Comedy Club Review

I’ve never been to a comedy night before, so when I heard that Big Owl Comedy had some acts that were doing an Edinburgh Fringe fest preview show at Hexham, I thought this would be a good place to start. I was not disappointed. The Queens Hall is a nice theatre with a small gallery and coffee shop thrown in. It was in said cafe we found ourselves for the night of stand-up. This gave the night a more relaxed, informal feel and not an empty seat in sight. Also with mugs of coffee for £1 who can argue?

We began the evening with a compere that introduced herself as a local Geordie lass and made sure no one forgot it. I found her to be funny overall but I thought her use of swearing was a little over- zealous. It’s not something that generally bothers me and I think I swear a little too often but every other word with this woman was an f-bomb. I think I was more conscious of her audience than she was, noting a few older women in the audience not looking too happy. But maybe I’m just being old fashioned about it, our generation is a lot more free with speech and the boundaries between polite conversation and foul language have dissolved somewhat.

The first comic was absolutely fantastic. Lee Ridley, stage name Lost Voice Guy, is an absolute inspiration. He has cerebral palsy but where that might hold some people back, he has embraced his condition. He opened with a joke about never seeming to have picked up the Geordie accent despite living here his whole life, and from that moment onwards the audience were in stiches. Using an iPad to tackle his inability to speak, he was the man of many voices. In a sketch about people recognising him, he began quoting other times his ‘voice’ has been used – “The train arriving at platform 4 is the 11:45 to London Kings Cross”. A sketch about hospital radio demonstrates again the way that LVG has used his disability for comedic effect, quoting his favourite song as Satisfaction by Benny Benassi. This show, although hilarious, is also a very frank and realistic look at living life with a disability and the challenges faced every day that many people just don’t realise. “Jay-Z might have 99 problems but has he ever had this …” Speaking out about disabled life, LVG tells it how it is with a good few laughs along the way. I absolutely recommend trying to catch one of his shows. You can follow him on twitter @lostvoiceguy or check out his website for upcoming tour dates.

The second comic had a hard act to follow and in my opinion, didn’t quite make the mark. His set was real-life observational comedy, all about the perils of facebook, grocery shopping and all your friends being grown up and getting married. Not my cup of tea. But that is the risk you run when going to see comedy. That’s fine. What you don’t do is sit at the front and heckle and interrupt the guy the entire way through his set. This is what happened to this poor comic who will remain nameless, from the get go he was thrown off his game by a group of rude men and you could see it messed up his continuity and shook his confidence. If you don’t find a joke funny, don’t laugh. Or if it’s that bad, leave. It’s that simple. Don’t sit there ruining everyone else’s evening and criticising someone who had the guts to get up in front of a room full of people in the first place.

Overall a good night with some excellent jokes, some lessons in stand-up etiquette, and the feeling that maybe I need to lighten up.

Key Change – Theatre Review

A small intimate venue with only 150 seats was the setting of a fantastic, moving performance that told the hard-hitting stories of women in prison. A powerful community-centred production that challenges perceptions of women on the inside, and what lead them there. I love theatre that makes you feel something, makes you think in a way you haven’t before. Key Change certainly did that for me. This is the kind of gritty, real drama that changes perceptions.

The effect of this hard-hitting play was made even more real by the minimalist approach to set design. Just 2 chairs, 4 rolls of masking tape, 1 boombox, and 5 amazing actresses. This play was all about the dialogue; about giving a voice to those who felt no one was listening, that no one understands. This story grabbed you from the first scene, and didn’t let go until the very last second.

Black humour and blue words gave a dark play about cause and effect the ability to reach out to it’s audience. Featuring heavy issues such as domestic violence and drug abuse, the writers often used comic relief to avoid dragging the audience down to depths of sorrow from which there was no return. My favourite line had to be “Did you paint me a picture? No, nanna cannit see it down the phone (a fight breaks out over the use of the phones) Do you fucking mind, I’m trying to talk to me granddaughter here! Sorry, love.” Moments like these, demonstrate the importance of comedy and laughter in a place that is filled with horror stories and dark pasts.

All the actresses featured in this play spoke with noticeably northern accents, which is a tool used to break class barriers still present in theatre, and ground the play firmly in the north east. This was a story everyone needs to hear. The dialogue and colloquialisms were a strong reminder that these are the voices and stories of real women.

This play is the result of a community project ran by Dilly Arts that worked with women in prison, and asked for their stories. The production was then toured by Open Clasp Theatre Company in male prisons by a cast of professional female actresses, and then had its only show for the public at the Live Theatre in Newcastle. Dilly Arts have since been funded to go back into male prisons to help them work through their reactions to the performance. This I find to be a fascinating and brave endeavour, and I hope that I am able to see resulting film when it is released on their website at the end of this year.  Find it and more at dillyarts.org.uk.

Open Clasp Theatre Company are organisation that focus on bringing the voices of marginalised women into the public gaze. This was my first taste of feminist theatre, and certainly won’t be my last. This play made me see the lasting effect that a person’s choices can make in their life. How consequences can have such a dramatic and permanent effect. And that past all of that, these women still deserve to be heard.

Slated by Teri Terry

This is a fantastic novel set in a disturbingly close and possible future. Dystopia is everywhere. Most books I read are dystopian and the scary thing is, they are all easily imagined futures. This is true of the premise for Slated – a future where young criminals are given a second chance at life. A chance to get it right. The most chilling thing about Terry’s narrative is that this is valid solution for the issue of prison overcrowding or re-offenders. The stats according to a Ministry of Justice report of young re-offenders in the UK alone found that 72.3% of under 18’s reoffend within the next 12 months of being released. (x)

On the other hand, it was a nice change to read a novel set in England, it seems I have been unconsciously surrounding myself in the great expanse that is America, and it felt good rooting myself back in England.

The overall theme seems to be the notion of Good vs. Evil. How can you tell which side people are on? It’s not that clear cut and there are a lot of grey areas. We see characters whose first impressions were completely opposite from the person they really are.

This is my first time reading Teri Terry, I’ve got the next book on my bedside table itching to be opened but I need to take some time to process the implications of this ending. The villain emerges right at the end out of nowhere. There is a good character arc, and we watch the way the characters grow and progress but feels like half a book, like the butterfly has just punched a hole in the chrysalis and the book ended.

This book was a wonderful Christmas present from one of my best friends. I love being recommended books because you get to see what someone else things of your reading style. This book is absolutely something I would buy for myself, and was actually on my kindle To-Read list.

I actually saw this book after finishing The Testament of Jessie Lamb which has similar not-too-distant horrors that give you goosebumps when you think that scientists and government officials could be squirrelled away as we speak plotting and planning and nurturing these ideas for a “better, safer, ‘insert other reassuring word here’ future”

This book makes you question if your dreams are really dreams or memories from your life “before”. Who knows, you could have been slated. But what did you do? Sure, this book is set in the future, but we might actually be a parallel universe and this is really our history. In this day and age your Levo could be a small chip under the skin. Like the one Russell Crowe dug out of his arm with his bare hands in A Beautiful Mind. What’s that? Are your levels dropping? Maybe you should go for a run. But once you start running, you might never stop. You could just keep running, and running and running. Because god knows there’s plenty in this world that makes you want to run and hide. Fractured the next book in the series, however, is not one of them.

You can find Teri Terry on her website at http://teriterry.jimdo.com/ or on twitter as @TeriTerryWrites.

Flashy flash fiction

So I’ve decided to clamber on board a little flash fiction train for January. Granted, it is a little late but you can still have a look here at my work and the work of some other writers I enjoy reading. This is the first time I’ve managed to make myself write on consecutive days. I think I’m starting to flex my writing muscle. Something I have sorely missed since Uni finished and real life began. Finding time to put aside specifically for writing is something I’m struggling with. It’s hard but nothing a little flash can’t fix.
Bring on 2014.

“Ready Player One” Hell yes, Ernest Cline!

Ready Player One – Ernest Cline.

What a fantastic read. I’m not a gamer, or an 80s kid but I found that I didn’t need to be either of those things once I started to read. I was hooked from the word go. Ready Player One has strong lead characters and a depressingly realistic vision of the future. A dystopia which people escape from through the digital world. This book explores what motivates us to carry on; the promise of riches or the wealth found in friendship. This book has its share of villains, both real and pixilated, and I loved every bout, battle and skirmish.
I read this book in two days, on train journeys, plane rides and whenever I had a spare moment. A gripping book that made me nostalgic for a childhood I never had. I felt my inner geek being nurtured, wanting to give IMDb a run for their money when the book was over. Just how many lines from that film can I quote?
We follow as a group of gamers battle their way through the dangers that face them both online and offline as they search for Halliday’s Easter Egg. The insanely wealthy and genius creator of OASIS, James Halliday has died and left his entire fortune, including ownership of OASIS to the lucky gamer who can solve his series of riddles and find the hidden treasure.
This novel is like the encyclopedia of 80s trivia, whether it be games, films or TV. I haven’t seen everything that is referenced but believe me when I tell you my “to watch” list just got a hell of a lot longer. Cline explains gaming terms and reels off extensive 80s knowledge without it ever getting boring.
The internet is still seen by many as a dangerous place, which in some cases it is, but it is also where my generation spends the majority of their time. To us it is completely acceptable to have friends who live on the other side of the world or an acceptable way to meet a partner. This book takes it a step further, people live inside the OASIS, spending most of their waking hours logged in to this virtual reality where they can attend school, go to work, or explore the endless universe. Sounds like a pretty awesome deal, that is until you look around at the dystopia that surrounds them and wonder how far away from that we really are. Global poverty and famine, an energy crisis with the fossil fuels all gone, and overpopulation is rife. A bleak outlook that is a distinct possibility.
My only disappointment is that this is Cline’s first novel. This sadly means I have no back catalogue to gorge on. This means no more of his work to read until his next masterpiece, Armada, I wait with my finger hovering over the START button.
You can find Cline at his website: http://www.ernestcline.com which is the coolest website I’ve seen in ages, or on twitter: @erniecline.

This is only the beginnning …

So, I’ve decided that it is time to make myself a profile. Here’s what you need to know about me:
I’m a Creative Writing student at the University of Winchester.
I love reading, particularly fantasy and YA fiction.
Check out my “About” page to see what I’ve done so far.

I’m waiting for my writerly life to begin, and so in the meantime I’m a part-time carer for Saga.
They say that you take your inspiration from life experiences, and let me tell you my clients have many a story to tell. Maybe one day I can write a “Call the Midwife” only with less babies and more old people. Who knows?