Media desperation, gullibility and the Tina Turner tribute act that never was

The BBC ignored the slight visual differences between John Ward (left) and Tina Turner… (Photograph of Tina Turner by Philip Spittle via Wikipedia)

Singer Tina Turner died this week.

The following morning John Ward, esteemed eccentric inventor and designer of the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards including the Cunning Stunt Award, was out shopping when his mobile phone rang from a withheld number.

“Warily,” John told me, “I answered it.”

It was the BBC.

John writes a weekly newspaper column for the Spalding Guardian.  

Occasionally, he has been known to add in these columns, in the past, an unlikely throwaway line about how he gave up performing a Tina Turner tribute act some time ago with people citing such minor problems as his colour, height and girth  – “She is taller and slimmer than me” – and the fact that wearing the high heels gave his feet a hammering.

John is is in demand as an after-dinner speaker and local personality. At some functions/events which he attended, people would occasionally ask him if he might consider “going back to doing the Tina Turner act”.

John says: “I do detect that some of them have been quite serious… They actually thought I had done a Tina Turner tribute act. In one case, a lady at one charity bash said she would have ‘dearly loved’ to have seen me performing as Tina.  She was not alone. I would have dearly loved to see it too…”

Anyway he got a phone call from BBC Radio the morning after Tina Turner’s death was announced.

John tells me:

“The young BBC lady wondered if I had a moment or two as they would like to get a quote from me regarding the passing of Tina Turner as we had a ‘connection’ due to my tribute act…

“I asked how she had got my number but it was from somebody at BBC Radio Lincolnshire – so they, or somebody there, had read my stuff!

“I said Tina was a great performer and will be sadly missed by many around the world but, while we had never met personally, I felt sure Gyles Brandreth must have met her.

“Next thing was: Would I mind giving an interview over the phone, there and then, to discuss my tribute act and what inspired me to do it which might/might not be broadcast either on steam radio or online or both.”

---

The questions and answers went like this: 

BBC: What inspired you to do it?  

JOHN: I really wanted to do a George Formby tribute act but found I could not master the ukulele. So I did Tina Turner instead.

BBC: Was the Tina act easy to do?

ME: The biggest hurdle was to overcome my initial colour but, while this took some time, I like to think I nailed it.

BBC: Did you consider your singing voice on a par with Tina?

ME: She was an octave or two higher than me as many who had seen her perform in concert told me, but I was more of a visual act.

BBC: Will you be attending the funeral?

ME: The funeral arrangements have not been published yet, as far as I know, so I prefer not to comment.

---

“The BBC lady seemed to accept all this, thanked me for my time and said she would let me know if and when my segment would be broadcast.”

“Have you heard back?” I asked John.

“No. But later, in the afternoon, around four o’clock, someone from Central TV News rang up to find out why they had never covered the story. I asked him where he heard about my Tina Turner tribute act. 

“I was told by a friend at BBC Radio Lincolnshire…” he said. “So it seems the news is spreading.”

Mad John Ward and the UK gun laws…

John Ward interviewed by a Russian TV reporter (don’t ask)

Mad inventor and Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward used to be a member of a local shooting club. It was local – thank the Lord – to him, not to me.

He used to keep guns in his house.

“Normal people,” (I use the term ‘normal’ loosely when talking of John Ward) “are not allowed to keep guns in their house now?” I asked him. “What was the deal back then? I think you had to have a securely lockable safe in your house and a policeman came round to check on you every year?”

He told me:

---

It was every five years in ‘my day’ – but it may have changed by now…

It’s not strictly true you can’t keep guns in your home – rifles and shotguns can be kept at home but, once again, in a steel, approved, gun box or safe.

Any supposedly ‘normal person’ who goes hunting, target shooting etc. can apply for an FAC – a Fire Arms Certificate – but it’s down to if you fit the criteria of the local PC Plod in your area as it is ‘open to interpretation’ by each individual force – The fact you are the local hit man or drive-by shootist for the Borehamwood Massive might not go down too well and could provide assorted “Tut-tut, oh what have we got ‘ere then, petal?” sessions in the local Nick.

When I was pistol shooting years ago – before we all had to hand in our weapons following the Dunblane massacre – we honest, law-abiding, licence-owning target shooters said that, once you outlaw guns, it will be only the outlaws that will have them and, as things have turned out, it has happened.

However, I always wanted a Luger pistol because I liked the sheer mechanical side of it – the complex toggle-loading action appealed. Typical German engineering at its finest.

I did actually handle, but not fire, one as a visitor to our (licensed) gun club brought one along to show us. 

The temptation to fire it at our targets was there, but I declined.

My reasoning was that it was of the WW11 era and, as such, it may well have been used to take a human life – or lives.

In those days, before legal target pistol shooting was prohibited, it was possible to buy a second-hand Luger legally from bona fide licensed firearms dealers – for about £400 or so upwards.

In much the same way, I would have liked to have owned a Walther P38 – German engineering again – but the above same reservations I had about a second hand Luger applied.

My ownership of a real Luger was never to be realised.

I stopped with post war American and Italian made firearms in my collection because, that way, I knew each round I fired down at the club range was less likely to have caused anybody’s abrupt demise in the past.

Call me old fashioned.

(…CONTINUED HERE…)

Lockdown spawns humorous manga CLAMPdown book by UK Wolf man

Ian Wolf is a man with a plan

I am posting this on April Fool’s Day. But it is after midday, so all that follows is true. And today is also CLAMP Day. 

Next year, on 1st April 2022, it may be CLAMP Day 2… or it may not be. It is complicated.

A few days ago, I got an email from Ian Wolf. Although that might not be his name. It is complicated. The email was headed:

Autistic author releasing CLAMP book a-chapter-per-year for free until he finds publisher.

During the UK’s multiple COVID-19 lockdowns over the last 12 months, Ian Wolf decided to keep himself occupied by writing CLAMPdown – a humorous book about his favourite comic book artists – the all-women Japanese manga group CLAMP.

CLAMP is a group of four women who have been creating manga since the 1980s. The group consists of writer Nanase Ohkawa, artists Mokona Apapa (aka Mokona) and Mick Nekoi (aka Tsubaki Nekoi) and designer and art assistant Satsuki Igarashi. 

CLAMP in 2006 (Photo by John (Phoenix) Brown)

Their subjects range from Hindu mythology (RG Veda), ‘magical girl’ kids romance (Cardcaptor Sakura), the apocalypse (X), social commentary (Tokyo Babylon) and fantasy worlds where everything is named after a car (Magic Knight Rayearth) to lesbian sex comedy (Miyuki-chan in Wonderland). 

Frankly, in my view, you just can’t beat a good lesbian sex comedy.

Author Ian Wolf works for the British Comedy Guide website. He is their ‘Data Specialist’: 

“I write up articles for several shows,” he explains, “creating feature articles, reporting news stories, maintaining the TV and radio schedule and so forth. Probably my most famous work is collecting the reviews for all the shows during the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2015, I was given the first and only ‘Unsung Hero’ Award at the Ham Fist Prizes for my work. In 2019, I became a judge for the Increasingly Prestigious Malcolm Hardee Awards.”

He also worked as an editor for the television website On The Box, having previously been a TV and radio reviewer for Giggle Beats.

Ian tries panda-ing to Eastern tastes

In early 2020, Ian also became a question writer for a couple of UK peaktime TV quiz shows Richard Osman’s House of Games and The Wall, under his real name (Ian Dunn).

He has also twice been a contestant on Mastermind – His specialist subjects were the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Bleak Expectations and the Four Gospels. 

He tells me: “I also wrote in the preface to CLAMPdown that I was a Countdown conundrum setter – but this is a mountweasel. I put in as a trap to make sure journalists are paying attention, as I later mention in the introduction that this is one show I did not work on.”

Ian is from Stockton-on-Tees and has a mild form of Asperger’s Syndrome, part of the autistic spectrum. 

Parallel to comedy, quizzes, Radio 4’s Bleak Expectations and entrapping unwary journalists, another area of interest for Ian is anime and manga. 

Ian as seen in Anime form…

“I wrote a Beginner’s Guide to Anime for On The Box,” he explains, “and I review it for the website Anime UK News.

He was also the manga critic for all 71 issues of MyM Magazine” (2012-18)

I said to Ian: “Just for my blog’s reader in Guatemala, explain the difference between anime and manga…”

“Anime is animation from Japan. Manga is comic books from Japan.”

He has struggled to find a publisher for CLAMPdown partly, he thinks, because of his Asperger’s Syndrome and the niche subject of his book. 

He says: “Having written a comic book (‘comic’ as in ‘funny’) about comic books (‘comic’ as in ‘graphic novel’), I have decided to go about it in a comic (‘funny’) way and so, having set up the Twitter account @clampdownbook, I want to make the publishers come to me, by publishing free entire extracts of CLAMPdown for all to read.”

Chapter 1: From Gay Guys to Genderless Gods covers the origins of CLAMP and their first commercially published work RG Veda, a series loosely based on the Vedic text the Rig Veda and focuses on Ashura, a genderless god of destruction. 

RG Veda, a series loosely based on the Vedic text

Ian says: “I am publishing one chapter of the book online, for free, until a publisher picks it up or the entire book is available for free. If I find no company willing to publish the book within a year, then I will publish Chapter 2 the same time next year.”

If a publisher is still not found, he will then publish a new chapter every year until a publisher does appear or the entire book is available for free online. As it stands, he says, “this would end in 2038, but it could become longer if CLAMP create any new works during that time. 

“Of course, I want a publisher to take an immediate interest in my work and offer me the chance to release CLAMPdown now for anyone to buy. However, if no publisher is currently interested, I’m happy to play the long game. Plus, I feel I can deal with rejection better if it is told to me gently over roughly two decades rather than straight away.”  

As well as manga comics, CLAMP’s work extends into anime TV series. The group have provided character designs for the forthcoming TV anime series Cardfight!! Vanguard overdress, which debuts on Saturday (3rd April).

One of CLAMP’s older titles, occult detective series Tokyo Babylon, was the subject of a planned TV adaptation entitled Tokyo Babylon 2021, but production was cancelled on Monday after production company GoHands reportedly committed multiple acts of plagiarism. There are plans to restart afresh.

“What is your favourite anime TV series?” I asked Ian.

“The sci-fi comedy Gurren Lagann. Think Carry On Pacific Rim – big giant robots, and at one point a woman’s bikini flies off Barbara Windsor style.”

“I will keep that image of an anime bikini flying off into the air in my mind for some considerable time,” I told him.

“In anime and manga,” Ian emphasised to me, “there is something for everyone.”

The Malcolm Hardee Awards and after – President Obonjo to buy Greenland?

President Obonjo and his fearsome bodyguards attended the Malcolm Hardee Awards last night

I am in London.

The Edinburgh Fringe is, as tradition dictates, in Edinburgh.

Up in Edinburgh, the 2019 Malcolm Hardee Awards were announced and presented last night – well, this morning, because the anarchy started at midnight – in the Ballroom of The Counting House during the traditional 2-hour stage show.

The winners were – indeed still are –

Legs display their Malcolm Hardee Award to its best advantage

COMIC ORIGINALITY
Legs

CUNNING STUNT
West End Producer

ACT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A MILLION QUID
President Obonjo

The Awards were classier and glitzier than in previous years because, I hear, the judges were supplied with chips during their deliberations. That never happened in previous years when dry and occasionally stale biscuits were sometimes, but not always, provided.

For American readers: ‘chips’ are French fries. (Sometimes I think George III did us a favour by getting rid of the Colonies.)

President Obonjo, who was also compering the show, arrived with a group of threatening-looking bodyguards. They remained throughout the night and ushered him on-and-off stage in case the deeply-dodgy BBC Studios or E4/Channel 4 had any pickpockets or muggers working in the vicinity.

The mysterious West End Producer

Fellow Award-winner ‘West End Producer’ arrived in his mask, wore it throughout and left in it so Mysterious Mark – organiser of the Awards on behalf of the British Comedy Guide – tells me: “We still don’t actually know who he is.”

Some of the full-house audience apparently walked out after a time, reportedly confused by the bizarreness of the acts: Tom Crosbie, Lucy Hopkins, Legs, Dragos Montenescu, Mandy Muden, Charles Quarterman, Scratch & Sniff and Twonkey.

According to judge Claire Smith, the walkouts were by a few slightly dazed people with startled looks in their eyes.

Fellow judge Kate Copstick confirmed the problem was a new Fringe app which tells people what shows are about to start nearby with the result that people turn up not knowing what the show actually is, just that it’s free.

The result last night, says Copstick was that “we got some young, slightly drunk people who mostly walked out during Twonkey’s performance”.

2016 Malcolm Hardee Award winner Twonkey apparently displayed a jaw-dropping excess of surrealism and, at one point, got thoroughly entangled in the leads of three microphones. It is unclear why he actually needed to have three microphones.

Someone who was in the audience last night tells me, though, that Twonkey managed to ignore the drunks and “pulled it around again, finishing with a blistering performance of Goat Girl – his song about a girl on a skiing holiday on ecstasy…”

Audience members try to restrain Lewis Schaffer last night

The audience contained a large smattering of other comedians including Lewis Schaffer, who may or may not have diabetes (his Fringe show is called Mr Diabetes) and who has been living for months on a diet which excludes all fruit & vegetables but includes lots of meat, some of it raw.

Claire Smith tells me: “He looks great. He has lost a lot of weight, which is good, but his breath smells horrible.”

Apparently, he has been seen around Edinburgh recently wearing a badge saying: YES, I KNOW MY BREATH STINKS.

This is, she tells me, partly because he now believes that eating no fruit or vegetables means he no longer needs to brush his teeth.

“I keep stumbling on him in Edinburgh,” Claire told me today, “crying in underpasses because he has accidentally eaten an avocado.”

Claire today also attended the other, less increasingly prestigious, comedy awards – Dave’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards – where, she reports, significant numbers of half-starved young comedians were to be seen absconding with armfuls of the free croissants. (Dave’s sponsored Comedy Awards has a higher budget than the unsponsored Malcolm Hardee Awards).

President Obonjo salutes his Million Quid win

In later developments, President Obonjo announced he was thinking of putting in a bid to the Danish government to buy Greenland now that Donald Trump is out of the running…

And the BBC posted an online link to their World Service’s Focus on Africa which acknowledged that President Obonjo was “one of the few African comedy acts well known on the UK comedy circuit” (and, indeed, for the last ten years, the ONLY deposed African President/leader character on the UK comedy circuit)… which makes the self-proclaimed ignorance of the apparent Intellectual Property thieves at BBC Studios/E4/Channel 4 even more spectacularly jaw-dropping…

BBC Studios and E4/Channel 4 had originally been shortlisted for the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award “for exponentially increasing the knowledge of, and sales for, President Obonjo with their ‘appalling theft of his character'”… but, on the night, they were trounced byWest End Producer –  a man in a rubber mask.

#JusticeForObonjo

BBC World Service – President Obonjo

Thieves at BBC Studios nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award in Edinburgh

President Obonjo – the original by ten years

As mentioned in my blog last week, BBC Studios have outrageously sold a stolen concept to Channel 4/E4 either by blatant amoral plagiarism or because of a breathtaking lack of interest in or knowledge of the current and recent UK comedy scene – a non-broadcast pilot that has clearly been based on the theft of the intellectual property of comedian Benjamin Bankole Bello – his comedy character President Obonjo.

In what could be read as a two-finger sign to BBC Studios, ‘President Obonjo’ has today made a clean sweep in nominations for the three annual Malcolm Hardee Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The President Obonjo character has been nominated for Comic Originality (on the basis that the BBC have flagrantly ripped-off the basic idea)… and for the Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid Award.

I am not so sure about the latter as BBC Studios’ actions potentially have the outcome of destroying Benjamin Bello’s so-far successful ten-year career… and the cynical BBC people involved must clearly know this – they are apparently amoral, not actually stupid.

Malcolm Hardee admired cunning stunts…

Ironically, E4 and BBC Studios have been nominated in the Cunning Stunt Award category “for exponentially increasing the knowledge of, and sales for, President Obonjo with their ‘appalling theft of his character’.”

In an apparent further two-finger gesture to BBC Studios and E4, President Obonjo will be compering the traditional two-hour Malcolm Hardee Awards Show in Edinburgh’s Counting House venue starting tomorrow at 2359 – that’s midnight.

As it is part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival, entry is free. Whether you will exit with your soul unsullied is a matter for conjecture. 

The Award nominations are:

---

COMIC ORIGINALITY

– Legs

– Sean Morley

– Joz Norris

– President Obonjo

– Charles Quarterman

– Jimmy Slim and Lewis Blomfield

---

CUNNING STUNT

– E4 & BBC Studios – for exponentially increasing the knowledge of, and sales for, President Obonjo with their “appalling theft of his character”.

– Jimmy Slim and Lewis Blomfield – for creating and distributing flyers which have scratch-card like elements on them.

– West End Producer – for releasing a poster featuring 5-star reviews appearing to be from well known critics and producers (M Billington, L Gardner, S Clapp, C Mack, Andy Webber). However, the names mentioned were actually members of the public he phoned up (eg Andy Webber is a man who lives in Bognor Regis), who gave permission for their names to be used.

---

ACT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A MILLION QUID

– Catherine Cohen – for her force-of-nature take on millennials and their outwardly perfect, inwardly bleak lives.

– Tom Crosby – for creating a highly addictive video game and getting people hooked on it during the introduction to his show

– Sophie Duker – for being a self-aware, increasingly prominent voice of intersectionality as it changes Western culture

– Candy Gigi – for having a world class voice that could go global and showcasing it in a new musical genre

– President Obonjo – for, in future, either winning a legal battle over ownership of his character or becoming leader of the country

---

Malcolm Hardee’s children, Frank and Poppy Hardee, say: “One of our dad’s greatest qualities was finding and supporting new talent. This award in honour of our father will hopefully help to continue to promote new, exciting and slightly eccentric comedy acts at one of the world’s most famous comedy festivals.”

#JusticeForObonjo

 

Why you should always seek out and watch really bad live comedy shows

“Saw my first really terrible show yesterday. What a relief after so much brilliance.”

That is what Claire Smith, esteemed comedy critic and Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards judge, posted on her Facebook page this morning.

She is at the Edinburgh Fringe.

As a result, I really want to see that show if it ever plays London.

You can seldom learn much from watching perfection. You can learn a lot from other people’s mistakes (and your own).

If you are interested in the creative process, which I am, then to see what does NOT work in a show is far more educational and interesting than to see something with no flaws which just flows.

I seldom seek out long-established, very successful acts because what is the point of being entertained by a well-oiled, flawless piece of work which can be – and is – repeated perfectly night after night, performance after performance?

Uniformity is the enemy of originality.

So I prefer to see newish acts (but with some experience) which are still developing as well as good acts which are very professional but are not yet famous in a general everyone-in-the-queue-at-the-bus-stop-knows-them way. 

When success hits, acts do not need to have gone for the lowest common denominator. But they need to have found some common denominator of some kind which will appeal to a mass audience.

So, to an extent, there is a smoothing-over, blandifying factor involved.

If you see a very good, solid, professional act who has NOT yet had mainstream success, there is probably some interesting edge which has not yet been knocked off. 

And acts with enough experience to be watchable but which can still be variable and unpredictable (because they are still trying out new ideas and approaches) will have multiple jagged edges some of which may or may not work or which may half-work.

Sometimes, a show is bad because a good performer has had the balls to try out something truly original which does not quite (yet) work.

If you watch a truly truly bad show (and they are as rare as a police station without corruption) you can learn.

I have no urge (and no ability) to be a comedy performer, but the creation of the on-stage character and the performance interests me and – to repeat in a sledgehammer way a previous sentence – You can seldom learn much from watching perfection. You can learn a lot from other people’s mistakes (and your own).

Don’t bother telling me that posting this blog was a mistake.

It is too obvious a punchline.

How to create an Edinburgh Fringe comedy award in less than a fortnight…

Going Forth: the old Malcolm Hardee Awards (L-R) Comic Originality, Million Quid, Cunning Stunt

The annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe ended in 2017.

‘Mad inventor’ John Ward designed and made the actual trophies awarded over the previous ten years – for Comic Originality, for best Cunning Stunt and for the Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid.

A fortnight ago, it was announced the awards – re-named The Hardees – would re-start, this time run by the British Comedy Guide website.

The BCG already give annual Comedians’ Choice Awards at the Fringe.

With the Malcolm Hardee Awards revived after a short hiatus, new trophies had to be made. So the BCG asked John Ward to make more with (this year at least) the same design AND also to design and make a new-style trophy for their Comedians’ Choice Awards.

John Ward lives in Lincolnshire. I live in Borehamwood, on the edge of London. 

So we met in Milton Keynes, somewhere between us, and he showed me the newly-designed Comedians’ Choice trophy which, together with The Hardees, will be awarded in Edinburgh next weekend…

---

John Ward with Edinburgh’s newly-designed Comedians’ Choice Award in… erm… Milton Keynes

WARD: I wanted to design something that would stand out, so it doesn’t look like everybody else’s trophies, although whoever wins will probably need a hernia belt – it weighs about a kilo. It’s made from a recycled plastic tube, copper pipe, steel, wood and other bits.

It’s mounted on a base composed of three pillars, representing Mirth, Merriment and Laughter. There is a brass/copper central stem (based on the idea you might need a ‘brass neck’ to perform in some venues!) with a big, wide, steel ‘grin’ signifying laughter and a red nose on top – the traditional emblem of the clown.

My original design for the grin was symmetrical but, when I looked at it there was something odd about it. So I turned the grinning mouth to one side by an inch so now it has a sort-of jaunty ha-ha-ha look about it. I think that works. If you look from the front or the back, it’s still a laughing mouth with a nose on top.

FLEMING: How long did it take to make?

WARD: You don’t wanna know.

FLEMING: I do.

WARD: No you don’t.

FLEMING: Yes I do.

WARD: You don’t.

FLEMING: Oh yes I do.

WARD: Oh no you don’t.

FLEMING: Oh lord.

WARD: I would think I probably spent – cutting, shutting, painting, all of that… a good three days there, on and off.

FLEMING: Cutting and shutting??

WARD: Cutting the tube and shutting the ends off to get them smooth and level, not sharp edges. There’s nothing on there that would cut your hand or anything or…

FLEMING: Where’s the fun in that?

WARD: True: that Boadicea with her chariot; think of the fun she could’ve had with her chariot down the Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday. But that were before the days of Health & Safety. For me, it were a case of making something so no-one could say: “Oh! It fell on me and broke me big toe”… Although, to be fair, that could happen.

FLEMING: Comedy is all about the unexpected.

WARD: Three days.

Edinburgh Fringe 3 – a rail accident, Malcolm Hardee, #JusticeForObonjo

Some insights into the lives of three comedy performers at the Edinburgh Fringe…

---

(1) GERRY CARROLL is performing at the City Cafe, part of the Laughing Horse Free Festival. He describes his show Crock or Gold as “the story of the first 66 years of my life told in jokes, clown numbers and songs.” He came up to Edinburgh from London on the Caledonian Sleeper. He tells me:

---

Gerry Carroll – famous for rolling not laughing stock

When the train arrived in Edinburgh, it passed quite fast through Haymarket station and Waverley station and then stopped in a tunnel. We waited for an hour, as train staff walked through the carriages saying that the train had lost power. 

Eventually, the train moved back to the platform and I got off.

I had Tweeted that I was on the Sleeper and a journalist from the BBC contacted me. 

The incident had potentially been much more serious. The train’s brakes had failed and it had to be stopped by an emergency brake. The journalist arranged to interview me on camera outside my venue, the City Cafe, and I told the story as I’ve written it here. Basically…

“What happened?” 

“Well, nothing much.” 

The piece was shown on the BBC Scottish News that night. 

Since then, I have been recognised twice in the street, once by a woman who asked to have a photo with me.

I am more famous for having been on a runaway train than for my show.

---

(2) BECKY FURY is performing her show One Hour to Save the World (in 55 Minutes) Upstairs at the Waverley Bar, as part of PBH’s Free Fringe. Her Diary (first part posted here 3 days ago) continues…

---

Becky Fury: she goes for the cute, autistic type

SATURDAY

My first show goes well. I tell an audience member he’s cute in that autistic way I like and add the caveat that he looks like he’s that far down the spectrum he might not be able to give consent. Legally. Or might need to get a signed letter from his carer giving permission if he wants to come home with me. 

After the show, I’m informed he’s someone important. Luckily he’s not so autistic or important that he doesn’t have the capacity to appreciate humour. I am also told afterwards that the Malcolm Hardee Awards are still running and the man I flirted with/insulted/diagnosed is involved.

I tell him, “They’re not,” and somehow agree to have Malcolm Hardee’s face tattooed on my arm if they are.

It seems I am being pranked by the Godfather of alternative comedy from beyond the grave as the next day I am anonymously messaged with a list of tattooists in Edinburgh.

SUNDAY

My hippy friend comes over for breakfast. He has brought me an offering of a chorizo sausage he found “dumpster diving”. I look at it, tell him I don’t eat meat and I especially don’t eat mouldy meat from the bin and I throw it away. 

He redeems himself after Chorizogate by unlocking some features on Photoshop so I can design a new flyer. 

I get engrossed in the design process and forget to flyer.

I end up performing to a small but lovely audience. Two of the girls are university students. They are studying journalism and have come to the show because they want to save the world. I ask them if they know what capitalism is. They say they have no idea.

It is great being able to tell an audience: “If you haven’t laughed, at least you’ve learnt… You need to get an analysis of capitalism.” 

Life goals achieved. 

Lovely kids but are they meant to be our future? Seriously? 

We are so fucked.

Fate is taking a big post-coital toke of her vape and lying back in a euphoric haze of fruit-flavoured carcinogens as I type.

I meet the Spirit of the Fringe again when I return to the flat where I’m staying.

He is sitting outside. 

He tells me he is called George and shakes my hand.

---

(3) Man of the moment Benjamin Bankole Bello aka President Obonjo, is performing his show Goodbye Mr President at the Voodoo Rooms on PBH’s Free Fringe. He writes:

---

Richard Blackwood, actor and playwright, meets Obonjo

Yesterday, was the best day ever so far at the Fringe and these are the reasons why:

– A 4 star review for Goodbye Mr President. 

– Met Tim Vine, Tony Slattery, Stephen K Amos, Omid Djalili and so many top stakeholders in the comedy industry. Tim Vine knows about #JusticeForObonjo. So unreal chatting with Omid and Tim about the case. 

– A prominent comedy club in Edinburgh, that we have been trying to get into for years, finally offers spots whilst the President is in Edinburgh.

– Met Tommy Sheppard, SNP MP. Someone introduced me to him, saying: “I am happy to introduce two of my favourite politicians”. Tommy burst out laughing.

– Confirmation that #JusticeForObonjo is having a positive impact on sales for the Triple AAA compilation shows.

– Audience members shouting out “Justice for Obonjo!” at the end of show last night 

– Finally, finally, top agents in the country are interested.

#JusticeForObonjo !

Edinburgh Fringe latest – BBC Studios slag-off live comedy + a secret new gig

Up at the Edinburgh Fringe, anything and everything is possible…

Michael Livesley – after and before

I am not up at the Edinburgh Fringe, but feedback is starting to trickle in.

First-timer Michael Livesley, Half The Man in a comedy show at The Free Sisters about how he lost half his body weight and much else, emailed me, saying:

“The first night went well. No idea what to expect but my hope is to emerge from the Fringe battle-hardened and ready for the next chapter next year.”

Doyenne of comedy critics Kate Copstick released the first of her Slaughtered podcasts at this year’s Fringe…

The original President Obonjo cast a pod

…In it, she interviewed controversial man-of-the-moment President Obonjo (Goodbye Mr President at the Voodoo Rooms) and she revealed that a BBC Studios executive – not unconnected with ripping-off President Obonjo – speaking in his official role as a BBC Studios producer – told her: “Live comedy isn’t as important as it thinks it is”.

More of this in a future blog.

Meanwhile, blonde bombshell (she will hate that) and social/sexual campaigner Samantha Pressdee – according to the aforementioned Kate Copstick, “almost certainly the most uninhibitedly entertaining proponent of female empowerment you will see” contacted me to say: “The recruitment campaign for the Barmy Army has started.”

Samantha’s dossier aims “to ignite potential”

When I saw the last of the London previews for Samantha’s Fringe show Covered (directed by award-winning Phil Nichol), she gave me a ‘Dossier’ aimed to “ignite potential in the 1 in 4 people who will experience mental health issues.”

At that point, she had already signed-up comedy performers Juliette Burton, Dave Chawner, Laura Lexx, nutritionist Michelle Aucutt and life coach Andrea Bradley.

Now, at the just-started Fringe, Samantha tells me: “On my second night, I am proud to say every audience member signed up and received their copy of Uncovered: The Dossier.

Tony Slattery and Samantha Pressdee bonding in Edinburgh

“I also met my hero Tony Slattery. He is so inspiring. I told him, “I’m bipolar too,” and he replied: Nice to meet you both.

“He was even more lovely in person than he is online which is VERY lovely. He gave me loads of cuddles and his email address. I hope to get him involved in my Pulling It Together project. I am also adopting him as an uncle.”

The gaffer-taped Fringe shoes

She continued: “I brought 13 pairs of shoes to Edinburgh (none of them sensible). So it was not as big a tragedy as it might have been that I broke one shoe on arrival at my venue’s press launch (PQA Venues @ Riddle’s Court).

“You cannot,” she says, “even tell that it is now secured thanks to the magic of gaffer tape.”

The preview of her show which I saw in London was preceded by a video which included – blink and you miss it – a clip of her yolk-covered appearance in the annual Russian Egg Roulette Championships at the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards show.

Until 2017, this show took place annually around midnight on the final Friday of the Fringe in the Ballroom of The Counting House (programmed by the Laughing Horse Free Festival).

Bizarrely – and surely a coincidence, given that the Malcolm Hardee Awards ended in 2017 – I hear that there has been a sudden change of schedule at midnight on the final Friday of this year’s Fringe with an un-named potentially two-hour show being shoe-horned into the Counting House Ballroom.

The Edinburgh Fringe is always full of surprises and there are another three weeks to go…

My Comedy Taste. Part 1: Improvisation good and bad but not Michael McIntyre

The late Malcolm Hardee Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe

I started and used to run the annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe. They started in 2005. They were due to (and did) end in August 2017. 

To coincide with their end, I thought I might post a blog about my taste in comedy. What is the point in having a blog if you can’t be self-indulgent? 

So, in June 2017, I persuaded my chum, oft-times comedy judge and linguistic expert Louisette Stodel to ‘interview’ me in London’s Soho Theatre Bar for that planned blog. But then I never got round to transcribing the interview and actually writing it. Unpardonable lethargy may have had something to do with it too.

Time passed, as time does, and I was going to run the interview/blog to coincide with the start of the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe. But again I never got round to transcribing the interview and writing that blog. Again, unpardonable lethargy may have had something to do with it.

But, with performers now preparing to start to book venues and think about getting round to writing or at least pretending to start to write shows for the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe, I miraculously got round to transcribing the interview at the weekend and here is Part 1 of that  June 2017 chat.

---

LOUISETTE: When did you first go to the Fringe?

JOHN: Well, I started going to the Edinburgh Film Festival in the mid-1970s when I was reviewing movies for magazines and, around the mid-1980s, I switched to the Edinburgh Fringe, which is around the time comedy started taking over from naff university theatre groups. I was looking for acts to appear on TV shows.

LOUISETTE: How long have you been blogging about comedy?

JOHN: It has never really been a 100% comedy blog. I started it in 2010 to plug a movie I had foolishly put money into and it became daily around April 2011 to plug comedy-related stuff I was helping to stage at the Edinburgh Fringe that August and I stopped doing it daily at the end of December 2016.

But it has never really been a comedy blog. I tend not to write reviews of comedy. They tend to be previews in advance of the actual performance of a show. In a sense, I don’t care so much about what the show is like but about how it got created by this particular person. It’s about interesting people doing interesting things, usually creative and/or in some way quirky. It’s always about people, rarely about things. People, people, people. And I do like a quirky anecdote.

LOUISETTE: What is it about quirkiness you like?

JOHN: The TV programme stuff I used to do was usually related to quirkiness. I would be finding ordinary people who did bizarre things… a man rollerskating wearing a bright yellow plastic sou’wester while simultaneously playing the harmonica and spoons, with a seagull on his shoulder. Ah! Mr Wickers, a Tiswas Talented Teacher!

LOUISETTE: You like eccentricity.

Surprise! Surprise! – A show and a clue to what I really like

JOHN: Admire it, for sure. But I remember having a conversation with another researcher on Surprise! Surprise! at LWT and we both agreed, if you want to find a real eccentric, you do not go for extroverts. You do NOT want the person who makes all his mates laugh in the pub. They are just superficial.

What you want is an introvert with eccentricity within. The extrovert just likes the sound of their own voice and just wants attention. The eccentric introvert has got odd quirkiness in depth within them. 

Comedians are odd because you would think they would have to be wild extroverts, getting up on stage wanting applause, but loads are deep-down shy and terrified inside. Maybe it’s the dichotomy that makes them. I like people who think differently.

People often contact me and say: “Come and see my show for your blog.” And I may do but it’s not the show – not the end result – that attracts me. I don’t really do reviews. I am interested in interviewing the person about why or how they did the show or what they feel like when they are performing it. I’m interested in the psychology of creative people not the end result itself, as such.

In a sense, I am not bothered whether the show is good or not good provided it is interesting. I would much rather watch an interesting failure than a dull success. You can very often learn more from what doesn’t work than from what works.

LOUISETTE: So what is ‘interesting’?

JOHN: Lateral thinking is interesting. Instead of going from A-B, you go from A to T to L to B or maybe you never get to B.

LOUISETTE: So you like the unexpected.

JOHN: I think Michael McIntyre is absolutely brilliant. 120% brilliant. But I would not pay to see his one of his shows, because I know what I am going to get. I can go see him in Manchester and the next day in Swansea and the next day in Plymouth and it will be the same show. Perfect. A work of art. Superb. But the same perfect thing.

LOUISETTE: So you are talking about wanting unpredictability?

JOHN: Yes. And people flying, going off at tangents, trying things out which even they didn’t know they were going to do.

LOUISETTE: How do you know they didn’t know?

Boothby Graffoe – always the unexpected

JOHN: I think you can tell… Boothby Graffoe had a very very good 20 or 30 minute act he would do in clubs. (His 60-minute shows were good too.) Fine. It was all very good. Audiences loved it. But, in a way, he was better with a bad audience. The good audience would listen to his very well put-together material. But, if he got hecklers or distractions, he would fly off on wild flights of fantasy, even funnier than the prepared show, almost soar round the room then eventually get seamlessly back to the prepared show. Brilliant.

There was another act, now established, whom I won’t name. When he was starting off, maybe 50% of his stuff was OK, 45% was not very good and 5% was absolute genius. I would go watch him for that 5% genius. And I would still rather go see a show like that which is 5% genius than a solid mainstream show that is 100% perfect entertainment.

If someone creates something truly original in front of your eyes, it is like magic.

LOUISETTE:  Michael McIntyre get laughs from saying unexpected things.

JOHN: If I see Michael McIntyre, I do not know what is going to happen, but it is pre-ordained what is going to happen. It is slick in the best way. If people are on TV and ‘famous’, I am not that interested because they have reached a level of professional capability. I prefer to see reasonably new acts or lower middle-rung acts. And people untarnished by TV.

If you see someone who is REALLY starting off, they are crap, because they can’t adjust their act to the specific audience. When performers reach a certain level of experience, they can cope with any type of audience and that is interesting to see how they can turn an audience but, if they are TV ‘stars’ they may well automatically have easy audiences because the audience has come to see “that bloke” or “that girl off the telly” and they are expecting to have a good time.

If it’s Fred NoName, the audience have no expectations.

I prefer to see Fred NoName with a rollercoaster of an act and I am interested in seeing the structure of an act. I am interested in the mechanics of it.

LOUISETTE: And you like the element of danger? It could all go wrong, all go pear-shaped?

JOHN: Yes. On the other hand (LAUGHS) most improvisation is shit because the performers are often not very good.

LOUISETTE: Don’t you have to be very skilled to improvise?

“Most improvisation is shit: the performers are not very good.”

JOHN: In my erstwhile youth, I used to go every week to Pentameters club at The Freemasons Arms pub in Hampstead and watch the Theatre Machine improvisation show supervised by Keith Johnstone.

Very good. Very interesting.

But, for some reason, I don’t like most improvisation today.

Partly that’s because, a lot of the time, you can see it’s NOT fully improvised. You can see the…

LOUISETTE: …formats?

JOHN: Templates. Yeah. Certain routines they can just adjust. Give me the name of an animal… Give me a performance style… It sounds like they are widening possibilities, but they are narrowing them so they can be slotted into pre-existing storylines and routines they can adjust. 

Also, a lot of improvisation groups seem to comprise actors trying to be comedians… I have an allergy to actors trying to be comedians. They’re just attempting and usually failing to be comedic until a ‘real’ job comes along.

LOUISETTE: Surely an actor can be funny in character, though.

JOHN: Often I think: What I am watching here is like a showreel of their theatre school training. It’s like an audition show. They go through 20 characters just to show their breadth of ability – to impress themselves as much as the audience. But the audience has not come there to appreciate their versatility. The audience wants to be entertained not to be impressed. The audience wants to enjoy their material, not give the act marks out of ten for technique. 

… CONTINUED HERE …