Gig report Quillarious no3

Monday before the bank holiday was a surprisingly useful night for Quillarious.

Several things of note:

In spite of it being the first summery night of the summer, most of the acts showed and did their thing well on a night that was definitely ‘sit outside a pub’ weather.

Playing a small room is tough but not too many moments of self awareness where expectations of giggles didn't happen as planned and instead a riff in the space time continuum opens up to release invisible trans-dimensional aliens who zap everyone with an awkward ray. I encountered several of those whilst trying to jam some notes I’d written on the tube. That’s the last time I go on stage with a tube door.

Quillarious went surprisingly well. I played around with topping the comments in a productive way (hopefully) and steering things towards an expanded set up to a pre-discovered wordplay.

The result was in brief:

“My girlfriend Anna, I say girlfriend but it was our first date and to save time I was already working on how to dump her. It’s a millennial commitment thing. She wanted to meet at McDonalds but I said No, lets meet at Burger King because I’ve got a Whopper! She told me to burger off!”

 

Now I’m certainly not saying that’s the best joke in the world or even a passably good one. The point is that it was created by the group that Monday, the first successful setup/punch, and let’s face it, Neil Armstrong’s first steps we’re a bit girly and totally lacked ta-da!

I’m gaining confidence in the Quillarious process and experience at managing the group towards a creative conclusion. I’m also finding that I’m writing more myself.

I would reveal my new fairly weak pun about eyes but I’m waiting for something more cornea!

Quillarious Report no.2

Quillarious Report no.2 15th May 2017

Good solid progress and a steady ascent of the learning curve. The rearranged room worked well making a warm and friendly room even more warm and friendly.

Quillarious went well with Speedofile my personal favourite connecting paedophile and swimming trunks.Next week I'll start some serious work on the other rounds but we've proved that we can generate ideas and connect them into wordplay. So on to scenario's attitude and extras.

Michael, winner of the Quillarious award could have taken everyone else on single handedly as he calls out ‘it's obvious’ as we all look on with brain freeze for several moments before he slam dunks the line.any thanks to Bentley Browning for headlining and all the acts for being awesome.

Thanks to:
Shehan
Michael
Lew Fitz
Lucy
Daniel
Mamoun
Becky Fury
Bentley Browning
And Chris and two random Duck guys who weren't from Amsterdam

Quillarious Report No1

Quillarious Report No1 by Alastair Sadler
 Yeeeeeeees!
We launched and it went very well.

That right folks numero uno! The first ever Quillarious was last night and we go off to a great start. Two teams ‘Oooer’ and ‘Snofta’ danced merrily in the bouncy castle of their minds to get the giggle and tap into the titter. 

After a little creative warm up we got into a pun creation round called Pundamonium.

Seemingly un-connectable words were hitched-up, shoe-horned and crowbarred together.

E.g. Lorries and shaving. Not easy but Ryan got that famous trucking brand Eddi Stobble-art.

How about Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon and Taxidermy: Hungry like the stuffed wolf; Wild Boars Wild Boars; and my favourite dish Stuffed Chicken on Le Bon.

I’d hoped for a few answers but Ducks and Gangsters got us collectively into a state of Punarrhea:

A gangster duck selling quack, who was clearly a bad assed mother ducker, hid his weed in the pond, while laundering his bills and keeping a breast of the gangster pecking order. Sometimes, while others were in a flap, he’d just be winging it to the top of the bill while pondering his triad loyalties. For he was a Peking duck. Eider dunno if they’re any good but we had fun fishing them out. 

Paulina won the first ever Quillari as she said one suggestion in English and Finish which makes it the obvious place to stop. 

Thanks to everyone for playing Quillarious and to our stand up acts:

Andrew Murray, Ryan Mold, Susie Steed, Andre, Paulina, James Gawthorpe,  Bentley Browning and our headliner Matt Duwell.

So thirteen weeks to Edinburgh! Time to Get my act together and develop Quillarious into a slick show. What could possibly go wrong!
By the way, this little Quillarious clip is my new logo.  It took less than an hour to do! Annoying isn't it!

Project Quillarious

Introducing Quillarious! A brand new comedy format!

Quillarious is what happens when a room full of people attempt to write five minutes of stand up collectively in an hour. It’s panel show meets comedy workshop as MC Alastair Sadler leads two teams of point hungry audience through a bunch of exercises designed to fluff out the funnies. 

Will we succeed? Who knows, but we’ll have a bunch of fun along the way.

Experience required = None! Admission = £0 Embarrassment = None, Just a huge sense of being at the cutting edge of comedy, joy, well being, happiness, and lowering the possibility of nuclear war (none declared at time of publication) ... and it might be funny.

So what’s Quillarious? It’s a new comedy show, a fun evening out and it’s Free!

The idea’s been nibbling away at my brain for several years. Just after I’d been on Kate Smurthwaite’s comedy course I went up to the Edinburgh Fringe and saw a couple of free shows that really grabbed my attention. The ongoing and fabulous Quiz In My Pants hosted by  Nike Bolsover and the wonderfully brutal Car Crash. My experience as a dance teacher told me that the audience can often be far funnier than acts. All they need is the right fluffy environment and a bit of leadership. Well a bunch of years later I have created a format for a show that is totally new.

Quillarious combines the focus of a panel show with the creativity of a comedy writing workshop. We, as in you, me and a room full of people, have a mission. To pull out of the ether five minutes of brand new, fresh ‘n sparkling comedy material in just one hour! 

2017 Mission posibly possible

So who stole the first three months of the year!
Its the end of March and a good time to summarise three months of comedy.
''                                                                                                                                       ''
That's was it! That one blank line was the sum of my comedy writing and performance.
Arrrrr
I score myself a sweet FA, so should I throw in the towel? Give up gracefully to spend the rest of my life recounting tales of my brief dalliance with stand up?
Hell no! No quiet exit stage left for me. Where's the sliding into my grave crying 'Wow what a ride'.
For I have a dream, and my dream it called
Quillarious
Quillarious is a show format that is genuinely new.
If it works it'll be brilliant, it it fails ill cry and that's probably why I havn't done anything for ages except...
I’ve  applied for some shows at this years Edinburgh Fringe and one has been accepted.
So I'm committed for the full run. Train ticket brought.
So put it this way... either I get my shit together and be funny or Ill spend an expensive month dying in front of strangers on a daily basis.

arrrrr I cant find the spell cher!!!!
So here's what I need to do:
1) Write some funnies! 'Oh that's easy isn't it!'
2) Get out and perform so I've a massively solid set.
3) Set trial for Quillarious dates (basically relaunch Camden Comedy and merge Quillarious into it)
4) Book acts for CC and Edinburgh
5) Get some friends over and thrash out the format then make this item two.

How I got into Stand Up Comedy

How I got into Stand Up Comedy

Well a few years ago after some encouragement from comedians who had attended my One Day Intensive Salsa Course including Tony Hawks, I thought I'd have a go at Stand Up. I went on a course run by Kate Smurfwaite and did my first gig.
I then went to the Edinburgh Fringe festival 2011 and did a couple more.
Then life happened and I did very little so I went on another course and promised myself to work harder at comedy and do better, which I promptly didn't.
In the run up to year two at Edinburgh I achieved a massive five gigs and my material was sounding old to me.
I was still performing scripts without the confidence and playfulness that I experience every time I teach salsa.

At Edinburgh 2012 I was fascinated by a show called Car Crash. A bunch of topics, one of which was called out of a bucket and a comedian, also picked out of a bucket. Then the Comedian had to talk for five minutes on the topic. If he dried up the audience, who had been instructed and rehearsed, would shout expletives at the comedian until they broke down and slunk off stage. Brutal but fun! On our last night a comedian dried after a minute or two so I led the F*** O** as instructed.
He took exception and as an act of playful revenge placed my name in the bucket. Later my name was picked and I had to be witty on the subject of Angry Birds.
I lasted 4 mins 50 secs. More importantly I lost my fear of  loosing the script as there wasn't.


I also realised that there is a trap many comics fall into where they spend months polishing five minutes and not writing and testing new material. I've always liked topical comedy so on the train home I started going through newspapers looking for stories. I've tried to write five mins every week since, not always successfully, but writing has become far easier.