Fabulous Friday

Fabulous Friday? Well it was!
Took all our bucket money to the HSBC and poured it into the coin sorter/ paying in machine.
Children in a toy shop num num num num num!
Accounts will follow but after the final show. Other act may have better or worse venues and I didn't want to tempt fate by comparison. Compere not compare!

One flyerer plus me and Fliss. I say flyerer but we've run out of flyers so it's just a matter of holding a correx board up with a poster stuck to it and yelling "Camden Comedy Free Lunch Time Stand-up Show Case!" ...sore throat!
In the show I reference Fabian Velez and the fact that he was a captain in the Colombian navy. So who do I meet on the streets of Edinburgh? The Colombian navy! How weird is that!
I said 'I have a friend who was in the Colombian navy and may I have a photo' and one of them gave me a look to say "Really? He wants to do a selfie with the boys in uniform!'
'No amigos! No selfie!' ...and yes I'm old enough to remember when we simply asked someone to take a photo rather selfie ourselves into a sprained wrist! Which sounds darker than it should!
'All the nice girls, love an hola' Boom a bi lingual pun based on film musical reference from the nineteen fifties...comedy gold!

Camden Comedy Awesomely nice!
I was my new compere self with rapport and attitude and fluff and pow! The acts were brill and our headliner was Kate Smurthwaite who gave me my third ever gig at the Fringe a few years ago. Now she's headlining my show! 30+ in and a cracking show all round.
I'm loving the compering and have started to develop a nice style that I'm quite pleased with including techniques such as:
The faux start. before the show starts I'll do a mic test 'one two one two' then test the cable length by walking down the aisle. 'About the right volume?' casually asked to an audience. Then a chat begins and weeeeere off! The faux start end with a couple of questions. 'Cap or no Cap?' 'high energy or low energy?' They always go for high (50:50 re cap on/off) So I release the high energy clips board crazy dance!
At the end of the show I remembered all the acts names so another two stars to me!

Snuck in for half an hour of Joke Thieves, a show where acts do a set then have to do other acts sets. The audience sees the original then the copy and the result is very funny and very clever. It's going to be on TV soon.

Mambalsa Show. Five in. People think it's somehow harder playing to a small audience, but I find it's fun a friendly and more interactive. James Ross **** who I saw earlier in the week is going to do a UK tour of peoples living rooms instead of Edinburgh next year.
My audience was (right to left) Engineer, Accountant, NHS something to do with training, and Auditor. So who's bad with names then! Mandy from Crouch End and Camden arrived ten minutes in which was lovely and we all had a good giggle.

Met Fliss to go to Phil Jupitus doing his poetry show on the Free Fringe. Amazing show and great that an Act off Telly still supports the Free Fringe.

Had a lovely dinner with Gary and Lucy in a fine vegetarian restaurant. Very good food but on balance, for top end cuisine, Helen's cooking is better. Gary and I compared notes and gossip as we both compere shows at the same time but in two different organizations. My conclusion is that both organizations try their best and occasionally make mistakes which provided everyone with the opportunity to gossip. I blame all those exam questions that say 'contrast and compere...'

After dinner Fliss and I head off to the Pleasence to see Show Stoppers the improv musical. It was very good but isn't something I would see twice as like most improv including this type of 'long form improv' with a  musical twist, the suggestions from the audience are shoe horned into an existing structure. See it twice and all the structure shows. I could see it twice because I nodded off many times which has nothing to do with the show but everything to do with me being tired.