Last month saw some more rescheduled shows take place, so I’ve been able to enjoy a few more nights out which is cool.

During the first week of October, I spent 2 consecutive evenings at the Lowry Studio Theatre, and first up was comedy magician John Archer. I’ve seen him as support a couple of times for Tim Vine, as well as on BGT, and also got to see him do a set at NSN back in July 2019 – but this was my first time seeing him do a full-length show, so I got to see some more of his act that I hadn’t seen before.

I think he’s really good, and very funny too, although having seen him before, I did know some of the things that were coming ! Also, I ended up sitting just in front of Ian Rowbottom and his family, and I hadn’t seen him in ages, so it was nice to catch up beforehand and during the interval.

Then the night night I was back there to see ‘Jonny Awsum Is Comes To Town’. Again, I’ve seen him do some support stuff before, as well as seeing him perform a show at the Edinburgh Fringe a few years ago, so was looking forward to eventually seeing his new show!

It was a great show, although there was one part of it where I wanted to die! Various parts of the act require some level of audience participation, and he needed someone to come on stage to do some actions for a song. He started scouring around the audience to get someone up, and I tried to melt back into my seat, aware that since it wasn’t a massive crowd there was a chance I’ get picked. Anyway, I saw him clock me, and gesture to me to join him on stage, and I really didn’t want to go, but I knew I had to!

I basically had to copy a bunch of moves and actions that Jonny was doing to the song, some of which were highly questionable(!), and my timing for stuff like that isn’t great, so I had to really concentrate! It really is my idea of a nightmare… stick a camera in my hand and I’m fine up on stage, but like this is totally out of my comfort zone!

Olly from Gag Reflex we doing the sound for the show, so we caught up afterwards and he though it was hilarious that I’d been picked! I’ve met Jonny a couple of times in the past through Lee, and he said on my Instagram post that he couldn’t resist it when he saw me the audience, so maybe I was actually targeted!

Annoyingly the journey home was a bit more complicated than I’d planned. There was a problem with the overhead cables on part of the Metrolink, so it meant that my tram back to East Didsbury, where my car was parked, was cancelled! I managed to find someone official to ask what other options there were (since I’d already tapped my card on the reader at the tram stop), and he told me that I could take a bus back to Didsbury from outside the Lowry, and they’d let me on because of the failure. So I did manage to get back alright, but it took a lot longer to get home, with the bus taking a scenic route through the city centre!

And then the following week, I was at the Apollo to see Rend Collective, after wanting to see them do a big show in the past, but not been organised enough to get tickets far enough in advance. I have actually seen them quite a few times in the past at various festivals, but never really in a gig-type setting like this show was.

It was a good gig – the crowd were quite different to most of the gigs I’ve been to at the Apollo, but it was a great atmosphere! I didn’t know all the songs, but they used a lot of visuals with lyrics included so you could join in with the crowd-singing quite easily!

Setlist:

Revival Anthem
I Will Be Undignified
Build Your Kingdom Here
Joy of the Lord
Rescuer (Good News)
Coming Out Fighting
Counting Every Blessing
Your Name is Power
I Choose to Worship
Day of Victory
You Will Never Run

Encore:
Marching On
My Lighthouse
What a Beautiful Name

And then last weekend, I was down in the midlands spending it with old uni mates from CU. Steve drove down from Glasgow on the Friday night and stayed at the Holiday Inn in Stockport, then picked me up on Saturday morning to drive down to Phil and Mary’s, just south of Reddich.

Altogether there were six of us this year, plus children, and in the afternoon, me, Steve went with Ali and Helen went to a soft play centre with both their lots of kids, and it was pretty manic! I’ve not had to do the whole play-centre thing very often, so the main thing that hit me was how loud they are! Helen’s kids are a bit younger, so they stuck around with us a bit more, but they all had a fun time playing on all the equipment there. After about an hour and a half, we met back up with the others and got ready to head out to the local cricket club for a fireworks display.

We walked down to the cricket club, and it’s a fair old distance, especially when walking with young kids! When we got there, it was absolutely packed, and it was quite difficult to keep everyone together! It was good though, and the fireworks seemed to last for ages – every time we though it was over, another one went off!

Back at the house, everyone else tucked into curry, whilst I enjoyed my usual alternative of fish and chips! It was a regular portion, but there was way too much and I was so full afterwards!

Me and Steve stayed over in a Premier Inn in Reddich, and then on Sunday morning drove into Birmingham to visit Cadbury World with Ali and the kids. Both kids were really excited about visiting – I think they really like chocolate! We had a really fun time there, checking out the history and the way they make the chocolate, and also watching a 4D film, a Freddo circus show plus other interactive rides and attractions. And they’re really great kids, and Ali’s doing really well with them – that was really great to see what a great family they make.

Ali and the kids headed back to Bristol, so me and Steve drove up through Birmingham, taking a look at where UCE used to be (it’s all been bulldozed now!) and we even drove past my old student houses! We had lunch in a pub in Erdington near to one of the houses Steve lived in, and then headed home. I felt sorry for Steve who still had a few hours to go before he got back to Glasgow!