Author: James Lark

At whatsonstage.com there is currently a competition to win a copy of Fringe, for which the question is quite simply “What is the first name shared by the two authors?”

I would suggest that, if you wish to enter this competition, the question should not pose too many difficulties. In fact, you only need to know one of our first names, because as the question implies, it is shared by both of us. Of course, finding out both of our names will give you added security and peace of mind, but if you don’t manage to do that why not go for it anyway? If you look around on this website you might find a few clues.

Curiously, the exact same question was thought up on the spot this morning by Sue Perkins during our LBC interview, which was bonkers from start to finish. But Sue’s listeners had an added advantage, in that she gave them a Richard and Judy style multiple choice – and so that our readers shouldn’t have an unfair disadvantage, I’m helpfully going to repeat said made-up-on-the-spot choices.

Is the answer:
a) Blames
b) Maims
or c) James

You can read Sue’s short but sweet account of the morning’s chat here, and it was by far the most fun I’ve ever had on a radio programme. Though at times I thought I was hallucinating it, having got up particularly early to do an hour on Premier Christian Radio (also a lot of fun, but considerably less bonkers – I even managed to finish a few sentences) and all that on top of another late night and another sell out performance.

Now that I come to think of it, much of last night felt like a hallucination as well. For some reason in the pub at one point everybody started massaging each other, and Paul Carr was impressed enough with the services of both myself and Sarah Bee to suggest starting Friday Massage as another branch of the Friday Project. Then when I went to say goodbye to Adam Kay, one of his friends put a peg on my nipple and everybody stood laughing at my pain.

Today, Sarah Bee sent me an email to say that there is a cheese called Munster. Also she sent me some photos of her dog.

I am taking advantage of the free internet service provided by my publishers to very briefly – between radio interviews and shows – mention that The Rise and Fall of Deon Vonniget can now be described as a “Sell Out Show”, thanks to the lovely crowd that turned up at the Courtyard Theatre last night to see it previewed in a double bill with cult muso-comic Adam Kay.

Not that I’m under any illusions as to who they turned up to see – Adam has a fanbase of about 17,000 people, whereas I have a fanbase of about 30. All of whom have seen my show many, many times already.

So it was refreshing to get to do my stuff in front of a crowd of people who’d never heard of me, many of whom confessed afterwards that they thought they were going to hate me. I’m glad that they held back this particular piece of information until after the show.

It’s also fortunate that I’m man enough to chuckle heartily at Adam Kay describing me as his warm-up act. Of course, when I’m really hugely famous I will make every effort to hire Adam as my warm-up act, because it will be both a friendly gesture and an act of personal revenge. Check out his CD – well worth purchasing for the Dorsal Horn Concerto alone. (Not that you won’t enjoy the others – but it’s the Horn Concerto one that had me seething with grudging fellow-muso-comic jealousy last night.)

My own CD, incidentally, has just been released by Friday Audio, and looks gorgeous. Worth purchasing for the packaging alone.

Fortunately there are other bloggers out there who came to see last night’s show, so if you’re one of the many, many people who couldn’t get tickets (oh, it gives me so much pleasure to write that), you can read about it here.

A naked man just cycled past me.

Completely stark bollock naked. And not the sort of man you’d want to see naked. Or even imagine naked.

In Newnham Village, which if you don’t know it is not the sort of place that this kind of thing happens.

In a park where families and children run around and play and picnic.

A naked man.

On a bike.

Fringe was featured in the Edinburgh Evening News on Monday – click here to read the article.

The reviewer phoned me very early in the morning. Even so, I’m slightly disturbed by the implication that I spent most of the time talking about toilet graffiti.

I don’t really know what to make of this, but I feel quite excited by it – somebody I don’t know called Quentin Wagner has just emailed me the following…

Subject: IRS

because I was starving and my throat was parched.
Part Two
“Family?”
while. “That’s not half as bad as being ahead of our time.”

That’s the kind of spam I don’t mind getting at all. It’s like receiving a fragment of a half-remembered thought that might not be important. Something to muse on. The sort of spam William Burroughs would send to people.

“That’s not half as bad as being ahead of our time”… And under the subject heading “IRS” (presumably the Internal Revenue Service?). It’s the most profound thing anybody’s emailed me ever.

Thank you Quentin Wagner.

I just listened to some of 28 Acts in 28 Minutes – “a traditional variety show where each act only gets 60 seconds to perform.”

It is a terrible idea. I think I got as far as the fourteenth act before giving up, which I feel is slightly shameful because there were people I know performing on it. But there is no pleasure, none at all, in hearing a succession of people only just getting started. Or worse still, not quite getting finished.

I’m not saying it’s impossible for comedians to use 60 seconds to be efficiently and brilliantly funny, but very few comedians have a style that really allows them to do this. And of course in the few cases where people had really worked out how to use their time (the Hollow Men, for example), I wanted to hear more of them. A very dissatisfying listen.

*Sigh* … back to I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue, then, for the 34th year running…

I don’t often use this blog to talk about myself. Oh, alright, I do, but I’d hate you to feel you weren’t in the loop, and you’ll definitely miss out if you don’t know about the following:

– Previews for my Edinburgh show, The Rise and Fall of Deon Vonniget, are on 20th and 21st July, 7.30pm, at the Courtyard Theatre (10 York Way, just over the road from King’s Cross). I will be sharing the stage with Adam Kay, writer of the popular London Underground song, so you get two previews for the price of one and a lot of music for your money. Box office: 020 7833 0876

– If you happen to be visiting the fine city of Edinburgh itself, the same show is on at Sweet ECA, 3rd to 27th August (not 14th), 5.40pm. Box office: 0870 241 0136, or book tickets at here. The show itself, if you’re not already familiar with the thing, is fully explained here.

– And finally, if you do happen to be visiting the Fringe, you might find it useful to know that the ultimate guide to that event, Fringe (co-written with the other James who uses this blog), is now available in all good bookshops – so please feel entitled to look for bookshops that don’t have it and label them BAD. If you’d prefer to stay indoors and order it from the comfort of your own house, check out this site for the appropriate links.

That’s it – I’ll never talk about myself again.

Damn Russell T Davies. Just when I think I’ve got him all worked out and he’s basically rubbish, he comes out with an episode like Doomsday.

Even the final sequence, which could have been horribly sentimental, seemed right. Yes, a little bit overblown, but in context appropriately so, and the shot of the Doctor with tears running down his face… I’m sure I wasn’t the only one sobbing quietly to myself.

As for the story itself (and there was one – an excellent development which I hope will be carried on in the next series) – well, I nearly got it right.

I dreamt that the Footlights tour show was using a big buffet on a long table as its set for each performance, and every sketch used a different item of food in some amusing way until it was all used up.

In my dream at least it felt like exactly the kind of inventive, experimental comedy the Footlights ought to be doing…

An item I sent in the post was damaged recently and I popped onto the Royal Mail website to see if there was somebody I could mouth off to. It all seemed very friendly and easy to use, and I quickly located a customer complaints form. “Aha!” I thought, “an online form – this should be quick and simple.”

So I filled in all the relevant boxes, typed in my polite complaint, scrolled up and down the page to see if I’d missed anything, then clicked on the “Next” icon, imagining that it would submit my form to the nice people at Royal Mail.

But no. The next page was exactly the same, but with the added instruction “please print off this form and post it to:…”

Now, I can understand that Royal Mail like posting things and maybe it seems natural enough to them. But I can’t help feeling that I’ve been duped. It’s not so much that the supposedly simple online form had suddenly turned into a process of printing something out on my paper, affixing a stamp worth 32p and all the effort of actually going out and posting it. No, it’s more the feeling that their customer complaints form is little more than a thinly disguised piece of self-promotion.

It’s a complaints form that ends by telling you to go out and use the service that you’re complaining about. They make a 32p profit every time somebody complains. Imagine if you went into Mothercare to complain and just as you’d finished making your complaint they sold you a rattle. It’s just like that.

I’m almost tempted to print off another form complaining about the system and claiming back my 32p.