December 2011
3 posts
A nice little Christmas present...
…the new play is written. I’d like to introduce you to ‘Balloon’.
Way ahead of schedule. And it’s really good, simple and bizarrely emotional in an ironic kind of way. It’s strange how as much as I wanted to ignore it, write something different, it kept drawing me back, toying with me to finish it. And every time I’d start something new I’d always...
November 2011
1 post
Sloppy Party Bottom's...
Christening? Wake? Barmitzvah? Whatever! Wonderful gig. Only my second outing with SPB and it went really well. They (from the off) understood that it was meant to be odd, and it was odd, very odd, I won’t explain it, cos it’s odd, but it went really well… and they got it. Whatever “it” is.
SPB can easily be a give or take routine, it’s so irregular and crazy...
October 2011
3 posts
mozblog: Sloppy Party Bottom's First Steps... - I... →
Sloppy Party Bottom's First Steps...
I found it a really enjoyable experience, they got it, liked it, found it odd, bizarre, they laughed, cheered, joined in with the lyrics, applauded and I even heard someone say “how’s he doing that”. And best of all, I had fun.
There’s still lots of changes to make, as I haven’t really sold SPB and there’s a little lack of logic to his logic but the first...
Sloppy Party Bottom - an awkward birth...
Over a month late because, being the primo-Donna that SPB is, he wasn’t ready for his (excuse the pun) big entrance. It’s been a bitch to write and rehearse solely because I’ve never attempted anything like this before. SPB isn’t a character, he’s a vessel, a clean slate with no rules who could explore a fantasy world with the mindset of “what if…”?...
September 2011
1 post
Sloppy Party Bottom's first steps...
It’s an amazingly bizarre experience trying to get inside the head of SPB, he’s so like me, yet we couldn’t be more different. It’s like learning to walk and talk again; he (unlike me) has no rules, no sense of morals or danger. Writing for him, finding his voice, his movements and thoughts are going to be a big challenge for me, but it’s sure going to be exciting.
...
August 2011
54 posts
Laurels make uncomfortable seats...
…so I’ve fired away with planning my new show for next year. Yes I know the festival isn’t even finished yet. And yes I know I’m still ill and recovering from the Edinblugie. And yes my lungs do hurt from four days of chronic coughing, but I’m all fired up, I know what I need to do, and I want a bloody five star review. Or two. Hundred.
This year’s show was a...
4 tags
Goodbye Mozinburgh...
It’s been fun, obviously not for my liver, my lungs, my stomach, my sanity and my arse, but it’s certainly been a hoot. I’m just glad it’s only a month, any longer and I’d be forty stone, deaf, pale and blind.
Shmozle’s been a good experiment, it’s been a successfully modest failure. Some days we rocked, some days we rolled, some days we flopped and...
shMOZle last performance...
And that is that! shMOZle is over, finished, dead, consigned to the bin. It’s never coming back, maybe an odd sketch or two but the bulk of it is currently being flushed down the comedy loo. So if you didn’t see it, you never will. Some would say that’s a blessing.
The final show went fine; full to bursting, a good audience who laughed and applauded nicely (where possible) but...
Slightly late update...
Oh sod it! I was boozing. Update wise the show went well, good audience, good laughers and applauders who stayed for the duration. Made about average but really enjoyed the gig, except when I misplaced my top-hat on stage and only found it with seconds to spare. Again Happy Shopper did well which sells the fact to me that if I was to do a solo show again I need to make the most of the...
3 tags
Watch out! shmozle's about...
Enjoyable gig today; roughly 25 (vetted) people in, the original shMOZle edit, and an appreciative audience who wanted to see something different, unique and that’s what they got. And although my energy wasn’t at the max I kept trying to up my game throughout to really pantomime my performance.
No feedback forms today, which ironically was good as audiences were happy to feedback at...
Mid-week shMOZling...
Almost didn’t perform as the lead to my iPod has a split and was feeding back, luckily lovely Claire (at Espionage) came up trumps with a new lead, and the hilarity ensued. The show went fine, the usual highs, the usual lows, etc etc. The only incident being when I couldn’t find my “plug adapter” to switch ShMOZle off, so I had to improvise, but no-one noticed. Had some...
The same comedy boat...
Just went to see two fellow character comics (and obvious fans of the absurd) in one of the shittest venues ever. The walls were paper-thin, held together with hessian sacks and tape, with a substandard sound-system, in a baking hot room, with the DJ blaring his choons outside the room and a tired audience who could barely manage a smile. Poor bastards.
I enjoyed myself, hell ever since I...
shMOZle Tuesday
A small audience today, maybe fifteen, although it’s very quiet across all shows, but they enjoyed it (well the sketches, but that seems to be a given now, that and my intro where my mixed-up track slags off Edinburgh). Got some good laughs on Flight Attendant and Happy Shopper. I removed as much unnecessary dialogue from those sketches to allow to got laughter and played it very physical so...
3 tags
shMOZle Special K edition update...
Hmm. A good full receptive (vetted) audience today, no-one left, they liked the filth and didn’t like ShMOZle, so therefore “ShMOZle you’re sacked”, as of this Saturday. P40 in the post. Clear out your desk and as your final line in the show goes “…and fuck off”.
Although the show was faster today, it lacked logic in certain places, maybe it was me but I...
shMOZle (Special K edition)...
The show is now a quarter shorter bringing it in at a nice neat performing time of 42mins. Nice. I’ve made cuts without destroying the concept, the narrative or any “jokes” (in inverted commas), but now I have two worries; one, have I made it better or ruined it, and two, can I remember the new order, which scenes are missing and which new lines I’ve added? Eek! We shall...
shMOZle the re-edit...
Five hours spent trimming the fat on shMOZle and (being super strict) with myself I’ve lopped off a whopping fourteen minutes. Two linking sketches have gone, the start is shorter, almost every sketch has been trimmed, I’ve removed my “usual suspects” ending and ShMOZle has been almost halved in places. So I’ve streamlined my show without losing any integrity;...
The Saturday shMOZle-off...
…a very large audience today (standing room only), which I personally vetted using my patent pending “it’s bizarre, you may hate it, so on your head be it” patter, which worked, it weeded out the audience.
The show went really well, it’s a Saturday boozing crowd so what do you expect. The sketches each went well in their own particular way, I got big laughs, lots of...
Moz's post FOUR STAR REVIEW show...
…was pretty good actually. I’d vetted my audience especially with my amazing sales patter. “Come see shMOZle, it’s a play about existentialism within a sketch-show about a double-act one of whom doesn’t exist and I play both characters at the same time. It was voted ‘tenth must see free fringe show’, but then again some audiences hate it and on Wednesday...
mozblog: "Shmozle at Laughing Horse @ Espionage:... →
1 tag
shMOZle - a four star review
Yes, a four star review from Three Weeks. Bloody hell. It reads:
“How can you be a double act if you’re only one man? Simple. Create a partner by pre-recording your own voice and perform sketches opposite yourself. That’s what Moz does in this highly original show. Unfortunately things go awry when Shmozle, his eponymous comedic partner, suffers an existential crisis upon...
“Shmozle at Laughing Horse @ Espionage: “clever writing counter-balanced by...”
– twittique ThreeWeeks Reviews
“They say that two wrongs don’t make a right, shMOZle is proof that two...”
The shMOZle car-crash.
Another painful show today, maybe 13 people in, I deliberately didn’t flyer as I wanted audiences who wanted to see the show, and I left comments slips on everyone’s seat explaining it was experimental then (at the end) implored them to give feedback, not donations.
The omens were bad from the start, my shoelace snapped seconds before the show, then my back went into spasm and...
This is my Star Wars trilogy...
Moz and the Meal is the one everyone remembers (even though it’s flawed and rather hammy). Bored Stiff is my Empire Strikes Back (darker but better) and shMOZle is my Return of the Jedi meaning it’s an embarrassing mess cocked up by a muppet.
Black Wednesday over?
I’m just praying there’s no other colourised days of gloom ahead; maybe Mardy Maroon Thursday, Shitty Brown Saturday or Fucked-up Fuchsia Friday? Yesterday was horrible. Really horrible. Yes, the show has problems, but the mass walk out was just humiliating. Half of me actually wished everyone had walked out, so I could have ended it there and then, rather than knowing I still had...
Out of the volcano...
…not a Phoenix but a giant turd. I bombed badly, and I mean really badly. One hour of absolute agony with barely any laughter, lots of staring faces, a full to capacity audience, but by the end just four people remained (inc two work colleagues who bravely sat through it, you guys are stars).
I’ve never felt so alone on stage and never realised how hollow the sound of chairs...
Peaking too early?
I hope not. Yesterday was a really good day but I’m very aware how the Fringe works. If you work your arse off, you could still end up with a smattering of mildly interested audiences members, where-as if you ease off, BOOM, best gig of your run. There’s no maths that answer this, no science to explain it, it’s the great unknown.
More later folks
Mxxx
2 tags
Result!
First, a successful shMOZle which left me very energised, then I did a spot as the Modern Man at supremo promoter Mr Sean Brightman’s fabulous We Love Comedy with the comedic talents of Lenny Peters, Liam C McKay, Hannah Deasy and “dangerous” Chris Dangerfield and expertly MC’d by Jools Constant. Then had a truly amazing night producing Snippets, MC’d by the brilliant...
A good shMOZle day...
I sold the show as “a play within a sketch-show about a double-act both played by me, at the same time” which worked. I also sold it as “bizarre”, “original”, “different” and “comedy marmite” and that worked. Got about 20 people in (half full) and got lots of applause and laughter, which in turn made me bolder, more confident and I pulled...
shMOZle the next step...
Gear change. I’m re-selling the show as a “play… with funny bits” rather than “a sketch-show with dramatic bits”. I can’t really do anything about the bad language except pre-warn the audience. To be honest I should really have thought of that beforehand. Doh!
On everyone’s seats today they’ll also find a comments slip. What I want is the...
shMOZle NEWS FLASH
Today’s performance of shMOZle has been CANCELLED owing to a stomach bug. Yes I know, millions of people will weep, lives will change and the world itself will never be the same again, but I can barely walk fifty feet without needing to… evacuate myself, and given how physical my show is, what’s worse? Not performing a free show to people I conned into seeing it, or badly...
shMOZling along...
…trying to work out whether to rewrite the show, edit it down or just turn it into a sketch-show with guest stand-ups, as the show just isn’t working, if anything it’s leaving the audience slightly bewildered. They laugh, they enjoy it, but it’s possibly as hard to watch the show as it is to perform.
I also think an early afternoon slot for this show was wrong. This is a...
shMOZle in rewind...
I just don’t understand it, in Brighton my show was 70% right, so I thought I corrected the other 30% but I seem to have lost another 30%. I really gave the show everything today, lost of gusto but I just couldn’t win them back. Lost half my audience; one core group really enjoyed it, the others didn’t, some talked all the way through it, others walked out.
Modern Man, Happy...
mozblog: sh"NO"zle... - I tried a different tactic... →