Comedy news: How to run a fansite: SSP asks The Velvet Onion

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