Kill Keith Vol. 2

Damn my ignorance! @ShowbizSimon on Twitter makes some comment about killing Keith Chegwin as a movie, I think ‘that’s a great idea’ and, in an Ernie Wise fit of fifteen minute screenwriting, I bash out my take for a film called Kill Keith.

Damn it all! Then, I go and find out it exists! Who knew? Well, many of you I guess. I didn’t know. Or I’d forgotten (Trev thinks I’d forgotten and he knows my mind better than me).  So, I write it this morning (like I say, 15 minutes… let’s not get too precious over this) and send it over to Trev. He gets in touch to tell me it’s real. There is a film. It is called Kill Keith.

Damn it to high heaven! And we didn’t even get a part in the damned saga!

So, for entertainment purposes only, here’s ‘the film what I wrote’. Let’s call it Kill Bill Vol.2

All of the ‘real’ people referred to are made-up, including myself. Though the beginning knocking on the door stuff is true.

KILL KEITH Vol 2

Everyone loves Keith Chegwin. He’s had his ups and downs – whether battling alcoholism or accusations of joke theft on Twitter – but as long as he does something cheeky soon afterwards – whether getting nuddy for a low-rent quiz show, opening a supermarket in Stoke, or laughing on a morning chat show – he always comes up smelling of roses.

Everyone loves Keith Chegwin. Apart from Simon Hickson.

The early 90’s. Simon is asleep in bed. Well, a kind of a bed. Simon, despite being a regular on Saturday morning’s kid’s TV, lives a squalid live. Like Keith a few years before, he’s battling his demons. Even in his sleep.

As he dreams, he hears the squeaky voice of Cheggers. Just a dream. A nightmare. And then his door bell rings and Simon is awake! Keith is at his door. All part of those jolly early morning wake up calls he does for the live Channel 4 show, The Big Breakfast.

This is horrible! Surely this kind of thing only happens to proper celebrities, like Linda Lusardi. What can Simon do? He calls his agent but it’s 7.30am and she doesn’t get in until noon. He calls Trev. Trev’s wife answers and refuses to believe Simon’s story; she knows he’s delusional, mad, not good in the mornings. She hangs up on him, refusing to disturb the slumbering Trev who deserves a lie in after a late night watching Bid TV.

“He he! I’m here outside Simon out of Trev and Simon’s house! He’s not answering. Yet! He he!”

Simon’s in a panic. What to do? Then he knows. He’ll scare Keith and also get Trev and Simon some well-deserved notoriety. It’ll do them good to cause a bit of an uproar.

Simon answers the door to Keith. Naked. Waving a replica firearm.

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It didn’t work out.

It stopped Trev and Simon’s career in its tracks. Keith had a breakdown, went into a home, and emerged a few months later, loved by the public more than ever.

******************************************************************************************

Years later. Simon can’t let it go. He’s met Keith since, at showbiz do’s here and there, and Keith has apologised. He was only doing his job. So we’re the Nazis Simon points out.

Simon decides his only option is to kill Keith. Trev, aware that he slept through the whole thing after a long night of Peter Simon watching, feels just a tiny bit guilty. He reluctantly agrees to help out. And then Trev and Simon approach the comedians whose jokes have been stolen by Keith on Twitter… discreetly… direct messaging.

A cabal is formed. An elite team of comedy assassins dedicated to ridding the world of Keith Chegwin; Trev, Simon, Ed Byrne, Lee Mack, Milton Jones, and Jimmy Carr.

They meet and form a plan.

They put their assassination plot into action.

***********************************************************************************************

Keith Chegwin is tied up in a basement. Jimmy Carr’s basement, full of suits. It’s his suit cellar. The team argue over who’s going to kill Keith. And how.

But Keith is wily. And cuddly. He he! And the asinine assassins find it impossible to carry out the vile task.

This wasn’t the way it was meant to be.

They hated Keith, but, after holding him captive they’ve all developed Stockholm Syndrome in reverse. They love him now, and he has grown to love them.

***********************************************************************************************

Keith understands, he empathises. Irritating celebrities should be dead. His team are just targeting the wrong people. Keith has been wronged too along the way and he has a revenge hit list. Between them they draw up a list of ‘celebrities’ who really do deserve to get it! He he!

Kill Keith has become Keith Kills. Headed up by their new honcho our team of crappy killers see off deserving celebrities one by one.

No one knows who is behind the mystery murders of some of the most despised and undeserving ‘celebrities’ on TV… from the original Nasty Nick through to poor old John Stape from ‘Corrie’ – heck, he’s only an actor, does he really deserve to die? The public can’t tell fact from fiction and are happy to scream ‘Yes!’

Murder after murder… from game show hosts to reality ruffians to bad actors… the team are inventive with their killing ways, making the death suit their TV crime.

Eventually they make a mistake and the mystery murder team are exposed. Like Taxi Driver or The King of Comedy though, they go unpunished. They are just too loved now by a public happy to see the demise of those least loved. Those who now go by the names of ‘Killebrities’.

All films should have happy endings, and Kill keith is no exception. The team get their own prime time TV show; Killed by Keith – a gameshow where ‘game’ celebs go through a pretend execution if they fail to win viewers votes.

But why’s it called Killed by Keith? Lee Mack’s not too happy. Resentment starts to brew in Milton’s hair. Byrne by name burn by nature. Carr wants to push Keith off a cliff. Trev and Simon suggest a new plan… to be continued… ?

And here’s the real thing…

Which comedian has the worst cover?

My last two posts have rudely looked at the comedians DVD’s on sale over Christmas, and then judged them solely on the artwork of the cover. Now let’s see which is the worst.

Remember! You are judging the artwork alone. Not the content. Let us all just judge the comedians by their covers.

You can see all the covers in my two previous posts.

Hey, let’s have two polls! One for the worst, one for the best. Worst first.

And the best cover.

The Comedians part 2

Yesterday I put up a post where I took a look at the Christmas comedy DVD’s andpassed a few ill-judged thoughts on their covers. Everyone should have a comedy DVD for Christmas, but how to choose? Is it fair to choose purely on the basis of the artwork? No, not really.

But who cares? It seems few comedians care about their artwork. Or perhaps it’s just me who thinks the covers are all bizarre pieces of shit showing the comedian facing away from his audience and trying to do something ‘funny’ with his/her (though his) microphone.

Here’s some more.

Remember… I have not seen these.

Remember… I am not judging the act here. Maybe.

Ok, I suppose I am. Yes. Yes, I am, once again, judging a comedian by their cover.

Someone said never judge a book by its cover. But why not? The author must have approved the cover. They must be happy to have their art sold in such a way. If they were overpowered or overruled by marketing folk, then… well, they should have stood up for themselves.

It’s your work, your cover, take responsibility.

I deny any responsibility for the following opinions. I am sick. I am on antibiotics. I am not myself.

Here goes.

Eddie Izzard

Wow! Believe! What? Believe what? I don’t have to believe, I know Eddie exists. What am I supposed to be believing in? Or is it his belief?

He’s lit by a lone light. Or is it a star? He has a quote from the L.A. Times, so we know this comedian is a big fish, successful across the pond*.

The artwork is classy. I think someone may have been hoping for us to go… “Ooh! look! Eddie is a little like Dustin Hoffman!”

Or perhaps they want us to think he is a little like Jim Cavaziel.

I just don’t know. You decide.

* The pond is an informal term for the Atlantic Ocean. I believe.

Simon Amstell

This cover has some lovely shades of blue. A darker blue “cog crab” looms over the comedian. On closer inspection this “crab” has cats for hands. Then there’s the scary badge and the gold leaf hand holding a feather. This is not a DVD cover that has been hastily thrown together.

It is called Do Nothing Live. And that is a funny title. It makes me laugh. This comedian is excellent. He is called Simon and he looks like Harpo Marx. You decide.

Ricky Gervais

This cover makes me feel ill. I don’t like the colours and I don’t like the woman on the front.

I’m not even letting you decide on this one. It’s just too- I can’t write anymore.

You decide.

Dylan Moran

This comedian has a quote from The Telegraph, but this time online, making him more up-to-the-minute and with-it than Michael McIntyre (see yesterday’s post). Unlike McIntyre though, this one looks a little distressed. He seems anguished and he’s holding the microphone as if he can’t think of anything funny to do with it. There’s no photographer telling him to stick it in his ear (see yesterday again) and there’s no holding it out to us, the DVD cover viewer, as he grins to show us he is funny, his back turned on his paying audience. Indeed, there is no audience in sight! And the DVD is called “Aim Low”! Everything about this says avoid. But I’m going to recommend it to you. You decide though.

Trev and Simon

This is just awful. They can’t decide whether to smile or grimace and instead settle for some kind of sub-Next catalogue action pose. There’s no quotes and no mention of laughter. We are told it is stupid, but what kind of a recommendation is that? To make matters worse it’s a video and not a DVD. A redundant format for a product no longer available.

The backdrop is some kind of foul Mondrian mess-up, even worse than that awful shampoo ad from years back. Ok, it highlights some of the “characters” that we must assume are featured on the video you can no longer get, but even then the so-called characters just look like the same two blokes in funny costumes and wigs.

You can’t get hold of this one anyway so don’t even bother deciding.

You decide.

The Comedians

All the comedians have got their DVD’s out for Christmas. Loads of ‘em. Comedians and DVD’s. How do you choose? It’s tricky isn’t it. Everyone likes a laugh at Christmas, but what if you buy the wrong one? What if you buy a DVD by one of the unfunny comedians? Or a rude comedian? Or an offensive one?

Of course, there are some simple rules that are always worth following. One is never buy a DVD by a comedian who has a supposedly comical and  endearing middle nickname.

Then, well, that’s it. There’s only one rule really. Oh yes! Rule two; be wary of yokels.

That’s it. Beyond that you’re on your own out there, scooting down the aisle only to find yourself faced with a fake top fifty supermarket countdown of smiling faces and stickers.

I’ll try to help. I’m going to review a handful of DVD’s available and it might, just might, help you reach that difficult decision of which to buy.

I should point out that I have seen none of these DVD’s, and, in many cases, seen little or none of the comedians work (Oh! With the exception of one). In some instances I may have even gone out of my way to avoid their work. (Oops, it’s just occurred to me that this idea is a little like The No Show- a great site where shows are reviewed without ever being seen. I don’t mean it to be, and if this post causes offence please let me know and I will destroy it!)

Oh, and I will base my review on one thing alone. The artwork on the cover of the DVD. That’s all. How it looks. I will judge a comedian by his cover.

Here we go.

Remember, I don’t necessarily know what I’m on about here.

I’m just going off the pictures, ok?

Right, first up:

Michael McIntyre

It’s Michael McIntyre. A complicated one. Is he live and we’re laughing? Or is it just him doing both? He seems to be laughing; possibly in rather a cruel way having turned his back on the paying punters seen in the background. Shouldn’t he be facing them? Just what’s going on, Mr. Pink shirt?

There’s an ambiguous quote from The Daily Telegraph (a paper I know little of, though I have been assured they are good for sports… at least that’s the excuse of most right-wing fanatics). They say “If there’s a funnier, slicker, warmer hour of comedy, I haven’t encountered it”.

But how much do The Daily Telegraph get out these days? And considering this DVD is 84 minutes long, what did they think of the remaining 24 minutes?

It’s a tricky one to start with. You decide.

Lee Mack

He’s live too. There’s no audience being neglected here. Instead, he’s walking straight at you. And he’s not laughing. Or smiling. It’s almost like he knows that sometimes not smiling is funnier than smiling. There’s a quote that makes Lee sound funny, but potentially painfully so. And it’s a quote from a man rather than a paper. Optional swearing (swearing is, generally, funny), a funny walk, a too-tight suit, an almost serious expression; I’d say this one is a winner with guaranteed laughs. It’s also a nice shade of green.

Jason Manford

This is very odd. Is he trying to speak through his ear? Is he mistaking the microphone for a Q-Tip? Did the photographer just say “Hey, Jase, stick it in your ear! Ha ha ha!” and he just did, just for the hell of it?

He is “a true master of observational comedy…” the BBC said. But then, at the time of printing, they were most likely his employers. And what follows the little dots? What if the next word was “sometimes”? Or “only on Tuesdays?” An enigma at the least. You decide.

Kevin Bridges

He’s “the master of stand-up at just 22″ The Daily Mirror tells us. And the use of a Mirror quote suggests he’s one of us, an ok bloke who may possibly be just mildly left wing. And he’s humble too. Look! A smile that says  “that’s me that! That’s my name up there! In Lights! Little old me, photographed from above to make me look little.” But look in the background; his audience, yet again ignored. You decide.

Frankie Boyle

No newspaper quotes for this comedian. He’s not smiling, but we can assume he is live as we are told it is a new stand-up show for 2010. He tells us that if he could he would reach out through the TV and strangle you. Well, TV is developing all the time. 3D. HD. What next? Just remember, if he could, he would. Well, one day soon he may well be able. It’s a risk. It’s up to you. You decide.

Stewart Lee

He’s put his face on a cup. If that doesn’t make you laugh you most likely wouldn’t laugh at Steve Martin’s Pizza in a Cup in The Jerk.

Look! Stewart Lee’s face on a cup! And he is almost smiling. None of the other comedians have put their face on a cup.

So this is the ideal Christmas comedy DVD.

Buy this one. You decide.

iPhone repair men

I can’t recommend this. It’s not a good idea. It will test friendships. It will take hours. You’re bound to make mistakes. You’re bound to repair your iPhone and then find, once put back together, that you’ve left something inside; a small speck there on the screen; worse; a fly, a crisp, a cat hair, a cat.

And, it surely goes without saying, it invalidates your warranty.

Still, if your iPhone has some barely noticeable scratches on it, why not go mad. Why not buy a new iPhone screen from a non-Apple approved internet company who assures you it is a doddle; something a monkey could do.

All you have to do is follow the instructions on their website. That’s all.

* Tip: The instructions go by page by page. look at them all before you start. Don’t do the first four pages, have your iPhone in bits, then turn to page 5 and look at a diagram and instructions that make you weep.

*Tip: Just don’t it.

It wasn’t my iPhone. I can’t afford one of those! I have something that looks like an iPhone and that’s as close as it gets.

It was my friend’s. I can’t reveal his name of course. iPhone might track him down and kill him. He’s a top comedian that’s all I can say. And no, he isn’t Stephen Fry. Firstly, he’d know what he was doing. Secondly, I don’t know him. To make it easy, to give him a name that can’t cause any problems, let’s call him Lenny. Lenny Bruce. Yes, it was Lenny Bruce’s iPhone and whilst trying to repair it he kept yelling obscure New York slangy swear words.

So I go to see Lenny for an evening of fun, drink, chat, food. His wife is out and he says “Hey, masked man (!), you wanna see something neat?”

I’m guessing this is how he talks (remember, he’s not really Lenny, or from New York, he’s just my mate, the famous stand-up comedian “Lenny Bruce”). He goes on to open a sweet little cardoboard box that has in it a new iPhone screen and a load of tools, including a screwdriver so small a mouse would have difficulty picking it up.

“Yeah, waddaya know! Goddammit! I puts my iPhone in my pocket and jeez, I only go do get some piece of sandpaper in there! It scratches my iPhone screen like a cool cat scratching at a hobo’s asshole!”

Now, to me, the screen doesn’t look to bad. But Lenny, he’s a stickler. He’s not having it. He’s a perfectionist. Just listen to his routines, you can tell nothing’s left to chance. He wants a new screen, and he’s bought the kit, and we’re going to do it.

Look, I can’t be bothered carrying on with the New York lingo. I can’t go through this step by step. Heck, you don’t want to know all the gory details. You don’t need to hear about the heat gun, the hair dryer, the tweezers, the razor blades. Let’s just race on.

Three hours later. We’ve done it. Of course, when we reach the end of the instructions, when we have the screen off and the new one must go on, it just tells us to follow the instructions in reverse! This is hell.

Instead, we find a video on YouTube of two guys doing the same thing. In five parts. 10 minutes a section. Thank you guys, ’cause you got us through it.

I joke wouldn’t it be funny if by accident we had put the scratched screen back on by mistake.

We didn’t. We got it right. Lenny switches on the phone which, amazingly, works. Then; “Fuckin’ holy cocksucker mother of God!” This is the worst blaspheming I’ve ever heard out of the mouth of Lenny. this, in his day, would have seen him banged up in seconds.

There’s only some little black thing wedged between the new glass and the thingy screen (plasma? LCD? I don’t know).

I tell Lenny to relax. We know what we’re doing now. We can take it apart, clean it, put it back together, in minutes.

It takes us another hour. But we get it done.

Thank you, masked man.

"Lenny's" hands

 

 

Shift Run Stop

Last week I was a guest on Shift Run Stop, “a free comedy podcast full to the brim with games, geeks and special guests. Brought to you by Leila Johnston and Roo Reynolds”.

Leila and Roo have been asking me and Trev to pop along for quite a while, but it’s just been too difficult, what with Trev now living in Tristan da Cuhna.

So just me went along. And talked and talked and talked. I don’t get out much and I don’t see many people, so they just couldn’t shut me up. They’ve managed to edit it down to a listenable half hour. I think I went on for an hour and a half. Still, at leats they’ve done the decent thing and edited out the bit where I was rude about Peter Kay. In case you’re thinking you’ve missed out on something big there… well, you haven’t.  Read this though, by Stewart Lee, officially the 41st Best Stand Up Ever (unofficially, the Best Stand Up Ever.)

Find out the truth about Don Draper. Find out about Marti Pellow and the kids in the basement. Oh, and that bloody Five Star thing crops up yet again. Also, the time we worked with Charlie Brooker. My tips to aspiring comedians (I know, I know, just ignore anything I say. What do I know). And other bits.

Anyways, here it is to hear here.

Thank you Leila and Roo for inviting me along.

Roo and Leila being serious

Certifiable achievements

When we are young we are given certificates if we do something well, even up until a degree (when we are still, effectively, kids). Maybe they help. Maybe they give us the encouragement we need. Maybe, like Steve Martin in The Jerk, posing with a fancy cocktail by the side of a swanky man in a swanky magazine, maybe they help us “be somebody”.

And then it stops. As adults I guess it’s just expected of us to do as well as we can; in life, in work, in play. Every now and then someone may say “well done!” but there’s no badge, no piece of paper.

Perhaps a wage is the adult form of approval. If so, I have let standards slip since my young days.

What da ya want for nothing? A rrrrrrrrrrubber biscuit?

Here’s some of my earlier, certifiable achievements.

1- The swimming certificate.

That’s not too bad. An Endeavour Award from The Swimming Teachers’ Association of Great Britain and the Commonwealth! Signed (well, as a 9 year old I would have taken it as a signature) by Henrietta, the President.

I was also given a sew on badge which my Mum sewed on to my trunks… no picture, I’m afraid.

Well done me! Now let’s take a look at the back of the certificate:

Hmmm. That’s specific. I can’t remember now just exactly what I did to achieve this award, but going off the Examiner’s Remarks it could have been anything from a full length of the pool to sticking my feet in the disinfectant tray. I suspect the latter. Still, it’s nice to see “tenacity” being used. It was only about a year ago that Jim, one of the players on my pool team (cue sports here, not swimming pool), paid me the compliment (I think, I hope) of calling me a “tenacious fucker”.

2- The singing certificate.

My Mum can sing. My sister can sing. My Dad played the piano and was also the church organist. I was expected to sing too. And, when I was 10, I entered some kind of singing competition. Here’s my certificate:

Sound work generally. Ha! Who’s going to tell a 10 year old they were awful? Even Cowell wouldn’t stoop. The song was The kangaroo. “The kangaroo is bouncing on his big fat tail/ he bounds across the hillocks da da da da da…” Yes, I’ve forgotten the words.

Years later we (me and Trev) resurrected this song for our first live tour. I was the kangaroo, and we had a huge fat tail made. The song had a pause in it, sort of like this; The kangaroo is bouncing on his… (pause) big fat tail! I would keep coming in too early and Trev would chastise me. I’d leave a longer and longer pause, but never long enough,and Trev would taunt and chastise me the more. Then, when I would leave the longest pause acceptable to a paying audience, Trev would jump in ahead of me, taunting, chastising, berating; demanding to know where I was.

We performed this on the first night of the tour. The show lasted three hours. We had to cut stuff. The kangaroo song went.

At this same festival I sang another song. One I can’t remember and for which I have lost the certificate. Some sort of classical piece. I remember one thing; I came third. Out of three.

3- The flower arranging certificate.

Let’s end on a high.

It’s the same year. 1973. I’m 10, possibly 11. And it turns out I was good at flower arranging. I got two first class certificates. One for an arrangement using only one type of flower (sweetpea’s) and the other for a miniature arrangement. Sadly, there’s no pictures of these winners. But they were good. I promise.

Maybe I should have taken note of these early signs. I wasn’t cut out to be a swimmer or a singer, though this hasn’t stopped me joining Note-Orious, the choir to which I now belong.

But perhaps I should have been a florist.

BBC Radio 7 Comedy Club

This may sound like a joke, but it’s true; yesterday I did some work. Almost a proper job, almost paid.

We (Trev too) went along to BBC Broadcasting House to record the links for BBC Radio 7′s Comedy Club. I guess everyone else is in Edinburgh.

It was fun. We worked with a lovely producer, Laura Baron, spending the first five hours writing some bits of nonsense that will link together all of the programmes featured in the two hour Comedy Club. We did two shows. The first will go out on Friday the 27th August at 10pm, and the second on Sunday the 29th August, 10pm. 2010. After writing the links we recorded them. I hope they’re funny. The big boss, Simon  Jordan, after looking them over, declared them works of art. I hope they’re funny.

Here’s proof we did go there and we did do some work.

smile

The Trev and Simon Summer Special (with notes)

The marvellous Joff Thompson has very kindly uploaded the Trev and Simon Summer Special on to YouTube. This has been hidden away for 15 years. And most likely only ever shown once on TV. That shows you just how special it is. Oh, and it was shown in the summer. The summer of 1995 if I remember correctly. I haven’t seen it since we made it. I watched it, and I surprised myself by laughing out loud once. I think, 15 years on, I can watch it and fool myself  I am watching someone else. Someone a bit like me working with someone  a bit like Trev.

It was  a bit of a troubled production. We had such grand ideas for it, but the BBC kept very tight control over us. We were even told, by a friend on the production team, that the BBC had another script they planned to shoot; one full of alternative (but not necessarily alternative) jokes and sketches. We fought to get our stuff made. If we hadn’t been so full of ourselves I’m sure we could have benefitted from a like-minded script editor.

Well, here it is, and, if not ideal, I can see glimpses of the troubled minds that, at the time, were intent on overthrowing early Saturday evening viewing as we knew it.

In typical disclaimer style, all the comments that follow are mine. Do not hold Trev responsible for any libel that may follow.

Here’s Part One, featuring Private frank Porritt, The World of the Strange, Lottery gamble, the Inbred Idiots, and letitia Dean wearing a costume that made her cry.

Yes, it’s true, and we’re not proud of it; forcing Letitia Dean to wear an aubergine costume made her cry. To this day I am sorry. We had no skills and no tact when it came to telling someone they had to dress up as an aubergine. She did it though, and she looks very fetching. And she does a fine job with the Inbred Idiots, our attempt to inject a little Evil Dead/Deliverance into early Saturday evening viewing.

I like the aquarium. At the time I didn’t. We wanted a real aquarium with real fish, but the budget was tight. Now I think it has a kitschy charm. All things were inevitably compromised through budget. You only get a sneaky peak at some of our more outrageous demands in the opening sequence. We wanted a volcano, a mermaid, an Elvis. And somewhere on some cutting room floor are all the extra bits we filmed with them.

We got our sniper. Even now I’m surprised that sneaked by in a Little and Large slot.

The World of the Strange was filmed in its usual style; in front of a live audience and with no editing, just us running around the camera and ducking and diving in and out of fridges. I’ve always like our Two Ronnies nod at the end.

My favourite bits are at the desk, just messing about, being stupid with a Lottery pen, smashing things up, calling the Lottery pen Guineapig instead of Guinevere. I think we were always at our happiest when we could break things.

The I won a mini line reminds me of one of the cut jokes. This was in another of our Trev and Simon at home scenes, our attempt to pay tribute (nick?) the Morecambe and Wise style. Trev receives a Readers’ Digest type letter. He excitedly reads out  Congratulations! You have won a car before unfolding the letter to see it carry on to say digan. I love that joke. In that same (cut) sketch we had another special guest; the late great Keith Floyd. And in that sketch I painstakingly made an Airfix kit of a large plane. I can’t remember much other than at the end of the sketch it got smashed to pieces.

Part two really highlights my gift for accents. I’d say it’s a spot one one for French chef Geoff, with a G… string. And then there’s Terry in Vicar Watch with his local dialect. I’m just not sure where it’s local to.

I like Cook That! it fits nicely into our style of destroy. I could never understand though why we were not allowed to set fire to a real CD Walkman. You may have been fooled, or can you tell it’s a painted block of wood? But we have fire, a collapsing ceiling, and, in PVC, an out of control turntable/potter’s wheel. Thank you Graham Brown for providing auch great destruction. Graham was a great bloke to work with. We managed to get him up to Scotland after he had done loads of work with us for Going Live! and Live and Kicking. If you wanted something destroying Graham was the man for the job. Of course, there was always the issue of BBC Health and Safety. Thankfully Graham couldn’t have cared less for such rules and regulations. Once, working with him on a L&K New Year special filmed on Burgh Island, he set fire to all of the island. Well done sir!

Encyclomedia. If I remember rightly, this developed out of a thing we did on Live and Kicking called Looniversity Challenge; an interactive game played with kids at home over the phone. Kids in the studio had planets stuck on top of their heads and they were known as The Looniverse. Or did Encyclomedia come first? I can’t remember. I do remember having huge discussions over whether we could use the word loony or not. in the end we were allowed to. This led to other loony themed sketches such as Every Loony Wins. Our (weak) defence was that loony didn’t just have to refer to being insane, it could also mean foolish or ridiculous.

And then D:Ream. You may be able to spot Brian Cox, the whizzkid TV scientist, and, a few years back, Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter.

Jones the chemists was the last in our line of oddbod shop owners. We started with Ken and Eddie Kennedy, the barbers, then Don and Dougie Draper, the dry cleaners, then… Roberts Records… oops, can’t remember their names. Tom Jones and Jim Jones the chemists and their barrage of bottom related euphemisms. Sorry folks.

We had a plan to put all these shops and people together in a TV show we would call Street of Shops. If anyone wants to make it now, please contact us. We would also include the father and son characters who ran Cobblers to the Stars, a chiropodist/made to measure shoemaker combo who bred pigs in the back yard to make into shoes for the likes of Robert De Niro. My picture on the about page of this blog is me playing the father shoemaker, holding one of his future pairs.

Hob Knobs

Do you like laughing? If you do and you live near The Hob in Forest Hill why not come and join me and my mate, top notch comedian Ben Norris, for a funny evening of nonsense this Wednesday at 8pm.

Here’s the deal; once a week I visit Ben, Sarah and their lovely triplets for an evening of food, drink and nonsense,  the drink and nonsense taking place once the kids have gone to bed. We sit around the kitchen table, talk rubbish and make each other laugh. As the evening goes on and we drink more, Ben scribbles things down in chalk on their blackboard pantry door. The next day he looks at it and wonders what drugs we must have been on. My favourite bit of scribbling so far… Nosferatu! I haven’t even seen Nosfera One!

The secret of dodgy Chinese dentist jokes- timing

One night we sat around laughing at all the daft things on You Tube. And then Ben said we should do it in a pub, invite people along with their favourite clips and all watch them and laugh, or boo, or whatever. And somewhere along the line this has become a reality.

me laughing

So, we will be at the Hob this Wednesday watching your clips on a big big screen. Come along. Don’t forget to bring a few links with you, or just enough info for us to be able to track them down, and then we’ll play them. It’s as simple as that. Oh, and it’s £3.

Come along and see things like this, recommended to me by Gareth Aveyard. Stick with it, because at first I felt sad, but 50 odd seconds in I started laughing like a goose.

It won’t all be funny animal clips. There’ll be music and proper comedy… well, I say that. It’s up to you. It’s your night. You bring the clips. It’s whatever entertains you.

What? Funny animals? Oh, alright then.

You can find more details here.