Tag / Comedy

by Gareth

Edinburgh Fringe

I’ve just got had a knackering but brilliant few days up in Scotland at my first Edinburgh Fringe! I was basically there for 57 hours, getting home late last night, and in that time managed to take in a total of 13 shows! It was pretty intense!

I’d only decided last weekend to head up there, so the guys at Gag Reflex got me some complimentary tickets for some of the shows they were producing, and I then found some other shows that still had tickets available that would fit around them.

Kate, Dean and Hannah in the Gag office.

Lee loves his spreadsheets.

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by Gareth

A catch-up

I thought I’d do a bit of a catch-up of what’s been going on the last few weeks.

At the start of last month, we had a bit of a crazy weekend shooting a TV commercial for Transform, which involved a mix of interior and exterior locations. We were really banking on the weather being good, and we were so lucky that the rain didn’t materialise until Sunday afternoon, because by then we’d filmed all of the outside stuff. We shot it all on the FS5 mounted on a Ronin stabiliser, and the shots looked great.

The week the shoot saw us having to get it edited and through Clearcast clearance to allow it to be shown on TV, and it was pretty tight, but we managed to get it on air without too much trouble!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Lowry to see ‘The Elis James and John Robins Experience’ – I started listening to their Radio X show and podcast back in September, and I heard them mention that they were doing a tour, so checked online and saw that there were just a few tickets left for the show! It was really funny – there were some references that I didn’t get that obviously would be known to a long time listener, but it just made me want to check out more of their back catalogue!

Elis James & John Robins.

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by Gareth

The Boy With Tape On His Face

Last night me, James and Rob Oldfield went to the Contact Theatre to see ‘The Boy With Tape On His Face‘. He’s managed by Lee from Gag Reflex, so he got us some complimentary tickets for his Manchester show.

We got there in time for the support act, who if I’m totally honest wasn’t great. He didn’t really tell jokes, but rambled on about stuff that wasn’t really funny! And I don’t think the tone of his material really complemented what was to come from the main event.

So, the main show… how on earth do you describe it?!

The Boy is fundamentally a mime artist, but not in the way you’d image when hearing that term. His show involves lots of music, random household props, audience interaction, and lots of red balloons! And even though there’s no speaking, so much humour is conveyed in his actions! I don’t want to give any of the gags away, but it’s genius, and if you get a chance to see his show, then you definitely should!

Afterwards, we were invited to join them for a curry at the Moon in Withington – Lee hadn’t been at the show, but met us there and introduced us to Sam (TBWTOHF) and his support act, Phil (awkward!)

It was really cool though, and Sam is a fascinating person, and very talkative without the tape over his mouth! He told us about him starting out as a clown in his native New Zealand, and all the crazy stuff he got up to as a street performer!