Tuesday 27 June 2017

Gig report Quillarious no6 26/06/17

Gig report Quillarious no6 26/06/17
Not hot n sticky this week phew!
I thought there would be hardly any acts due to the fact that most acts book a month in advance and I only got the Google forms set up two weeks ago. I steel myself to get set up and prepare for awkwardness.


The Edinburgh Fringe has taught me how to handle a small room. When three people turn up to your show, you know that there's no way to spin this into a buzzing gig, and your brain shouts “Why am I here?” The classic mistake I've seen is where the MC gets angry with the few that turned up “Why didn’t you bring your friends?” Don't do it! It never works out well.


Quickly you learn two essential tricks of the trade:
‘Reference and move on’. Don’t get stuck with the elephant in the room, shout “Oh look there’s an elephant! Budge up everyone and give the elephant some room. There's lots of elephants out there so I herd."
The other trick is to give more of your energy. The room isn’t going to buzz with laughter carrying everyone along, so you have to give it pace and energy. The more you go for it, the more respect, smiles and laughter will come back. So give it a little extra va va voom.
My third tip, and I know I said there were two but re read the last sentence and....
Make it personal. Deliver punchlines to a specific person as if they are the only one in the room, then focus on someone else. Conversations work on a one to one basis so make it chatty.
And finally get to know awkwardness. Awkwardness comes just after the moment you went all observational i.e. you pictured yourself failing, which made you hesitate and fail some more. When that happens, take a breath, then go back to tip number one. “Wow! That one worked well, not!”


Quillarious!
An interesting one where we got into it without getting very funny. My bad! I’m going to list my critiques so I can reread them for next week:
I put too much pressure on digging for the result and didn’t give it enough light and fluff.
Again there wasn’t enough separation between Punch and Backstory rounds.
I need to clearly explain the rounds rather than rush into them.
I didn’t get the room into ‘flow’ with the word association.
But we got to the point where Sergi and Joseph performed the story and we got some funnies:



The story so far......
"Eddie Lizzard head honcho of the Lizard elite had recognised the crisis in the ongoing war against the Fat Cats led by Chairman Meow.
The chameleons positions had stiffened, yes it was a cold war. All except one who had a reptile dysfunction.
Both sides had agreed to secret talks.
They met in that famous strip club Karma Cameleon run but the infamous Fidel Cat-stro and his side kick Chat Chivara. Where the pussies could be stroked  and the chameleons could simply blend in.
As they sat down they knew the stakes were high, both side desperate to avoid...
Neut-clea war!"

            To be continued.....

Thanks to:
Eleanor Conway, David McIver, Michael Hughes, Lee Hurrell, Lisanne Fridsma, Joseph Murphy, Harris and Sergi plus the audience lady Joseph chatted up in the bar.

Tuesday 20 June 2017

Gig report Quillarious no5 19/06/17

Gig report Quillarious no5 19/06/17

Vickram Quillarious! The moment I stepped into Bounds Green tube station I melted. Summer’s here and that means hot, sticky, smelly people, man-spreading themselves on the tube, but enough about me. And yet acts and friends came. Our nice friendly lounge just about bearable in the heat. The sponge I use for the white board became the only means to mop my brow.
Aaron Levene
It’s hard to get the brain into gear on a night like this so I challenged myself to go beyond MC and deliver material, which was well received. I find mixing the two rolls of MC an act, very hard to do but it seemed to work.
Thanks as ever to all the other acts especially Stonewall Toda who performed with such gusto that it felt like air conditioning. (Yes you're welcome to quote that on your publicity)



Stonewall Toda
From a MC point of view it’s nice to get the room so comfortable that our one and only audience member Mika, from Japan, and was in London for just six more days, got up and told a joke in Japanese without any embarrassment at all. Until I asked her what it was about.  Way to rude to tell!






Quillarious: 

Quillarious was a little bumpy which was very useful. We jumped back to the punch development round because I hadn't clarified the set up round leaving us with a load of hack lines and a weak scenario.  Leaning, Learning... six weeks to go.

Fake News:


“So Jerramy Corbin’s been at it again. This time in Asda where he was buying some socialist red meat, which was a rasher decision than usual but there’s been loads at steak. He sees Diane Abbott, who now works there and has type two million diabetes. Lacking iron he attempts a high five but it goes in low and he makes a right tit of himself. They both need to sit down but they hadn’t got enough seats.”

Thanks to:
Bently Browning, Steph Browne, Hugh Sington, Ben and Sam A.K.A. Stonewall Toda, Winter Foenander, Michael Hughes, Aaron Levene.

Tuesday 13 June 2017

Gig report Quillarious no4 12/06/17




Gig report Quillarious no4 12/06/17

The first thing I get when I step out of the tube a Holborn is the ping ping ping of various apps all sending me various hack excuses. If your job is such that your boss may ‘require’ you to work late, don’t book gigs in advanced. That ping could be you saving the show as a walkin.
Enough arrrrrr



Quillarious had been away for a couple of weeks re bank hol. and private booking. I arrived to find we were to be in the smaller room. The funny thing about rooms is that until they’ve been played I have no idea how they work. This one played well. It’s square and homely, not too ‘work shop’ and not to ‘live at the Apollo’. Just right for trying stuff out and Quillarious.

The show went well:

We had a two great first timers. Hugh Sington and Wade Timmings. Both performed as if they’ve done many gigs before. Well done, proper set up /punches delivered with skill.
Also two wonderful character pieces from Eleanor Bennet and Randy Bowers as Rev. Phill Boys and not forgetting Quillarious regular Michael Hughes. Thanks to all, including the short Dutch man, the tall Spaniard, the Stephen K. Amos look alike ;-) and especially the host of Australians and their support crew.

So what about Quillarious?

First let me say that there were a lot of Australians in the room. I’m not saying that that makes the conversation shift to coarser topics, but... based on the keywords: toupee and penis:

Well, there was Raffael Nadel, outside Wimbledon. As an international tennis player he always carries a toupee so, depending on where he is in the world, he can use it as a toupee, chest wig or ‘love rug’ to fit into the local culture. I lost the thread in the racket as we spouted a load of balls, which could only end up in court and let’s face it, it’s hard talking about penis. (no it wasn’t!)