Stewart Lee and Max Wall.

Saw Stewart Lee's show Carpet Remnant World. Not often an anticipated experience delivers. I'd heard him speak about Jerry Springer at a theatre conference at Warwick. I'd read his book on stand up and seen his latest series on BBC 2.  All of which made me want to see him live.  It's a long time since I've seen someone so funny, so uncondescending, and so in control of the room.  He has all the skills.  He makes a point in his second book - If You'd Like a Milder Comedian - that he has no talent as an actor. Maybe. But he knows all about physicality and timing.  In some ways it reminded me of seeing Max Wall who also used to deconstruct his act.  He'd explain he was going to tell you a joke, explain its inadequacies, apologise for telling it, tell you where you'd laugh and why you'd laugh, all of which was immaculately funny, and then about half an hour later tell the joke and step back and watch disappointed as you fell about all over again.  Lee doesn't do jokes, but in their technique they have much in common.  I saw him last week and I've been smiling ever since.

The Giants in the Earth musical makes it onto film.

So we have a trailer for the musical Giants in the Earth that Matt Marks and I have been working on with Oxfordshire Theatre Company.  Please have a look, it's up on youtube.  It's on the edge of the final rehearsal draft. All we have to do is incorporate what we learned from the two weeks Arts Council funded development period we had in November and it's ready to go.  I thought it was amazing that only weeks after they'd pulled portfolio money from the company they were eager to put in eleven grand to finance our work.  An endorsement of the the piece and of Karen Simpson's work as the artistic director, and what should have been proof o the board that they wanted to fund the company on a project by project basis.
Onward and upward.  We're one step closer.  Enjoy the short video.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWOsMNp68QU