The week before the tour, and other ramblings

My to-do list for this Easter long weekend has some quite important things on there - write the Edinburgh show, learn my lines for the tour, feed my landlady's cats - that kind of thing, but as with every list, not everything gets done. I've been quite inspired this weekend by two rather good shows at the Portland Arms in Cambridge, perhaps I'm going there a bit too much these days because the bar staff seem to recognise me, but some of the shows being hosted there are really worth anyone's time. On Friday I popped down to the Portland Comedy Club - I try to go to this every month having enjoyed the one I went to a few months back, but due to gigs and stuff this was only my second time there. It's a joy to see comedians at a certain level - the level where they've reached the 'just about making a living' stage but haven't quite hit television or anything that resembles mainstream success. They really are the definition of 'working comedians' - these people work long hours for very little reward in the hope that they get the recognition they deserve. The least we can do as audience is enjoy it, which I think everyone did - I certainly enjoyed the quality of acts in relation to the fiver entry.

And then tonight, still a bit hungover from excessive beers with friends last night, I was back at the Portland to watch David Ford. A singer-songwriter I have admired for many years now, this is the first time I've seen him headline a show and it was just littered with moments of jaw-dropping brilliance. The older stuff (State Of The Union, I Don't Care What You Call Me etc) were always going to be highlights, but the new album material works just as well - and I didn't expect to see him with a full band so that was a bit of treat for all concerned. By the time he got to 'Cheer Up You Miserable Fuck' he'd already had a (fully justified) rant at an audience member for talking during the music and had performed with both of his support acts, who in turn became his backing band. Ford is an incredible songwriter, something somewhere has gone very wrong in the sense that he hasn't reached the status he deserves, but he works so incredibly hard on stage, every word is personal, every song blatantly means the world to him. Gigs like that one are a reminder that (CLICHE ALERT) you really do have to believe in what you do.

I needed that injection of inspiration because this time next week we'll be well into our tour. Tickets haven't exactly been flying out of the door (not even for the Cambridge dates, which for a homecoming is a touch alarming) and as a result we've lost one of the dates - the Bristol show, due to poor sales as the venue wasn't confident it is worth their while. I've done everything possible to rectify this situation - we're hassling the local media in each region relating to the tour to the extent we're probably becoming a nuisance, the posters are up in every venue, we've been working hard at social media. Like with every gig, a big audience is a wonderful thing, but can never be expected and would certainly never alter the quality of performance. I'm a little annoyed about the Bristol situation, and have re-written this post a couple times removing my true feelings for the sake of professionalism. Not being arrogant here - but it's a really good little show this one, it's a show I've had for a while, and we can't wait to bring it to the good people of Kingsbridge, Newquay, Guildford, Great Massingham, Cambridge (x2), Galashiels and The Isle Of Skye. The tour takes in over 2000 miles, which is a bit of an ask for my little Fiesta, and for most evenings we (Hind - the wonderful actress who, in a moment of weakness, has agreed to tour with me) will be camping. I'm hoping the weather will improve by then, but also annoyed with myself for writing about the weather on my blog. My lines are one of the few things I've managed to accomplish this weekend (apologies to my landlady's cats), the car now needs to be 'tour ready' (new headlight, back tyre, a complete re-vamp of the CD's available for the forthcoming journey) and we'll hit the road for what will be a bit of an adventure.

During the week of the tour, 'An Embarrassment Of Richards' will be launched on YouTube, and by the time I've finished writing this I'm expecting the e-book of, 'Some Plays By Paul Richards' to be live on Amazon - I lost three full days editing that bastard, but it's looking great now. Having spent the day with family; family who are struggling to understand why I'm touring the play again, why I'm putting myself through this - the struggles, the many hours of driving to do the show to six people, why I'm taking all of August off to bring two shows to the Edinburgh Fringe, why I'm avoiding the subject of getting a 'real job' when my redundancy kicks in at the end of April, it's easy to have doubts. Of course I do. But, in the words of the legendary David Ford himself: I chose this.

Gig report: Trevor Jones @ The Corn Exchange, Hertford

Band: Trevor Jones (acoustic duo)
Venue: The Corn Exchange, Hertford
Date: 28/03/13
Audience: Very nice, lots of them
Set: Broken Chains (Trevor solo), Bad Man, Can't Take This Anymore, Shining In My Window (Trevor solo), Riverside, What Kind Of Love, Roll On The Rain, Alive, 2 Choices (Trevor solo), Falling.
Notes: It would be unprofessional of me to say why this was such a big gig for us, but in short there was some people at last night's gig that, from an industry point of view, needed to see us on good form. It was a great gig - a great evening in fact. The Corn Exchange in Hertford is a fantastic venue - sizable, but with cabaret-style seating it didn't take much to fill it and I could only spot a couple spare seats in the venue when we were playing. Really decent quality sound on stage, I know we were only acoustic but to hear everything so clearly just made life so easy, and Trevor and I are well rehearsed with these songs. In between the duo stuff, Trevor tried out a couple songs completely solo, which were well received, and on the whole we were as tight as we've ever been, playing in front of an audience who appreciated everything we did. We were the middle act, the other two - Mr Paul and Alex Holmes, were both immensely enjoyable, and it was great to catch up the legendary Richard Boland and really good to see Helen (Flaming June's manager/the kind lady who has been helping me out with the press for the forthcoming tour) there too. And the people that needed to be impressed, were suitably impressed. All in all, a top night. Then got very lost going home, as expected.

The March new material evening

Tonight was our third new material evening of the year, and as always we filled the show with guests to make it a more worthwhile experience for the audience - after all, they're paying a massive £2 to come to this. It was a fun night, my two new pieces were - like last time - an older piece that I've re-written as I just didn't do it justice originally, and a brand new piece. The material on offer tonight was so dark - especially my dramatic re-write of 'Fake Diamonds', which was once described as being 'disgusting' by a director due to it's subject matter. I've always been fond of this piece though, there's some of my favourite lines in there and the repetition gives it an eerie edge. In rehearsals for it beforehand Izzy didn't seem so keen, but in the performance it went down very well indeed - laughs where they should be, we surprised ourselves a bit. Our second play of the evening was another dose of Oscar Pike - this time a performance of episode five from the forthcoming YouTube series. See, the thing is, I know this works - we've looked at this a lot (even though it's never been performed or produced anywhere yet) but it clearly doesn't work for this medium. It is a film piece of course, and I'm really fond of this one - it's an episode where Oscar is accidentally up for promotion but wants to jeopardise it, it's a situation a lot of us have been in. But it was dying on stage tonight, Izzy noticed I was struggling with it a bit, it just didn't work in front of an audience. Which is a shame, for them, as they had to sit through it. Our guest acts were all outstanding tonight, which gave me (somewhat selfishly) doubts about the quality of my work this evening, but all credit to comedians Andy Higson and Matt Rix plus singer-songwriter Zak Thomas, who made it into a really enjoyable event. I know I can't judge myself on new material evenings - if everything worked then there would be no point in these evenings as everything would just go straight to a full production. It's just the first one of the year was a real cracker - it felt like everything I wrote/said struck a chord (both of the plays from that evening have now been developed - 'Great Achievers' was filmed for the 'Embarrassment Of Richards' show and performed so beautifully by Alan Hay and Amelia Mary, whilst 'The Pretty Girl In The Supermarket' is now part of the forthcoming 'Some Plays By Paul Richards' tour show), the one last month was hit and miss but mostly, it has to be said, hit. This one though - well, it was below par. I really feel that in Izzy and Hind I have two actresses who are not only very talented and switched on to my humour, but also so very loyal - they deserve better material than the mediocre scripts I gave them tonight. But that's cool - because the next new material session comes after the tour (that show is looking great, by the way - but it should be because I've had it for ages now) and by then I would have had time to sleep, and then sit down and actually write something that is truly worthwhile. And a big plus side tonight was the audience - for the third month in a row we've had a really healthy, and very warm, audience, including many strangers (two of them were very nice young ladies who couldn't find the Amnesty International writing meeting so joined us instead and laughed along - I think we'll be seeing them again), and thanks to our guests they were given a decent night's entertainment.

An Embarrassment Of Richards: Week Three

Sometimes things just work out really well – and the final evening of filming An Embarrassment Of Richards was certainly one of those evenings. The whole run of 6 plays (2 a night) has demanded a lot from these actors, with a ridiculously intense rehearsal period, and the final week pushed things even further – these pieces were wordier, and considering the intimacy of the venue – more ambitious than ever. But then again I was blessed with a remarkable bunch of actors, and with a director team (Sarah had pre-arranged other commitments and wasn’t available for the second half of the show so Alan Hay helped out) of supreme quality, I shouldn’t have had any doubts really. A cracking audience crammed in and laughed at all the appropriate times, as a team we felt very comfortable with the space. The first piece, ‘Letters To Sparkle’ is probably the most successful play I’ve written – but one of the oldest (which in itself is quite alarming, it was written in 2006) and it has been performed by some very wonderful people over the years...Eifion and Amelia matched them though with beautifully (intentionally) awkward performances, building to the surprise climax – again, nobody in the audience saw that ending coming, nobody ever has – this makes me very happy. After the internal we went straight into, ‘How About You’ – this was originally written for Lodestar a couple years ago. I do too much comedy-drama these days, this is a proper straight forward comedy, with jokes, big characters and plenty of slapstick. For this we had an extended cast – so alongside Eifion, Emma, Amelia and Alan, also on stage we had the wonderfully confident Adam Daniels and Sylvie England – who are two more ‘proper’ actors, and me, stumbling my way through roles as a mad uncle and a nasty dictator. A play that perhaps needed a bigger performance space but worked so well anyway, it was packed with energy and was met with huge laughs – a proper high, a proper buzz in the air. Like one of ‘those’ gigs, these nights are a rarity and need to be treasured. Luckily, they were being filmed – which of course was the plan in the first place for this project. I have no idea how they will look when they hit YouTube next month, but for now I’m really happy, and grateful, to have worked with this team – ‘An Embarrassment Of Richards’ feels like an unexpected success, which as we all know - is always the most satisfying kind of success.

Gig report: the British IBM @ The Portland Arms, Cambridge

Band: the British IBM
Venue: The Portland Arms, Cambridge
Date: 19/03/13
Audience: Not a bad crowd - about 20 or so, enthusiastic
Set: Cannibal, 3 Years, Animal, Sugar Water, Bob Noyce, Is It Too Late To Save Oscar Pike, Feeling, The British IBM

Notes: Our first electric gig in a long time...this year perhaps? We've done a lot of acoustic stuff over the year. This was our first Cambridge gig in 12 months, we had previously decided to give playing our home town a bit of a rest and explore the rest of the country but this was a nice offer supporting touring band, Fiction, who have been the subject of some big acclaim recently. It feels good to be drumming these songs again, I like playing congas but still feel more at home behind a drum kit, and this was the first time we've gigged without playing none of the 'old' original Aidy set that we had when this band first formed - all album tracks with the addition of new number, Bob Noyce. Played well, perhaps a little sluggish at first but we soon hit our stride, went down very well, a pretty decent Monday evening all round.

An Embarrassment Of Richards: Week Two

Our second week of filming the series of plays, ‘An Embarrassment Of Richards’ took place on Sunday evening. I’d been looking forward to this one in a while as, out of the three evenings, I felt this material is my strongest I’ve ever written. Two more plays were performed – the absurd comedy, ‘Toxic Tornado’ and the (now) strangely moving, ‘Great Achievers.’ Despite a slightly shaky trip there (I think I scared some of the team with my somewhat dubious driving) and a much lower than expected audience turnout (the six who did make it down laughed a lot though – thank you Marcus, Leigh, Jack, Andy, David and Amy) it met expectations – this wonderful cast of Eifion, Amelia, Alan and Emma, coupled with Sarah’s spot-on direction is a gift for any playwright. Can’t wait to see the footage, especially the footage of a falling/smashing bowl that Alan somehow managed to incorporate into the plot... 

100 Songs In 5 Hours...the 2013 version

On Saturday we had our (now) annual fringe fundraiser – another attempt to try and get 100 songs performed in the space of just 5 hours. It’s a near impossible task, and completely irrelevant to the show(s) we’re taking to the Edinburgh Fringe this year – but if you’re going to put on a gig as a fundraiser you might as well make it an interesting show rather than the whole four bands on one billing thing. Last year 84 songs were played, this year didn’t start off on a promising note because the rugby was on in the pub and we ended up starting half an hour later than planned. Still, when it did eventually kick off it was great – with my old chum Emily Blickem making it down from London to open the show for us (she’s midway through a film at the moment, with six weeks to go, so I really appreciated her stepping out of it for a night to play) with a selection of witty, sunshine-blessed ukulele tracks. Colin McGerty was next up playing some darker material (I played congas for him on his request, even though I’ve never heard him play before/only met him twice very briefly previously), and then probably the most thrilling Flaming June set in a very long while. FJ have this knack of being fast and raucous anyway, so when Louise said to me beforehand, “lets really go for this” I knew it was going to be an exhausting set – in a good way, and we blasted through everything at a frightening pace. I had a quick breather as the wonderful Danielle Page (backed by her guitarist Ian) played 11 quick songs – she has a brilliant, brilliant voice, before returning to the stage with Popping Candy. PC are a function band I’ve recently put together with two of my most favourite people in the whole world – Izzy (my Fat Fox Productions co-founder, wonderful actress, collaborator, close friend) and Alister (long term collaborator, pianist, genius, drinking buddy, close friend) – this was only our second show but we bashed through a few crowd favourites and whilst there’s a sense that we’re a little nervy at times, we’re starting to find our feet and the audience responded well. Mr Gavin Bates was next up – an old friend and former bandmate; I’m really glad Gav could play this, not only because he’s a bloody good songwriter but just nice to catch up with him. Included in his sterling set were some songs we wrote together many years ago, what a nice touch that was. My fourth set of the evening came in the shape of an acoustic Eureka Stockade – we’re really starting to sound like a proper, established band these days, the kind of sound you only get after years of playing together. A set consisting mostly of new material, but sounding really ‘complete’ already, Andy and Rob were in good voice with plenty of charisma and the time just flew by. The legendary Stephen Matthew was next up, a mesmerizingly confusing blend of comedy and serious songs that you can’t really pigeonhole but he had the audience grabbed throughout – we all ‘danced’ the instructed moves to his original track, ‘Do The Milkshake’, whilst his cover of ‘My Lovely Horse’ from Father Ted was nothing short of amazing...Steve (a regular fixture in my Christmas shows as an actor) has this incredible knack of being both intentionally shambolic and appealing in equal measures and the whole room was encapsulated by his antics. With 40 minutes to go, we were still 45 songs short of hitting the 100 mark...so it’s a good job the mighty Jon Orchard was our final act. I’m still not sure how he did it – well, I guess it’s all rather simple really – he just played really, really fast. Improvising songs along the way alongside several established tracks, the man didn’t even have time to drink in between songs (apart from when he was force-fed shots by friends mid-tune) – there was a fire about his performance, a determination to hit that goal, and remarkably – with a minute to spare, he did. A frantic, fitting end to a wonderfully manic evening. So great to see so many good friends there, both on and off stage, with a good few quid raised towards the fringe show too – a wonderful, wonderful night.

An Embarrassment Of Richards: Week One

Last night was the first night of filming for 'An Embarrassment Of Richards.' The concept itself is simple; we want to have six of my plays online as a series, releasing one a week, keeping things very simple with the same cast (helps familiarity for the viewer, helps build a 'team' ethic for the actors/director) and filmed with a camera using one single frame with no fancy stuff in front of a small audience in the function room of a village pub. The complex bit is the timescale - filming six plays in March, two a week for three consecutive Sundays...that's a lot of lines for the actors to learn. Luckily, I seem to have stumbled across some of the most talented professionals out there, and it's not only about talent - it's about dedication, understanding, willingness...this lot have it all. You may remember last year when my play, 'Toxic Tornado' went on at WriteOn and I was buzzing because that cast looked just like a proper team even though they'd never worked together (or even met before), well I've managed to get three out of four of them for this project - Eifion, Amelia and Emma, add to that the wonderful and so in demand it's amazing we've got him Alan Hay (who I've worked with previously on the 'Mr Abernathy' film, the musical at Lodestar - 'You Don't Miss Your Water' and the occasional beer or three at the Edinburgh Fringe last year) and wonderful, wonderful director Sarah Ingram (who I've known for years and she's directed plenty of my pieces including the very successful (well, the critics liked it) 'A Little Light Theatre' piece I wrote for the Brighton Fringe many years back) and we've got ourselves an incredible team. And they are just that. The six plays chosen were initially supposed to be a kind of 'best of' from my 8 years of writing for theatre, but then I realised I don't actually own the rights to some of my own plays anymore due to publishing deals (meaning 'Bed' and 'With Arms Outstretched' couldn't be considered, among others), but it's basically that anyway. Filmed by Mr Dave Martin (a top filmmaker, also the bassist in The British IBM) in the very small back room of The Cock in Gamlingay - a lovely little pub I've become fond of because one of my best friends lives in the area so we drink there - the filming of the first two plays took place in front of a small but enthusiastic audience, it's a very small room anyway so even with just 14 people there it felt packed. The plays were, 'Reviewing Jonathan' (which featured an awful cameo by me) and 'When Jimmy Became James' - both perhaps the darkest pieces of the run, but perhaps some of the most satisfying. The performances were spot on - electric at times, full of energy, loud, boisterous - and the actors were clearly having fun doing them. Today there's been some nice banter between us all, lots of mutual appreciation, working with these guys is a joy - they do work so hard to make this happen because they want to, they are so driven, it makes me very happy indeed. It was a very creative and manic weekend - on Friday we played our first function gig as Popping Candy (I won't do 'gig reports' on covers gigs because this blog is more for my creative endeavours - it was a long show though, felt like we were on stage for ours...actually, that's because we were), on Saturday I recorded an acoustic album with Trevor Jones, Saturday night the British IBM online gig, Sunday bit of family time for mothers day and then the filming...yet everyone I've worked with has been so nice and so talented. These are the good times.

Gig report: The British IBM @ Online broadcast gig

Band: The British IBM
Venue: The Internet
Date: 09/03/13
Audience: 20, watching online, obviously
Set: Animal, Sugar Water, Feeling, Cannibal, Is It Too Late To Save Oscar Pike, 3 Years, God's Front Porch, The British IBM, If I Just Said No, Bob Noyce, Open Your Eyes, Make It Happen, Pain In My Heart. 

Notes:  Our first internet broadcast gig in years (the last time was ages and ages ago when, as 'Aidy' we performed an electric set in Aidy's old house to an online audience of 7), this was prepared like a military operation - the acoustic show was performed in Aidy's spare room which had been turned into a kind of homage to what the band stands for with vintage PC's, games, everywhere. We also spent a bit of time getting the sound right, much longer than your average soundcheck at a gig would take, so we went into ths one relaxed, in good spirits and confident. 20 people tuned in from the comfort of their own homes, many of whom chatted to us - either via the chatroom facility on the website, by text, Twitter or Facebook, and we responded to these as and when they came in. It was all very cosy, and by far one of the nicest gigs we've ever played - it had a personal feel to it, like we were playing in your living room. Well rehearsed, we played well too - playing pretty much everything off the album (apart from 'Good Afternoon' but there's no way that could work acoustically), two new tracks, and ending on two favourites from the 'old' set. An easy night, yet playing to people who we know are really into what we do - those watching were from all over the country, making this a very worthwhile event indeed...such is the case we're talking about doing another one very soon.

Gig report: Eureka Stockade @ The Portland Arms, Cambridge

Band: Eureka Stockade
Venue: The Portland Arms, Cambridge
Date: 02/03/13
Audience: Busy, enthusiastic
Set: Violence, Been There Before, Without You, Caught In A Fire, This Vow, If, Through Every Darkness, All Alone
Notes: Slightly on the tired side from the recording with Fred's House but slightly on the manic side because of the amount of Red Bull consumed, I came into this gig optimistic (because, having had a bit of a break, it's great to be back with Eureka - we seem fresh and excited about it again) but sad to be missing the British IBM gig in Derby, I guess with my current schedule these things are bound to happen every now and then. I'm starting to warm to the new Portland gig room, at first it looked too bright and clean, but now - playing there for the second time this year, I feel more comfortable with it. The sound was excellent (Will is a brilliant soundman) and aided by a big audience - including about 20 of Rob's mates who made the gig as part of their stag-do, it felt like we hit good form after a couple songs. Haven't played 'This Vow' with Claudia before - we've both rehearsed with the band at different times (she's as busy as I am!) but we got away with it, and 'If' sounded great for the second gig running. I enjoyed that gig, and I think our on-stage enthusiasm matched the audience's warm response. The rest of the evening was cracking too, it had been a stupidly long couple of days but I stayed till the end regardless because there was a nice vibe in the venue. Next stop for Eureka is the '100 Songs In Five Hours' gig I'm putting on in a couple weeks time which is starting to look more than a bit frenatic.

Recording with Fred's House

Spent most of yesterday recording with the wonderful Fred's House at Half Ton Studios. We had a rehearsal on Tuesday evening which was nothing short of amazing (I've always enjoyed this band but this was my first time helping them out with a spot of drumming), the session yesterday was perhaps a bit slower, as is always the way when recording, but equally as enjoyable. Working with producer Bugs (who produced the British IBM album so splendidly last year), the thing I enjoyed about this session was the willingness to experiment and work at things until everything sounded perfect. A lot of this came down to the rhythmic patterns between the drums and bass - it's so easy to just turn up and bash out a straight 4/4 beat (if that was the case I would have been and gone within half an hour) and perhaps, when rehearsing the other night, that's pretty much what we did. Things sound so different when all five of you are in a room rehearsing with smiles on your faces, in the studio everything is under the microscope and you realise that perhaps it's good to try and mix the grooves - which we did do, and eventually we settled on and recorded some great stuff. I was asked to record one song and ended up doing two, so it wasn't that slow a day, but one where (in the words of the band's singer, Vicki) I "worked my ass off". I did, and it was all thoroughly worthwhile.