Thoughts of the day.

Good news! I’ve actually found a benefit of getting older, ok it’s just the one at the moment, but it is a big one.  The body creaks and aches and pains are always a reminder of the passing of time (and fitness), but between the ears hidden deep away there is this great little benefit called memory and experience. This week the horrific terrorist attacks in Brussels brought the usual response  as society tried to come to terms with the madness of the few. Political rhetoric of ‘clamp downs’ and ‘determination’ and ‘unity’ and all the other things we expect to be spoken at such moments of grief and anxiety.  Images of human pain and despair mixed with acts of courage,compassion and real unity.  One thing stuck with me, and that was the feeling that ‘I’ve seen and felt this all before’ not exactly the same, but very similar moments and feelings of despair and anger and solidarity all mixed together and racing through my brain.  I heard one politician sa...

This last week I've done gigs in a (ex) Convent (and that on a Sunday morning) , in a ex pat club in Budapest and yesterday in the old mine district of Beringen (Belgium) in a Theatre, tonight I take my show to a Cultural Centre on the edge of Brussels, Halle. Stand-up Comedy at home everywhere there is a stage a microphone and an audience that are willing to open their minds and listen. Personally I prefer the intimate clubs and places where the audience almost sits on stage with you. People who just watch Stand-up on TV seem to think it's all about the Michael McIntyres of this world in huge arenas or Theatres, if that's your thing ,do it, but real -gutsy, rock n roll stand-up will always be the small venues, with affordable tickets and exciting new talent. In huge arenas you get a certain percentage of the audience who are there because it's a huge 'event' and some of them are not stand-up comedy 'regulars' - this week the hype is a comedian next ...

The irony of the bussiness  I'm in (comedy) is that a lot of the time the audience goes home happier than the artist. The adrenaline rush of the gig usually wears off a couple of hours after the show and doubt and self-hate sets in soon after that. Usually the truth is that a show is usually never as good as you think it was and never as bad as you think. There is something magic about being on stage and hearing people laugh at something you say, whether  for 10 people or a 1000 people the kick is there, and very very addictive, but like every drug it gets harder and harder to reproduce the first 'kick', you get used to it and the search for the 'high' becomes more and more difficult. I can remember being almost physically sick before a gig in the early years whereas now it takes 'effort' to produce the tension needed to create the 'edginess' on stage. Performing comedy on stage is an addictive drug, and like all addictions it's a love/hate ...