Thursday 4 August 2016

On Stage Twice

Today was notable for two appearances onstage, but neither as a performer. Given that I have until Saturday before Mirthquake happens I took advantage of my free day to see some opening shows and was hooked into the first two acts I saw.

At 1pm I ambled into the not-quite-set-up-yet Beehive venue to see Candy Gigi's "If I Had A Rich Man". The last time I'd seen Candy was when she performed at my night in Leytonstone over two years ago so I was looking forward to this. As I made my way to the bar I bumped into comedy blogger John Fleming. Making up about a quarter of the total audience we witnessed clown-like insanity paired with one of the best singing voices I've heard in ages. I've vowed not to give away the content of any of the shows I see but suffice to say that at one point I was playing the part of her interrogating grandmother whilst wearing a fearsome costume. Go and see her. Hopefully the venue will have stopped maxing out the air con in her room by then and you won't have to wear a coat during the show.

After a brief wander I headed to the The Caves to see Louise Reay's, "Que Sera" (pictured) - a show entirely in Chinese designed to test the theory that only 7% of communication is verbal and a follow-up to her 2015 show that previewed at Bear Jokes. A string of fantastically bizarre scenarios followed each other with audience members roped in to nearly all of them. I was back on stage, this time as a performing animal but I'll leave it at that so not to spoil the surprise. Another show well worth seeing. The performer in me though particularly marvelled at the enormous array of props in use - how Louise carts about fortune telling booths, televisions and bags and bags of props is an impressive mystery.

Back in stand-up territory I headed over to The Hanover Tap to see "Stage Against The Machine" featuring Suzie Wild, Dave Black and Simone Belshaw in a three hander configured similarly to Mirthquake. With Dave and Simone regulars of Famous First Words some of the material was comfortably familiar, though there were some surprises along the way. Having never seen Suzie before I was particularly impressed with the way she handled the small but perfectly formed audience. 

Post-show it was off to the Three Sisters for a pint and a chat before walking back to the flat via a shop selling super glue to DIY repair one of my trainers. A pizza, a few phone calls and a fixed trainer later, James and I headed out to see LJ Da Funk but halfway up Cowgate got chatting to some of James' friends and ended up at their poetry vs comedy night, "Stand Up and Slam". A variety show framed as a battle between the two arts it was a pacy affair with edges of improv. Another show well worth seeing.

Tomorrow is move-in day at The Southsider and we're also going to try and pick up our performer passes. What these actually avail is unknown but even having a laminate with "performer" written on it seems like a good enough reason.

And so the stats:


Shows Performed: 0 (0)
Bums on seats at Mirthquake: 0 (0)
Money in the Mirthquake bucket: £0 (£0)
Steps walked according to my poundshop pedometer: 4,912* (25,916)

CDs Remaining: 100

* This is clearly wrong by a massive margin but it's what the pedometer says. The reset button being blindingly easy to hit may have something to do with this. It's been pointed out I can use a more accurate measure on my iPhone which, though less amusing, may be more useful. The stats for that are:
Tuesday: 15, 509
Wednesday: 22,689
Thursday: 20,062
TOTAL: 58,260

No comments:

Post a Comment