In mid-January I did a couple of great sell-out shows of a reworked version of my 2011 solo show Perfect Mixtape at the Leicester Square Theatre.

For want of a better title, and because I had to come up with the name when I was hungover one morning in mid-November, I decided to call it How I Attended My Own Wake and Have a Mixtape to Prove It. It's broadly speaking the same show that I did in Edinburgh, but I re-scripted some fairly big chunks of it in order to concentrate more on the (true) story at the heart of the show which is about how I went to my own wake.

I was really happy with the show in Edinburgh, but one of the quirks of fringe shows there is that you have to write all the blurb and all that before you know the final shape your show is going to take, so I was quite conscious from pretty early on that there were some structural changes that I wanted to make in order to concentrate on the telling of the main story and some of the musical bits and pieces.

So, long story short, this was a kind of preview of a new version of an old show. I'm making some more tweaks and am hoping to have a decent period of re-development at some point; either way I'll be doing quite a few more performances of this in its new form during 2012, starting with the Machynlleth Comedy Festival on the 5th May (where I'll also be doing ACMS and some other bits and pieces).

 

As well as doing a couple of sell-out shows of my reworked 2011 solo show, I also did some great fun comedy type gigs this winter.

The first ever School Night, a superbly-conceived new night run by techie extraordinaire and now producer James Lowey, was absolutely ace. As you may have guessed, it's a school-themed night where each performer gives a 'lesson'. Inevitably enough, I gave a music lesson which featured, as all good music lessons should, two 'students' smashing another 'student' over his (helmet-encased) head with tuned, coloured sticks, and also a once-in-an-evening opportunity to insult Matthew Crosby live on stage whilst an idiot (me) played a teapot into his ear. I was in very illustrious company indeed as the other 'teachers' were the likes of Humphrey Ker, Steve Mould and Helen Arney.

Speaking of Helen, I also did her 'geeky new material' night Domestic Science in January, where I did some fun new stuff about Cliff Richard and ancient Mesopotanian songs, featuring some failed looping and an iPad synth.

Oh, and I did a couple of Forgery Clubs and ACMSes in my role as resident Music Monkey/occasional alter ego Steven Briggs one-man-colliery-band-slash-grime-mc. Was a bit of an odd few months, being as Forgery Club was the last ever night at the Albany on Great Portland Street, and ACMS was the last ever night at the New Red Lion on City Road: both legendary comedy venues and fantastic rooms to play. Both of these great new nights have had to find a new home, and the scene is much poorer for having lost these great venues. Alas!

 

Ironically enough, I never feel festive until this annual festival of Humanism comes along. Curated and presented, as ever, by the indomitable and borderline insane Robin Ince and featuring the usual parade of amazing scientists (Andrea Sella, Marcus Chown, Ben Goldacre), comedians (Alexi Sayle, Mark Thomas, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring) and musicians (Grace Dent, Neil Hannon, Scroobius Pip) it was, as ever, an extraordinary week. For my part, I did my usual tootling, including a teapot micro-solo on Neil Hannon's National Express and also played a teapot which Andrea Sella filled with dry ice in Martin White's epic new song How I Take My Tea.

Happy Christmas, or, to quote Robin Ince, 'as we atheists say, Happy Christmas'!

My relatively new alter ego Steven Briggs, one-man-colliery-brass-band-slash-grime-mc came along on tour with me to India in autumn 2011 to check out the local aquariums (SB, omcbb/gmc ismascot obsessed with aquariums, you see). Steven is in the process of editing a short film about his experiences at both Ganpatipule and Mumbai aquariums which will be premiered, along with a live score composed and performed by Steven Briggs, omcbb/gmc, at gigs in 2012 and probably on YouTube too.  
 
 

As has now become something of an autumn tradition, I went back to India with the Bollywood Brass Band in autumn 2011 to play a couple of fun Bollywood gigs. The trip was much shorter than our trip earlier in the year but was still lots of fun, and I managed to tack on a few days at the end to have a little explore along the west coast, where I've not really spent much time.  

Look, here I am not blending in. 

Due to overwhelming popular demand, I transferred my hit show Perfect Mixtape to London's West End for a Triumphant Run, which took place on 1st November.

Was very fun to do it again and the London crowd seemed to enjoy it as much as most of my Edinburgh audiences (make of that what you will), so when I have time I will be looking at taking this show on, perhaps in modified form, elsewhere.

As well as that I took up my position as resident Music Monkey at two of my favourite comedy nights, the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society and the Forgery Club. They're both very different from your regular comedy night, with ACMS specialising in experimental (though invariably very fun) stuff, bookended by me doing some hopefully entertaining musical experiments involving technology, teapots and titting about and with Forgery Club being a themed character and musical comedy night where I also teat about, do musical stuff and some character shenanigans from time to time.

Oh, and I did yet more musical teating around with Colin Hoult, including introducing my alter ego Steven Briggs one-man-colliery-band-slash-grime-mc to his unsuspecting audience.

Here's me playing a teapot with my mouth and a spring onion at an ACMS (photo courtesy of the ever-ace Isabelle Adam)

 

The London leg of my Origin of the Pieces World Tour* was great fun.

I did a couple of shows at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden, which both pretty much sold out, thanks in part to a recommendation from Lauren Laverne on BBC 6Music.

Was really good to get the show up on its feet again, and more than anything very useful to remember which bits worked better than others in advance of my new solo show, which I'm working on at the moment.

So Origin has been put to bed for now, but there will be lots more musical comedy shenanigns with my Brand New Show this Spring and Summer. 

Details to be announced soon (including previews dates etc - though I have one confirmed in Eastbourne on 28th June as a double header with Dan Antopolski) , but know this: it will be fun.

 

* Tour included: Edinburgh, London. In fact the tour was just: Edinburgh, London. And the dates were 6 months apart.

Before Christmas I played for what is becoming an annual fixture in my diary: Robin Ince's 9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People shows. These are always good fun. I wasn't performing any comedy, but was part of the on-stage band, the Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra, led by Martin White. It's always a great experience, and the green room is full of extraordinary people, including: Alan Moore, Barry Cryer, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Marcus Chown, Jim al-Khalili, Marcus du Sautoy, Josie Long, Rich Sandling, Jo Neary and about a million other fantastic people. I did a couple of duets with the inimitable (by which I mean borderline nuts - but in a good way) Robyn Hitchcock and a somewhat impromptu version of Fairytale of New York with Gavin Osborne, as well as lending some agressively loud surprise trumpet in the stalls for Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden. All in all: ace. 

 

No content here yet, sorry! There will be soon.

 

I took my one man show Steve Pretty on The Origin of the Pieces to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2010, where I performed it at the GRV as part of the (now sadly defunct) Five Pound Fringe. 

Here's the blurb: 

"Until recently, Steve knew almost nothing about pop music, despite being a professional musician and having been born 5 minutes after John Lennon was shot. In an ambitious attempt to change this, he resolved to listen to every piece of popular music ever known before his 30th birthday. From prehistoric boneflute music to Jedward, no stone would be left unrolled. 

Unlikely connections emerged and he found himself on a Darwinian voyage of discovery. Would a merciful God have created N-Dubz? Are Led Zeppelin the transition fossils between medieval minstrels and Muse? And how do creationists explain Lady Gaga?

Part edutaining interacto-lecture, part stadium-rock-gig-in-a-small-room-without-a-rock-band, this is one man’s attempt to recreate the entire history of pop music with only a trumpet, a laptop and a fondue set."

The show went down really well, with a nice clutch of four star reviews (like this, this and this) and even a mention as part of Fest magazine's 'Perfect Fringe Day', intimidatingly suggesting that people go straight from my show to Paul Merton's.

Fest magazine called it 'an eclectic mix of fun facts, sharply observed one-liners and audience participation' and 'original, intelligent comedy delivered with commendable panache', which was nice of them.

The show website is still live and has lots more information about the show.

I really loved writing and performing a show that combined a lot of my interests, hopefully made people learn something, and (mostly, and most importantly) made people laugh.

As I write (February 2011) I'm currently planning my next solo show which I'll be taking up to Edinburgh this summer. Why don't you sign up to my mailing list so that I can let you know when I've got previews happening?