The legend has it that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. [1]
Doing silly shows while WWIII kind of lurches into terrifying possibility in the background is probably the modern equivalent of this myth, even if this means comparing myself to an all-powerful Roman Emperor rather than just some guy. And really: I’m just some guy. Really nothing about this analogy works, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.
it has, though, been a startlingly busy run of shows and rehearsals for me, taking in improv, sketch comedy, and music with the Brighton Folk Choir and my band The Highchurches.
And I’m not quite done yet: tonight is This Machine Kills Wasps, my alternative music and alternative comedy show at The Folklore Rooms in Brighton.
Then, I sleep for a week.
So, without further ado, here is a gonzo-style account of the past nine days, and the various gigs and rehearsals that this time period has featured.
Memories are already fading, so any mistakes that I make here will form the official reality, because I doubt anyone else is writing about my life – I hope.
Monday 23rd March
Theatre Deli, London
In-person Next Level Sketch rehearsal, and I am running late due to a toxic cocktail of broken trains and my own personal incompetence. I hate running late, and worse, I’d told everyone I’d be early, and then my phone prompty died, and so I was worried that I was worrying them.
Flustered, I get on the wrong bus at London Bridge and have to sprint from the Bank of England to Leadenhall Street, like a run on a bank, but in reverse.
I arrive sweaty – I was wearing a completely unnecessary cloak – and the other NLS members see me trying and failing to open the wrong door through the unforgiving glass walls of the rehearsal studio.
It took me about half an hour to get out of my own head, but after that, the rehearsal was really fun. I glued some ping pong balls to some sport socks, and lo: we now had some shit Muppets, from Birmingham, for my new sketch, “Brummie Muppets”.
The run-through went well. Only half the cast could do anything approaching a Brummie accent. This just, to my mind, made the whole thing even funnier.
Tuesday 24th March
Hoopla Impro, London
A gig with The Krayzies, a gangster-themed improv group I was asked to join after guest-performing with them last month.
This was The Mixer, in which one gets to see many weird and wonderful improv teams trying stuff out. Of the rival teams (obviously improvisers are all very friendly and not competitive at all, hence calling them rivals makes me, and no-one else, laugh), I particularly enjoyed Unplanned 9, a kinda sci fi themed improv show with a staggering number of props – particulary tin foil – and an excellent, mood-setting soundtrack. Would see again.
Our own show was very fun. Our “get” from the audience was irritation at having to reply to emails at work at a local London council. The thing I enjoy about The Krayzies is its themes are very easy to understand – family, revenge, loyalty, betrayal – and the more banal the audience suggestion, the more fun that can be had making the scenes high-stakes over extremely stupid things.
I am a local authority nerd so I kept throwing in lots of niche references to statuatory services and the GLA’s lack of power, but I think I got away with it.
Wednesday 25th March
Hoopla Impro, London
I was back at The Miller in London Bridge less than 24 hours later for Next Level Sketch, with our special guest stars John-Luke Roberts, BeHeMoth, and Kate Cheka.
I’ll do a full write-up of the night shortly, as I like to be comprehensive about these things, but the show was very fun indeed. I’ve got to the point with hosting where I don’t worry about it at all, and try to vary it a bit more depending on what guests we have on.
So for Wednesday’s show, I knew we were opening with Kate, a very radical, leftie comedian – perhaps more radical and leftie than our audience is used to.
So for my hosting I talked about some of my experiences at The Guardian, and the bizarro world of journalists spending months and even years working to reveal the terrible things our politicians are doing, and then go home and fuck their husbands or wives who are, in many cases, the very same politicians responsible for the things that they are writing about.
Thursday 26th March
My Flat, Brighton
A day free of the dreaded Thameslink! Ros from my band The Highchurches came around to eat dinner (leftover stew, thanks for asking), gossip about our enemies, and play some songs. I’ve got a new one I’m working on at the moment called The Middle Of The Irish Sea. It imagines Britain totally vanished from the map, with a nice healthy gap between Ireland and Scandanavia. Clearly my end-of-the-world songs keep emerging, as will the peopled remnants of some future, underwater England.
I hadn’t had a 1-2-1 with Ros for ages, and it was very fun to sing and chat with her. I played her some 45s from the indiepop days over dinner. It’s been long enough now that they don’t made me irredeemably melancholy in the way they once did.
Friday 27th March
The Glitch, London
A Not Suitable For Beebies improv gig at The Glitch, a lovely venue in Waterloo where I’ve performed previously with Next Level Sketch. This used to be an absolute tiny cave of a venue, but they recently (aka within the last year or so) knocked it through and built a much more satisfying and welcoming space.
It was a mixed bill, with the gloriously silly Michael Brunstrom the highlight from the first half.
We were on after the interval and, from my perspective, we weren’t very good. There were a few laughs, and I enjoyed a strangely deep dive into Catholicism in our take on The Exorcist, but for the most part my impression was that people were a bit confused about what we were trying to do. This is because, well, improv can be a bit hit and miss sometimes, but also we ARE still figuring out what we’re trying to do. The format, as it stands, has a few too many moving parts, a few too many things to remember to do (which is against the spirit of improv imo), and is slightly confused between narrative and scenes. But we’ll get better, and, in fact (spoilers!), did get better a few days later.
Saturday 28th March
Railway Land Nature Reserve, Lewes
A Brighton Folk Choir gig doubling as a thank-you to the volunteers of Changing Chalk, a National Trust-led partnership trying to create a more sustainable future for the South Downs – and also, frankly, to make more people in our Sussex towns and cities aware of and connected to this beautiful landscape right on their doorstep.
This gig was right by the river on former railway land, with a view of the chalk ridge in the background – aka, a perfect setting for someone with specifically river, railway, and chalk landscape based interests. Someone like me. [2]
Our glorious overlord, Jo Burke, had lost her voice due to laryngitis, and so we members of the choir took turns to introduce the songs. We’re a seasonal choir, and we’re heavily into imbolc season – songs of rebirth and celebration of the end of winter being in sight.
I haven’t been to choir practice much this year due to having so much other stuff on, but I managed to pick up the ones I didn’t know fairly well. I particularly enjoyed singing Candlemass Eve Carol and Oh I am Come to the Low Countrie. Everyone sang beautifully, especially Saoirse, Martha, and Nic on the solos, and Jo joined us on fiddle. It was delightful, I was very happy. Singing is good for you and everyone should do it, all the time.
Sunday 1st March
A House in Brighton, Brighton
Joy of Joys – all four members of The Highchurches got together for a rehearsal and to talk future plans, which features exciting things like PHOTOSHOOTS and GIGS and WORLD DOMINATION.
We played one new song – the aforementioned Middle Of The Irish Sea, and it sounded IMMENSE with all four of us on it. I’m excited to see what Martha and Elle do with their parts – the outro in particular has much potential for a FULL WIGOUT, or as much of a full wigout as is possible for an indie-folk band largely composed of social workers.
Monday 2nd March
The Hope & Anchor, London
Back to London for Duck Duck Goose, a longstanding improv comedy jam in a pub dangerously close to Clapham.
The bus to the pub from Clapham Junction was a reminder of how dense my overlapping memories of London are, like a kendal mint cake of broken dreams. A pub by the station made me think of my old comrade Dawn Foster; I then passed the cafe where I met our former colleague Len Cresci – now a Muay Thai fighter – for Dawn’s funeral and wake.
There were also happier things. Pubs that would get everyone to shut up at 6pm each day for a new episode of The Simpsons on Channel 4. A wonderful Thai restaurant where me and Eva (now in a punk bank called Flesh Tetris) used to eat regularly. My friend Chloe’s dog Zoomy, a whippet, charging across the Common. And just that joy of being in a city that, despite everything, still feels full of possibility, even if you’re in Clapham, a place so posh and problematic that Morgan Stanley can advertise their services without even having their posters vandalised.
London used to be home and I miss it, even the shit bits.
Duck Duck Goose takes place just over the border in Brixton, a much better place than Clapham on so many levels. It’s in an upstairs room of a Youngs pub which seems weirdly spaced out for comedy – the back row is far too far away from the “stage” – but so ends my criticisms of this night. In every other respect it is exemplary – inclusive, clear in its expectations of its participants, and clearly run by loveable nerds. My favourite kind of people!
We borrowed Tom and Nick from Burn The Script improv, and put on (to my mind) the best Cbeebies show we’ve done yet. It really felt like we’d cracked it, and the things that worked included a) trying not to follow the narrative of the film too much, and just treat it as a jumping off point, and b) fast, fast, editing. Being on the side of the stage ready to edit at the right point is just as important as being on stage, in my opinion, and I’m trying to get better at this. I particularly enjoyed our version of Last Tango In Paris, featuring erotic frenchmen, sexy bath scenes, and people literally being tangoed to death – all suitable for an all-ages audience, of course.
There was one edgelord guy in the audience who was a *little bit* stressful in his glaring intensity, and of course he demanded Schindler’s List when we asked for movie suggestions.
I said “absolutely not” before he’d even finished speaking, which got our first laugh of the evening. And things flew joyously from there.
Tuesday 3nd March
The Welly, Shoreham-by-Sea
A three-song set by The Threechurches, aka three members of The Highchurches (Martha couldn’t make it).
The Welly does a friendly open mic, although, as one chap called Phil told us, it can get a bit samey, with the regulars taking over and doing the same old covers.
We’re quite weird in that we go to open mics and play our own songs, including – this time – the absolute first time ever public live performance of Middle of the Irish Sea, which sounded… pretty immense, actually, thanks for asking. Even though I fucked up the outro.
Our set in full:
Harvest Moon
Doggerland
Middle Of The Irish Sea
We got lots of lovely compliments and it was just lovely to hang out and chat with my band members beforehand and afterwards, the thing I am in a band largely to do.
We all heartily agreed the band doesn’t sound half as good without Martha, and so I’m excited at the prospect of all four of us being on the same stage at some point in the near future.
Well, that’s a lot of shows. Jeepers. I enjoyed each and every one, and have met so many interesting and weird people lately. This is a good thing.
See you later for This Machine Kills Wasps if you’re around.
J x
[1] The reality is he was probably playing some kind of proto-lyre, not a fiddle, and was at his estate in Antium, 30-odd miles from Rome, rather than in the city itself; and that when he found out was going on, he organised a relief effort for the city. However before this yeah he did do quite a lot of murder and incest so you can see why the image stuck.
[2] There was also a gorgeous dog called Poppy, whose company we enjoyed very much.
jamesofwalsh 
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