I tried to book tickets to see Ricky Gervais at the Bloomsbury Theatre (a one-off warm-up gig) today, but it sold out before I got anywhere. ‘Tis a shame, as I saw Gervais at the Bloomsbury once before, whilst a student at UCL (who operate the Theatre), and so it would have brought back some [...]
The new BBC Comedy Soup website launched today. It’s ‘a breeding ground and showcase for original comedy’. You can upload comedy images and, er, e-mail in audio and video, rate other people’s stuff, download Creative Archive stuff to use in your stuff, and there’s even tagging and tag clouds. My favorite bit of the site [...]
I’ve raved about The Mighty Boosh before on my blog, after catching their second series on BBC Three. Well, since then I’ve bought series one on DVD, and last Thursday went to see them live at the Brixton Academy. I’d somehow never managed to see a gig at the Brixton Academy before, despite seeing a [...]
I missed this news during the week, but via Phil Gyford have found the news that legendary poet Ivor Cutler has died. I’ve met Ivor several times, whilst working in the Owl Bookshop in Kentish Town, which was local to him. Each time, he’d come in to sign his books and generally try to chat [...]
I’ve really been enjoying watching The Mighty Boosh on BBC Three. It’s an oddball sort of comedy: weird without being wacky, silly without being stupid. There’s a sort of child-like quality to it, in the way that the characters act naively and calmly to odd occurances. Much of it feels like watching a dream sequence, [...]
This is old news, but the Ricky Gervais podcast entered the record books for being the ‘most downloaded ever’. With a new series of the podcast planned to be paid-for (at 95p a show), I predict that this will also get into the record books for being the ‘most pirated podcast’…
I’ve become addicted to watching Lazytown, broadcast on BBC2 (branded as CBeebies) in the mornings. The programme is made in Icelandic by producer Magnús Scheving, who also plays the lead character, superhero ‘Sportacus’. Magnús, a former world-class athlete, became concerned about childhood fitness and created the show to give kids a healthy role model. The [...]
So I pick up my Guardian on the way to work this morning, and there above the masthead is a promotion for the new Ricky Gervais podcast. No further explanation or page reference, just the Guardian’s website URL. The webpage has a quick self-deprecating introduction (“A half-hour of all-new drivel from Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant [...]
Yikes, in the past couple of weeks I’ve been to see a few ‘cultural’ things that I meant to write about, and haven’t until now gotten around to. First up, I went to see the ‘British-Iranian’ comedian Omid Djalili perform his stand-up show ‘No Agenda’ at the Bloomsbury Theatre. Omid is known to British audiences [...]
I’ve already written up a quick reaction to ‘Podcastcon’, the podcasting conference that took place on Saturday, but this is a more in-depth review of the day. I’ve already praised the conference for being very interesting and well-organised, so this entry is taking a more critical approach. 9:30am – Welcome Neil Dixon introduces the conference [...]