, The Tron, Aug 5-30 (not 18).

Today was a good day. Hung out with Perth comedian Damo Clark, and my girlfriend Sarah Bennetto in the St Kilda sunshine. We’re here for the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

English comedian, Alex Horne has set a series of 12 tasks for a group of comics. Last month’s challenge was to tell the world that “Alex Horne is a magnificent man.”  He is. I proclaimed it on BRMB – a Birmingham radio station. This month we have to video ourselves downing a pint. I enlisted Damo as pacemaker and Sarah as cameraman.

We thought we would film in front of a Melbourne landmark, Luna Park - a Scooby Doo style theme park, with the oldest operating wooden roller coaster in the world. First we had to liberate pint glasses from a local pub, buy booze from an offlicence, stand in front of Luna Park, and whop them back before the Luna Park Rangers scold us for drinking in the street.

Damo downed his in a few seconds while I supped mine like an old lady sipping hot tea. I took so long the camera battery ran out.

Later on I found myself downing a pint on stage to the reassuring sounds of "Skull! Skull! Skull!" There’s nothing like a bit of pressure to get the job done.

I elected to do it at the end my solo show. Although my flat mate and fellow comedian, Yianni pointed out that downing a pint of beer on stage is not the best way to end a show about wine!

James Dowdeswell is performing his new solo show My Grandad Was A Clown And Those Are Big Shoes To Fill at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Trades Hall until 18th April. This summer, he will be performing at The Stand Comedy Club, Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 6-30th August at 3pm.

On The road is a regular series of features covering the lives of comedians away from the spotlight, If you want to contribute email tim@suchsmallportions.com and get in touch!

In the first of a series of special On The Road features from the Melbourne Comedy Festival, Yianni Agisilaou ponders the consequences of leaving things to the last minute...

Friend - We’re really looking forward to your show Yianni. We’re coming next week!

Me - Um…there are no shows next week. The last show is this Sunday. There is a fundamental human propensity to leave things, even extremely pleasurable things, until the last minute.

This is fairly obvious in the case of unpleasant tasks such as cleaning the toilet or submitting your tax return. The human capacity for denial commandeers your brain, convincing you that the later you leave the task, the more space you create for some miraculous deus ex machina to appear, saving you the sheer drudgery. I indulged in this in January this year, day after day hoping that the entire income tax regime might be repealed and replaced with a sort of ‘try your luck’ game show involving spinning wheels, gambling and prizes. I am informed that such a system has already been introduced. It’s called “Auditing”

Even extremely pleasurable things are often left until the last possible moment. To wit, sex very rarely BEGINS with an orgasm. Except for that time I walked in on my girlfriend cruising at 30,000 feet whilst ‘flying solo’, pretended to feel really upset and rejected and guilted her into a conciliatory shag. Say what you want about guilt, and the Catholics will tell you the same, it gets the job done.

Thus it was that after a couple of first week shows to crowds which – if they were ages – wouldn’t be served a beer, last night I turned up for my last show to hear the bar manager Kevin suggest to me that we open the doors to the auditorium early as the bar downstairs “was getting pretty crowded.”  And crowded it was, wall to wall with tardy yet well-meaning friends.

We opened the door. The crowd I’d spent a week yearning for surged up the stairs, spilling into the room. Where previously I’d had to instruct people to sit at the front, people were now forced to for lack of other available seats. With all the seats filled up, a problem, even if quite a good one, presented itself. Where to fit the numerous seatless others?

I used every ounce of my creativity to squeeze a crowd of 120 into a room designed to hold 70; pouffes became chairs; the wings of the stage became makeshift play-school type seating mats; more adventurous people were hung from the ceiling and periodically flipped for reasons of blood circulation; a live video feed was fed through to a local football stadium and the overspill sent there to watch.

Warm fuzzy feeling borne of shoehorning people in ingeniously aside, part of me couldn’t help but think “where the fuck were you people last week?!?”

Where were you when double figures went from a worst to a best-case scenario?

Where were you when the joke about the word ‘cunt’ fell flat because everyone felt self conscious, exposed and unable to laugh?

Where were you when my parents sat me down after the show and asked whether ‘this comedy thing’ was really worthwhile?

Really though, it didn’t matter. They were at least there, which put them indisputably above the next category of people. People who don’t submit their tax returns at all, people who never clean their toilets and the people who will – in the coming week – email, text or call to tell me how they’re so sorry and thought there were more shows.

After the show, a sequence of people approached me, complimented the show and my performance.  I smiled and nodded. I agreed that the show was good, but deep down I knew it wasn’t as good as it could have been.

See, the thing is, I kind of left writing it until the last minute. Really, I should have put more work into it. But I had so much on, what with submitting my tax return, cleaning my toilet and guilting my girlfriend into sex.

It’s alright though. It’ll be much better by Edinburgh. Because this time, I’m going to have it ready early, maybe by the end of May. Or maybe come July 29th I will find myself in front of my laptop, script open, rereading this blog with a fatalistic sense of self-loathing. Only time will tell.

* Written on Monday 12th April. Deadline was Friday 9th April.

Yianni Agisilaou has just completed a sell-out show at Tony Starr's Kitten Club as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. This summer he will be performing two new solo shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – 6-30 August,  at Just The Tonic at The Caves at 10.15pm and Cabaret Voltaire (Free Fringe) at 7.15pm. 

It's impressive how much ink has been spilt declaring how The Inbetweeners – E4's normally quite good comedy about how rubbish it is to be 17, series three of which is now starting filming – is like real life. “It's not as aspirational as Skins! Barely anyone has any sex, and everyone swears too much in an effort to look cool!” goes the thinking, which is true, albeit overlooking the fact the show is somewhat unreliable in comedy terms, meaning you watch the show through your fingers in fear you've accidentally tuned in to one of the dull episodes.

But just how true to life is it really? Wonderfully, I have some (admittedly stretching it a bit) insider knowledge on this topic, having gone to school with second string on the show Joe Thomas, the one who throws up on a child in the first series and gets his arse out on a boat in the second series. (The cast of the show in their mid-twenties, if you're wondering; they just presumably sleep in Tupperware to stay young, like in that episode of Eerie, Indiana.)

Not that I was ever on more than general nodding terms with someone who was a very nice chap, but still, how well does The Inbetweeners compare to reality?

• The school uniform in The Inbetweeners is a rather nice blue sweatshirt. At my real grammar school we had black blazers with bright red piping, which was wonderful for catching attention of locals on the massive council estate I used to have to walk home through.
• In The Inbetweeners, everyone is always talking about who has a hot mum. No one at my school had a hot mum.
• There's a joke on the show about a teacher that everyone thinks is a paedophile, which was a running joke about a teacher at our school too (he had a BEARD and would carry out SHOWER INSPECTIONS). Although in fairness that's probably true of 95% of educational establishments when seen through the eyes of teenagers. Actually, that means they did a good plotting job. Well done, The Inbetweeners!
• The Inbetweeners has a threatening bully, whereas I'm pretty sure everyone just got on very well with each other at my school. Probably something to do with all the latent homosexuality, retrospectively, but still: bully-free.
• The school in The Inbetweeners only appears to have two teachers. We had enough teachers to get a full education. Thanks, Essex Local Education Authority!