It has been about a month since I gave an update to my increasingly dwindling readership, so here is the latest.
I am currently putting together my first hour show for Edinburgh. My provisional title is How to Win a Pub Quiz, where I find a use for all the trivia that I have accumulated in my 29 years as a human. The show has a structure, in areas of knowledge and then ending with a quiz against a team of experts. I’m pleased so far with the start I’ve made, but with my first preview booked for May 4, I have much work to do between now and then. I am expecting to have much more work to do after then too.
As I only do things the hard way, I have decided that is a great time to move house. I have now found somewhere, which is still in Walthamstow, and will be moving in a couple of weeks. But still, this has been quite a distraction for the past few weeks.
For Edinburgh, I am returning to the Kilderkin and will be there at 6.15pm. I was there at roughly the same time last year and there were days when it was a real struggle. But I know from Dirty Laundry in 2012 that if the show theme is strong enough, then people will want to watch it. I don’t think Fear and Loathing was as strong a theme last year, it was too vague and people didn’t know what they were going to be getting. I think my theme this year should be strong enough to get people in.
We have also moved venues for our Ruby’s gig. The Queen’s Head kicked us out in January, saying they wanted to use the room for eating only. We had felt that the management didn’t particularly want us there for some time, and sentimentality was the only thing keeping us there.
We have moved just around the corner to The Blue Posts and had our first show on Monday. It’s a smaller room, but easier to fill and fill it we did with a highly appreciative crowd. I wasn’t planning on performing, but Langton asked the audience if they wanted to see me, unfortunately they did. So I went on with nothing prepared, not even any notes on my hand for only the second time ever, and it went incredibly well. To be fair, Hatty Ashdown had just been on and handed me an open goal. We had the magnificent Tony Law headlining. Nick Helm is booked for our next show on 6 April.
In other news, in the past month, I also appeared as the physical embodiment of the 1990s in an unscripted Q&A at a 90s themed gig. It was a lot of fun. Thanks go to Siobhan Dodd for asking me and hosting a great night.