Weekend musings

It's a strange but pleasant experience to be having a weekend off. It's Saturday and Hev & I are both at home. And we'll be in on Saturday night together for the first time in weeks. Last Saturday we were in Manchester, with me gigging with the Socks and Hev staying over in the hotel room, and there have been a few like that. One reason for all this staying away was, of course, my work (the Socks have been doing rather well for gigs lately, taking us from Whitby to Surrey to Hampshire to Bath to.. oh google us). The other reason for our desire to be away from the flat was the ongoing repair work, which has dragged on since August when we had a big leak from upstairs, costing us our carpets, a layer of flooring and most of our lounge furniture.

That has now changed, at long long last. Last week the plywood flooring went down on our bare boards, followed on Monday by a lovely layer of underlay, Tuesday by our new wall to wall carpets, and Wednesday by the sofabed and two lounge chairs. Those have now been joined by a TV unit, which is now topped off with a new TV and a Sony Gigajuke (those were nothing to do with the water damage, but as it happens the money from the Edinburgh Fringe came through at the same time and we fancied rewarding ourselves).

All of which means we are spared a small leakage of another kind, sound from the flat downstairs which had, in the last couple of months, become the bane of our existence and made our lives quite miserable. Now, touching wood and trying not to tempt fate, it seems things have returned to normal. Admittedly last night it did sound like someone down there was blowing the place up, I'm assuming it was some kind of video game, but it stopped after not too long, and we couldn't even hear the shouting that must, inevitably, have accompanied the turning-down (going by previous patterns with which we've become a bit too familiar in our floor-lite period).

If I post a blog at anytime later with the heading "I spoke too soon", you'll know what I'm talking about (as I type this a downstairs down slammed loud enough to shake our coffee table, but nothing compared to "the day", which is what we'll hopefully be calling the last 12 weeks). But for the moment, loving this. It's windy and rainy outside, the sort of weather that causes structural damage, and I'm not having to drive in it. Other news this week, paid big tax bill, broke down twice in 7 days so needed to do fairly big repairs on car, the cat from next door has adopted us, and The Sitcom Trials have finished the first 4 heats and are now moving onto the semi finals. And I haven't written or recorded any new Socks material for the longest time in ages, so hope to produce some more in the coming week. And that's it for diaries, now to read a book or something.

Sitcom Trials heat 4 - video diary

Another fantastic Sitcom Trials, and lo and behold we've finished the heats already. Here's the video diary including clips from all the competing sitcoms and chats with some of the judges:



Actually there are a couple of nice interviews I couldn't include, with Torchwod's Tom Price and Coronation Street's Wanda Opalinska, because I pressed pause on the camera when I thought I'd pressed record. I am an idiot, but the show was very good.

The semi finals start next week, expecting another sellout so get booking those tickets now at: http://bit.ly/4aldSO

The Sitcom Trials - 10th Anniversary Season
Leicester Square Theatre Mondays 6pm & 8pm, Tickets: http://bit.ly/1MLzMt

Raiders of the lost Pitch Fests

Every week at the Sitcom Trials I read out the audience Twitter-length suggestions for sitcoms in The Pitch Fest. However I seem to have lost the pile of Pitch Fest entries I've been hanging onto week after week. This is a great shame, as the ones from earlier weeks were standing me in good stead, especially in the 6 o'clock show.

So, two requests. First, can anyone remember any of the Pitch Fests I've read out in the last three weeks? Remind me, here or offline, and I'll jot them down for Monday.

And secondly, anyone got any fresh entries? They're good for a laugh, and frankly the only thing that gets a laugh in some links. Your assistance welcomed.

Here the only ones I can remember:

The Eye Tea Crowd - Office workers ogle the drinks machine.
Awkward Silence - Holocaust deniers open a library in Golders Green
The Good Liff: John Lloyd brings new meaning to Surbiton

Also in Heat 3 we had Pitch Fests entitled Twats, Trump and Thick as Shit. So, better than that is what I'm saying. See you all Monday.

The Sitcom Trials - 10th Anniversary Season
Leicester Square Theatre Mondays 6pm & 8pm, Tickets: http://bit.ly/1MLzMt

Trials thoughts

Sitcom Trials 3 was a triumph. My biggest concern is that the 6pm audience laughs an awful lot more than the 8.30 one. This has happened every week and was most noticeable in heat 3 where the early show was so good that the second house felt horribly flat in contrast. It was like watching a different show, with scripts that had sparkled and gone from laugh to laugh a couple of hours earlier sounding flat and sometimes naff in the face of the silence that greeted them. 

Obviously my hosting suffered similarly, and I was worried that I'd somehow lost whatever touch I might have inbetween shows. In the 6pm show my throwaway asides about bowties and Bobby Crush were enough to keep the crowd jovial from the start, and the Pitchfests killed. In the 8.30 nothing worked at the start and it took all stops being pulled out including the contrived Amazing Sitcom Facts ( in which I get the punters to sing the jingle) to get a peep out of them. 

But of course an explanation has come to me. The early show is the one to which we give the writers free tickets and which they pack with their friends and families, at a fiver a pop. The late show, though it sells out, does so at a tenner a ticket, and clearly to a bunch who can't be counted on to be so immediately supportive. I must up my game with the second warm up. Stay tuned. 

2 new Michael Jackson stories

Two new stories about Michael Jackson. First, coming from my Comic Art Masterclass, which I deliver in schools, libraries etc around the country.

As part of my workshop I do a demonstration on the board going through techniques of comic strip drawing, involving a simple story of someone walking down a street and stepping on a worm. I ask the pupils who this person should be and they shout out suggestions from which we use the most popular. Before July this year the single most popular suggestion was Michael Jackson, with Simon Cowell running him a close second. (Other popular choices are Gordon Brown, Cheryl Cole, David Beckham and Barack Obama, the oddest recently being the group of 11 year olds who suggested Tim Brooke Taylor, because the Goodies was their favourite DVD).

Since July Michael Jackson has, almost inevitably, been the most popular suggestion when we play this game, but a change has come into the process. Because when it comes to me drawing a close up of Michael's face, where previously I would get great mileage from his skeletal look and non existent nose, now they have asked on at least four occasions for him to be drawn with his original black face and afro hair from the 1970s.

Remember these are kids aged between 8 and 15, so few were even born when he had his last significant hit in the UK let alone having experienced his music when it was new. So they choose from all points in Michael's history regardless, and for them it seems his appearance from 1972 to 82 is how they want to remember him. If this trend contnues, all the ills of his later years, from his grotesque appearance to the allegations and scandals that engulfed him, will fade, leaving a shining youth and lots of happy memories. Then maybe we can do the same for Gary Glitter and Jonathan King and Roman... not the same? Fair enough.

The second story concerns me 7 year old neice who has been made terrified of Michael Jackson and zombies in one fell swoop by dint of her well-meaning teacher who, in the wake of Jackson's death, had them all perform and end of term dance version of Thriller. This involved watching the Thriller video. The poor child came home terrified that she was being pursued by the zombie Michael Jackson. When she later woke in the night still scared that Michael Jackson was coming to get her, her mother reassured her that it was okay because he was dead. My neice replied "but that doesn't stop them!"

Sitcom Trials heat 3 bonus video

By process of elimination I can work out that the sitcoms in the final Heat of The Sitcom Trials must be:

"Baby, it's cold outside" by Peter Higgins
"Bumboy" by Andy Crick
"Don't Murder the Messenger" by Allan Payne
"Future Proof" by Elise Bramich
and "PR a History" by Graeme and Nicky Knowles

While you're waiting for James's official announcement of the runners and riders, here's a special extra video with bonus clips from this week's three winners:
Bonus video

Sitcom Trials Heat 3 video diary - best show yet

There is now a video diary from Heat 3 of The Sitcom Trials online. Go to sitcomtrials.co.uk or click below. It includes interviews with Trials judges Iain (Inbetweeners) Morris and Nev (Dead Ringers) Fountain, as well as clips from all of the sitcoms in contention, from what was definitely our strongest line-up yet: