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A morning stone clear took in a shunning of the useless Ditch that Stopped Brexit and a visit to the newsagent instead - Hope you enjoy the new direction.
This is the 90th chapter of this shit
I also had a frustrating hour of home schooling where I tried to battle against the user unfriendly website and then encourage my daughter to use puppets to retell the story of a rainbow serpent creating Australian lakes by tickling frogs. Which is crazier than any of the puppet shows I’ve come up with.
In spite of filming a yoga class for her fellow pupils even though she wasn’t asked to do so, my daughter was too self-conscious to tell this simple and insane creation myth and we’d wasted an hour of whatever remains of our lives.
When will lockdown be over? When will someone else teach my children about snakes tickling frogs?
This is literally the worst thing that has happened to anyone because of Covid.
I did my first stand up gig of 2021 tonight, trying out 10 minutes of newish material at Gigless. I was apparently the 100th comedian to appear at this utterly charming gig, with lots of returning punters who had fun chats with the host, Catherine Bohart. The comedian before me, Andrew White, was staying with his parents and seemed to be performing from his childhood bedroom (complete with bunk bed in the background) and at one point his dad made an appearance and said hello. You don’t get that at the comedy store. Then after that Catherine noticed that a regular audience member who was usually alone was now accompanied by someone and there was a long discussion about this new romantic relationship and how it had evolved. It was all rather sweet and lovely, even though I felt I had accidentally chanced across a secret chat room that I shouldn’t be a part of.
And I did eleven minutes of material without having to get my puppets out. Before then getting my puppets out because the punters wanted to see them. The resolution to bin all pre-Covid stand up material is holding fast and I did my requisite 10 minutes without having to even attempt the material about Jif/Cif.
I mean I’ve had nearly a year to come up with new stuff, so ten minutes of serviceable stuff isn’t great. But then again I’ve only done about four other stand up gigs in that time.
We need more gigs like this to keep comedy and comedians going through lockdown and maybe it’s part of a sea-change in the industry. Will things ever be the same again when we’re finally allowed live audiences? The positives are that this is a time where comedians might be able to capture the impetus and make their own programming. It’s already happening for some comics. And maybe online gigs or a hybrid of live and online will be the future.
Personally I am loving doing my own stupid shows live on Twitch and I can’t see that they will stop once this crazy situation is over (if it ever is). It was the 26th Twitch of Fun tonight. That’s six month’s worth. Where else would I have been able to do that many episodes of something where I had no initial plan and have made up as I go along? And it’s not all that terrible. And hopefully is enjoyably terrible.
