Stories from the Pitch, and other places

Had a lovely afternoon shooting some promo images for the very funny Ria Lina. Had the pleasure of sharing a venue with her at this years Edinburgh fringe, and it was a great watching her show get tighter and tighter every night until I sat there in the back row on the final night of the fringe and watched her just kill from start to finish. Nice.

Had an interesting weekend of gigs - did a show for an entirely Christian audience. I initially felt a little unsure about doing this one - I'm an atheist, and worried about the correct-ness of me doing the gig, both from my perspective and from theirs. I decided that if I'm wanting the more evangelical Christians to be tolerant of others, then the least I could do would be to be tolerant of them, so I took the gig. Turned out that on a weekend full of gigs, most of them to at venues that would be considered much cooler, they were by far the nicest audience, and I was glad I did the show.

Although, it wasn't entirely without amusing incident. It was a circus themed show, so during the evening they had video projectors showing a looped montage of circus and variety acts on the walls of the function room. They left these videos running while I was performing, which meant that halfway through my act, I look up to see my old pal Piff staring down at me..

In other news, I did an interview for the Busker Hall Of Fame podcast, with excellent fellow Mike Wood. I see my days as a working full-time street performer to be probably over, although it's always there if the gigs dry up, and that's not in any way a joke. Having said that, I look back on my years street performing with a mix of fond nostalgia and gratefulness not to be doing it any more. Throughout the ups and downs of that life, though, it taught me a hell of a lot of the things I use most nights when I step onto a stage. I had a lot of fun doing the interview, and if you want to listen to it, click below.

Finally, some of you have been asking if I plan to do any more Mat Ricardo's London Varieties next year. The answer is yes, I certainly do. I'll have some very exciting news to announce in the next couple of weeks, but until then, I'll say this - mark out February 28th in your diary. :)