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Hosting a charity ball
Posted Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Hey ya'all . Things have been happening at a rate of knots. Since I last spoke to you , i've been doing stand up try outs in Camden , East London , on a boat on the embankment and in a place called Shillibeers in North London. It's been good getting back at it , its sort of reaffirmed my belief in stage time as the only way to assess material. It may look good on the page ,but it's when you take it to the stage that it all comes together . Or not as the case may be. Shillibeers is where it all came together for me - I'd done about four or five open mike spots and i wasn't really happy with any of them. I don't think I'd put enough effort into learning the material and as a result ,was all over the place when i got on stage-too reliant on autocue. But , I watched Jerry Seinfeld's DVD Comedian . In it , he stresses the importance of learning your new bits , even if you're not sure of their comedic effect. If you learn it , you can give it a good go. So I tried that last monday and had the best night i've had on stage for ages. Very warm ,and funny and improvisational and relaxed . Felt good to be up there. The Pilot for the new show was on Tuesday night last week ,and that was a hoot . Bright orange Christopher Ofili style set with a portrait of me in centre stage and then an exploded set with fragments of me all over the shop. We had an all girl funk band called 'Hot thang' who were very funk indeed , Nick Mohammed a new character comic giving us his 'Weatherman' monologue and a hilarious guy called David Armand who does a mime to 'torn' by Natalie Imbruglia. I laughed my ass off at David Grant who is deceptively funny , very jamaican and sharp as a tack. Sharlene Spiteri kicked it up with an excerpt from the Al Green tune 'Tired of being alone' in the middle of her interview -she just grabbed a mike and started banging it out acapella. She can really sing. Catherine Tate was on last and did us proud , generous, funny , thoughtful -the audience loved her. I did my two stand ups which went down well , thank god and then we all went home. so we're waiting now to see if the BBC like it or not. Peter Finchamthe controller of BBC one watched it over the weekend. So pray for me my children...daddy's gotta buy new hush puppies for the kids.. Last night I did Chain Reaction again ,but this time , instead of Alexei Sayle interviewing me - I had to interview Bill Bailey. We had a ball and I hope this comes across on the recording .The Alexei interview with me goes out on the 8th of march (check radio four listings for details ) and me interviewing Bill is later in the run. I've done one day on Penelope A -which is being produced by Reese Witherspoons company. I've only got a small part (quiet at the back there) but I enjoyed my day on set. It was a hoot , actually . I was working with Richard E Grant (Withnail and I , The Player loads of other stuff) and Catherine O Hara ( Best in Show , Waiting for Guffman, and so on). She was very generous and told stories about working with Chris Guest ,improvisation techniques , how not to corpse when in full flow and so on. A very generous person to work with. I'm working up a sweat on the O.U. stuff. We had our first tutorial which was very exciting . Our tutor was 45 minutes late ,but when she arrived she barreled into the room as if she'd been greased up and fired from a cannon. within seconds we had begun a series of exercises and the day was a defnite triumph. I've nearly finished my first essay , just tweaking at the moment , it's not due in til midnight Friday , so I've got a bit of time. Wish me luck ya'all. Len is reading : Burying the Chains by Adam Hochschild : Fantasic book chronicling the key movers , shakers and events within the Abolition movement. Seminal stuff. Len is watching : Brat camp. Also catching up with season two of the West Wing which is genius. Len loves : The Tonight show comedians volumes one and two -Watching Roseanne Barr and Stephen Wright and Drew Carey and Ronnie Shakes do their first sets on Johnny's show is a really humbling experience. They somehow manage to encapsulate their entire life story into a five minute set , revealing perspective , signature jokes , catch phrases and killer punchlines. (sigh) speak soon Lenworth.
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