FESTIVAL DIARY DAY 4 - Rob Deering, Markus Birdman and comedy chat with Johnny Vegas

Wow, can't believe we're on Day 4 already - it's all flying past in a big comedic blur at the moment! Yesterday was another long and busy day, the morning spent writing up Saturday's many activities and the afternoon/evening spent cycling from gig to gig, to home, to gig, to gig, to another gig and back home again, in the driving rain/sleet/snow. Why do we do it to ourselves...? Coz we bloody love it, that's why!

First up was Mark Olver's afternoon chat show Dancing About Architecture at Just the Tonic, which was a fascinating hour of comedians discussing various aspects of the life of a stand-up. Mark was joined onstage by Johnny Vegas, Norman Lovett, Markus Birdman, Carly Smallman (who had to dash off at half time to perform at Kayal) and Adam Hess - although it should be noted that the character of Johnny Vegas was very much under wraps, allowing the man who plays him, Mike Pennington, to speak openly and honestly about being a stand-up, without the more unbalanced character of Johnny taking over. We were treated to some fascinating insights from the panel, including how they deal with nerves (drink often being the key, it seems); how male comedians can avoid going on stage sporting a urine stain (the trick is to tuck your little fella under, so any excess dribbleage heads down the inner thigh); Norman revealed how his Holly dialogue was shot in the early days of Red Dwarf (apparently Holly was just meant to be a voice to begin with, but managed to persuade Grant & Naylor to include his disembodied head as well). 

Fascinating insights: Lovett, Vegas, Hess, Birdman & Olver

FESTIVAL DIARY DAY 3 - Four shows and a seminar...

Saturday was rather a hefty day of comedy-viewing...

It began unreasonably early, with a 10am seminar at DMU's Pace building, in which a panel of comedy luminaries discussed the development of live comedy from the origins of the Alternative Comedy movement at the end of the 1970s (or the beginning of the 80s - this was a matter of some contention), through the 90s 'Comedy is the new rock&roll' era to the current environment of megastar arena tours and the lucrative panel show circuit, and ended by asking what's in store for the future of live comedy. It was a fascinating two hours, often dominated by the always lively and forthright Kate Copstick, who left the audience in no doubt as to her views on the current crop of TV comedians - stating in her typically reserved manner that she could shit in a bag, put an 'As seen on Mock the Week' sticker on it and people would flock to see it live. Also on the panel was Comedy Store founder Don Ward, who revealed his plans to record shows at his clubs and screen them in theatres across the country, as well as starting to stream them live on the net. This was greeted with some concern from the panel, who wondered whether this sort of thing would stop people bothering to go out to see live comedy in the smaller venues - as if to ask why would people go out and pay money to see half-formed sets by inexperienced acts when they can stay at home and watch top acts live in HD for free. This fear was tempered, though, by the feeling that there is perhaps too much live comedy around at the moment, and the good acts and venues would always survive, whilst the less competent would have to give up or find their own audience online.

FESTIVAL PREVIEW #3: The Best of the Rest of the Fest (part 1)

OK, it's getting awfully close to the start of Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival 2013, and I had lots of preview posts planned, but time waits for no man and I have been very distracted by the twin evils of work and illness (awwww bless!)
So I've combined some of the best bits from the remaining categories of comedy, to give you a few more pointers in terms of shows to look out for at the festival, all neatly pigeon-holed for your convenience (and the performers' annoyance, I suspect!)

Nutter: Terry Alderton