There you go. Another cracking day. Thats four cracking days in a row since I decided to start counting - and looks like tomorrow will be spot on too. In the meantime, heres a sneaky preview of my monthly Evening Gazette piece tomorrow. (I really did beat Tanni Grey-Thompson in a race once. Thats my story anyway). :) Gazette – Weekend Warm-Up Friday 14 February 2014 I think I’ve got writers’ block this morning. It’s all down to the Gazette man who said “Your column’s in the paper the day after Tanni Grey-Thompson by the way. THAT’S A TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW!” Right. Just how do you follow an Olympic athlete with a shedload of gold medals and a string of sports awards a mile long? But, and I’ve never told anyone this before, I did actually beat Tanni in a race once. It was a wet and windy Sunday morning a few years ago and I zoomed past Tanni at New Marske while she was out training in a magnificent space age looking wheelchair. Fair enough, I was on a bus at the time and it wasn’t strictly a race, but it still seemed like a victory to me. Tanni need never know, so let’s say no more about it and just crack on shall we? So, last Friday, there’s me watching Peter Kay on Channel 4. A behind the scenes gander about his massive record-breaking tour, it showed him doing warm up gigs trying out new material and knocking a show into shape at a tiny 200 seat theatre before hitting the road in 10,000 seat arenas. And that’s pretty much what’s happening in Saltburn this weekend, with Alan Carr playing a couple of intimate work-in-progress gigs at the 145-capacity Saltburn Community Theatre. Tickets obviously sold out in a heartbeat for this – absolutely none left before anyone asks - but it got me thinking about how on earth this happened. I first stuck my head round the door at Saltburn Theatre around 20-odd years ago for an Agatha Christie type whodunit. I can’t remember too much about the show – I think the vicar might have done it – but the theatre itself was gorgeous. Fast forward in my time machine, and I thought it would be handy to put an occasional comedy night on there. First gig was a rare one-man show by scouse firebrand Anvil Springstein just over seven years ago. More decent gigs followed, and I soon teamed up with the lovely bods at Ten Feet Tall and, more recently, the folks at Saltburn’s Brass Neck Comedy too. A few hundred shows later and here we are. Have I Got News For You regular Mark Steel is the latest to confirm for Saltburn – there’s brief details in today’s What’s On pages I think – and who knows what else is in the pipeline. Tell you what though, the Alan Carr gigs were pencilled in for a month or two before being confirmed – and I’ll never know how I managed to keep that under my hat. So, if you need a top tip on how to keep a secret, try staying under the bed and not speaking to anyone for six weeks. Works every time. · For bags more comedy capers coming up soon, see tenfeettall.co.uk/comedy
Posted on: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 19:32:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015