Swansea Comedy Festival

Thank you for the emails! I had not realised there were so many people hanging on my words, so here is the review you have been so – erm – patiently waiting for!

The venue itself was great; although the music played between acts left a lot to be desired. There is only so much Kylie and Take That a person can handle and with a playlist of only four or five songs, I reached my ceiling fairly quickly! But in terms of our purpose, it was perfect; the view of the stage from all seats was good, the sound system was of a good enough quality that every word was easily heard and it had a nice intimate atmosphere.

I must admit, there was a small moment of seat envy when the people with the best places, immediately next to the stage, talked incessantly throughout the entire evening. It was not quite clear whether it was that they were talking loudly enough that we could hear them from our table quite some distance away or if their voices were being picked up by the microphone and we were hearing from the speaker next to us, but either way having their muttering as a background noise was annoying, and quite apart from being an irritation to other audience members, it is hugely disrespectful to the acts themselves!


Regardless, the evening was very enjoyable. I have never quite decided which is better, to catch a preview whilst the material is still fresh or to be at the end of a run when it is has been polished and added to, but anyway both sets were really funny.

Andrew Lawrence was very funny - as I expected he would be! He has a very loose delivery, with a relaxed, nonchalant attitude and of course some excellent material. The things he was doing on TV and radio over last year whilst funny were often quite safe and mediocre, so it is good to see him pushing beyond this a little and becoming slightly edgier. He is currently recording a new series of “What to do”, so I am very much looking forward to that… and hoping the episodes are longer this time!

By contrast, I found Lloyd Langford to be quite mainstream. I read a few reviews of his work complaining about how he pushed boundaries too far, often taking people into territory they were not comfortable with. I personally like to be challenged in that way (I have mentioned it before, so won’t repeat myself…. although I do – often – suffice it to say that I think it is a better experience if I actually stop for a moment to think about why I find something funny rather than just laughing idly with the rest of the audience) so I was slightly disappointed in him; not that he wasn’t funny, just not in the way I was anticipating. It also bothered me at the time that through his entire pre-amble he seemed to make the assumption that the whole audience were local, making “in-jokes” and referring to nearby places. With hindsight, though, I do think my friend and I were possibly the only people in the audience who had travelled from England for the show, so maybe it is unfair to hold that against him.

All told, both were very funny; I would certainly make the trip again for them! In fact, I would even brave the drive myself rather than being Miss Wimpy and making my friend have to take me!


There are still another three shows before the festival finishes on 30th July, so check out the Swansea Comedy Festival website for more information.

Swansea Festival Road Trip

I had an amazing evening with my dear friend last night. Can’t remember if I’d mentioned it or not, but we had tickets for the Swansea Comedy Festival… it may have come up whilst I was talking about something else!

As with most things we do together, it was an adventure.

Firstly, the shouty SatNav bitch insisted we were going to arrive an hour later than we thought we would, which baffled us both as I had set it to the quickest journey. It seems the power-mad bint hates the bridge as much as I do, as she kept insisting we take junctions to avoid it altogether before announcing “Toll - now” …. and I’d swear she had a tone of smugness to her voice in that “You wouldn’t listen, would you” way. I also discovered the things that scare me most about the bridge are exactly what my friend loves about it as she set about the queue-hopping and excitedly participated in the post-payment frenzy to be first to hit the road proper. Made me feel a bit silly, to be honest, since I have a far bigger vehicle than she does yet the whole process terrifies me so much I don’t stop crying until Cardiff – I was thinking I could easily take on these pissy little cars! Something to think on, I guess!

Since I am referring to her driving, it is quite important I stress a few points: she didn’t once thrash the hub’s car, she certainly broke NO speed limits, didn’t swear at other drivers (even the proper c***s) and we certainly did NOT crank up the stereo to an unacceptable level. Ok, one or more of those things may not be true…. or they all could be; I’ll leave you to ponder the reality for yourselves.



So anyway – having used all our change to avoid dealing with an actual person at the gate, we arrive at our destination with only notes to pay for parking. Seems Swansea does not yet have pay-by-text parking machines, either; which is not necessarily a bad thing, since in my experience the whole system is a bloody nightmare but it did mean having to blag change and losing more of our precious time; although time was something we were blessed with an abundance of after banishing Miss Shouty-bollocks and taking our own route!


Once parked and after a quick car-park based wardrobe adjustment, we set out to find the venue itself. Now I was fairly sure I knew which building it was, but there were no discernable signs so it was not clear that I was correct. We made a poor choice in the person we carefully selected to direct us (by which I mean we darted across the road in front of someone and asked him as he stopped to let us continue!) after he suggested it was “in town”… firstly, that statement itself answered a question we had discussed earlier on our journey as to whether Swansea was a city or a town, although given that this guy did not seem particularly well-informed, maybe he did not know either! I also wondered what kind of direction “in town” is to two people who clearly do not know the place at all. I often give directions which are so detailed they completely confuse people. This man seems to be the opposite extreme; not to mention being a total moron as we were actually less than fifty yards from the venue itself when we asked. This in itself annoyed me too; I am a bit mannish about these things and will rather hunt around and find something for myself than ask randoms for directions, so that my friend asked for directions so early on had irked me somewhat, especially with the hindsight of seeing a) How easy it actually was to find and b) How much of a spanner the person we asked was; but we arrived in plenty of time and that is what counts!


The show itself was fab – but that’s for another post. The journey back; more not thrashing the car, not driving too fast and not having the stereo too loud and lots more chat!

That in itself was a great thing. With my kids getting older, they are no longer in bed when my friend comes round for a boozy evening so it is often difficult to talk about some things. It was great just being the two of us, talking openly about the things we needed to talk about – even if she did spend most of the time trying to convince me my plan for the future was not a good one.


We shall see!

Swansea-day amongst other things

There are certain things in life you might think would carry a constant value. The one thing I realise, however, as I age in the most horrific way, is that nothing is certain.

That said, you would think a family of five would always consume a similar amount of toilet rolls in a week regardless of the number of bathrooms there are.

Why, then, in our delightfully cramped single-toilet house did a twelve-pack of rolls last two months, then our slightly roomier Victorian three storey with its additional downstairs cloakroom cost around nine rolls a week whilst this house with its two bathrooms and cloakroom seems to need some fifteen a week?! That is more than two rolls a day!

And this is the type of thing I shall be pondering as I walk back to the supermarket having gotten so absorbed in stocking up for this afternoon’s road trip I completely forgot my entire purpose when I went down earlier.

See, even just going to the supermarket for ONE thing I managed to forget it!


On the plus side, we are headed to Swansea Comedy Festival in a few short hours.

I think I'll leave this one to the Stones:

"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need"

And no, I'm not handling the age issue well! Just a few days ago, my best friend in the whole world referred to herself – and therefore me by proxy - as nearly forty. As someone who still handles the term mid-thirties badly, hearing her so casually throwing the F-word around made me die a little!

Caffeine Fuelled Ponderings...

Whilst working, I tend to use the BBC I-player a lot; mostly for the radio, but I do have a few TV shows on my favourites list too.

I opened it up in the week to find an alert to an amazing seven new shows. Now whilst my radio favourites list has around sixty items, my tv listing is significantly less – so to have seven new shows is quite something!

Slightly gutted, then, to discover they were all repeats – now I appreciate that the I-player remembers shows I had listed from one series to the next, mostly because I watch so little television I tend to miss announcements of new upcoming episodes, but could it maybe list them separately, perhaps as a “Hey, you’ve watched this, but maybe want to see it again” list. Especially since most of them were programmes of which I’d happily watch new episodes yet have no intention of watching repeats.

On the subject of repeats: Miss-middle came running downstairs a few days ago shouting about the fact Rhod Gilbert’s Work Experience was being repeated on the I-player. I had noticed that myself, but she continued with “but it’s only the butler episode, not one with him being sexy or anything”

I disagreed…. there is nothing sexier than a man who knows how to treat a bottle of wine properly! But I kind of got her point… and that is not really a conversation I was about to get into with a fifteen year old!

But the thing is this… thinking about this most recent series, whilst I do not complain at the opportunity to re-watch Rhod getting his kit off to be pierced and tattooed (because I only watched that episode 3 or 4 times last time round!) or fulfilling my generic fireman fantasies (as we all pause for a moment or two), I would much rather have the chance to revisit the first series, especially since I only saw those episodes once. Let’s hope they are shown at some point!

And this is the way with so many things. I harbour a general dislike for those people who complain incessantly for the sake of it about television repeats, because there is much that does bear repeating, but it seems very much the trend right now to hammer an entire series into the ground, repeating constantly until even the die-hard fans are tired of it.

I watched the first series of Him and Her. Now the show itself I found ok; it had some funny moments, some good running jokes, realistic characters etc. I watched each episode as it aired (and that is a big deal, because to be honest, most of my television viewing is done online) but then hub got into the habit of watching a repeat later in the week; at which time I would invariably be around so would end up watching it twice. Not a huge problem, as it was an enjoyable enough programme, but once the series ended, every episode sat on the I-player list for weeks after to the point where I found myself lured into watching a couple again in lieu of the existence of anything else worth seeing.
I now find myself, as a new series looms and the old episodes reappear feeling quite ambivalent towards to show as a whole, wondering if was really as good as I remember or was I caught in a riptide I just could not drag myself out of.

In an ideal world, I think that once the first episode of a new series is aired, it would be good for the back-catalogue of that show to appear for new viewers to have the chance to catch up but that the new episodes should remain on the short-term. I guess the argument against that is the huge amount of server space required; but the channel four player seems to manage it okay, showing many shows from the very first episode. There must be a happy medium, though - something midway between the library-esque 4od and the somewhat restrictive I-player.

Either way, I’m thinking a little too much about stuff that doesn’t really matter. Time to get the day started properly; so I’ll be doing something more constructive once I’ve had a little more coffee!



Oh yeah - in other news - did I mention? I'm going to Swansea in a few days! (that one's for my kids, as I know they love the fact I keep reminding them!)

Improvisation My Dear Mark Watson

 It is fabulous to see Dave putting on some original shows at last rather than wheeling out the same old repeats time and again.

This latest offering had us laughing throughout… as one would expect from the great cast!

Ok, the format is not exactly new and I know the show has taken quite a blasting for this fact alone, but the jokes are new, the talent is new – so in all seriousness if you are so bloody offended by having something from the 80's dragged into the here and now just switch off. It’s easy enough; hit one button and you are no longer subjected to the onslaught.

The show had a good mix of guests, who managed to gel well together without one ego seeming to take over the show as so often seems to happen in these situations. Good, too, to see Rufus Hound emerging from the light entertainment hell he seems to have disappeared into over time and actually get the opportunity to make us all laugh again. 

Some rounds worked better than others and the necessary edits were glaringly obvious, but to my mind that added to the rawness of the format. Those parts that did not work so well this time around may go better with different comedians working them another time, it does not necessarily mean they should not be part of the show at all, and the bumbling nature of the stars, not quite knowing what to do next only enforced the improvised aspect of the whole show.

For balance, I have to say I found the eulogy round slightly uncomfortable, as an audience member was told she was to lie down and pretend she was dead.

I quite like the idea of the round, but it could have been done in a different format; maybe if rather than a eulogy the person was being toasted, introduced as a guest speaker at a conference or something. Or perhaps I just worry too much about death as a subject matter; either way, I did squirm through that round a little. 

You also have to wonder; if there were more episodes made how many people on finding out they would be in the audience would try to make their facebook profiles seem as wacky as possible in order to ensure they were picked. I am reminded in particular of my childhood when Noel Edmonds used to have a segment of his Saturday show in which cameras would have been placed around the home of an “unsuspecting” victim; towards the end of its run, people would be behaving in a far more ridiculous way as they were quite obviously aware of the fact they were to appear on television.

This show was only a pilot, although it generally takes me more than one episode of a programme to decide if I like it, so it would be good to see a couple more made even if it didn’t become a full series.

Definitely has potential to be something great once the kinks are ironed out though!

Clips are available on the Dave site and on Youtube. There are places you can watch the full episode online, but as they are not officially linked to Dave, I am not sure about the legality of them so will not link to them.

The episode is repeated on Saturday night at 9pm, kicking off an entire evening of shows featuring Mark Watson (including his excellent One Night Stand) running until about 3am – ok, the shows are on a loop, so you don’t have to spent the entire time watching, but six hours of listening to his voice…. I ain’t complaining any!

I'll close by reminding you, as always, to take a look at Mark's own blog. Always a great read! (although I've not looked in for a few days myself having been mightily busy with the humdrum, but I am sure it still is- no reason to think it wouldn't be!)

Accessorising the Middle-class Way

Seems the summer’s middle-class must-have accessory is a Spanish teenager. My neighbours have one; everyone at the school gate has one; I choose not to.

One can’t help but pity these poor youngsters. They arrive from a country rich in culture and activity to be dumped in this rural town, a faux-urban environment having the necessary quantity of homes and pubs but lacking any real facilities. One has to wonder what stories they are able to take back home with them at the end of their summer of adventure!

I would not want to be contributing to such a bleak visit as they can expect from this town and whilst I do care that I should seem to fit in, I worry more about becoming a cliché.

It’s a difficult balancing act, but I manage it well for the most part. I am mostly able to make myself different enough from the rest to set me apart, whilst still seeming I belong in this type of neighbourhood. 

That is not the only reason I opt out of this particular ritual.

I am reminded of experiences as a youngster when my friends had exchange students and quite honestly I have enough worries with my own girls and certainly don’t need those stresses with someone else’s!

I remember one year especially when my friend and myself were ditched by her student in favour of a visit to the park toilets with three boys. The friend’s father had been furious when we returned without this poor innocent soul, yelling something about being stranded, alone and frightened.

Umm… no, definitely not what she was feeling right now!

Nevertheless, he set about the streets to find her – and when he did he went mad at the boys concerned, shaming them at taking advantage of someone who did not even speak a word of English; which she did of course, faultlessly, just not around adults.

In fact, it was at this time I learnt a very important life lesson:

If it ever looks as though you are really in the shit, play the victim!

She cried and clung to the father, sobbing out her story in broken English about how she had turned to see us running off and was so scared at being alone she just sat and cried; how these guys had come along with the promise of assistance and had persuaded her to do things she had never done before.

And he bought it; every last word.

To the point where my friend was grounded for the rest of the student’s stay and a neighbour’s child was to chaperone instead – I was not allowed to the friend’s house again.

And even when the student was discovered at 2am a few days later having sex with another boy in the front porch, that was strangely also our fault, having corrupted her at the beginning of her visit.

It wouldn’t have upset us so much were it not for the fact that she had already had more sex during this one stay than my friend and I had combined in our entire lives and although the names of the boys concerned escapes me now, I do remember that at least one of them was someone I had a desperate crush on.

So before you ask: No, I do not have a student staying with me. Nor will I. Ever!

Planning a Crime Spree

When choosing one of my children to accompany me on a major crime spree, I must remember not to choose the eight-year-old!

We went to a nearby town this morning to drop miss-middle at her work experience placement and as baby needed a party gift for this afternoon decided to park up and check out the shops whilst there. I only had notes in my purse and did not want to be asking the people around me for change, so made the decision to wing it and hope not to get a ticket for the short time I was to be there.

The police station being close by means there are always a couple of police cars parked up, but baby was worried this meant I would be arrested for not paying a parking fee. So for the entire fifteen minutes we were in town she kept saying “I’m scared, mum, what if the police are still there?” “If the police take you away, who will drive me home?” – The Lord only knows what the people around us must have thought I’d been up to!!

Fortunately, having spent the best part of fourteen years covering up the embarrassing things my kids say and do little fazes me nowadays. So I calmly set about telling her in a voice loud enough that all around could hear that the police were too busy dealing with people who had done something wrong and that she really shouldn’t be scared of them at all.

Seemed to work – for a while…..

Until we head back to the car park, and baby calls out “Oh no, the police are still here, I’m scared mum! Quick, let’s run to the car!”

Two seniors walking a short way ahead of us shot a look in our direction, scowling disapproval at me and an offering of sympathy to baby. I half expected them to stop me and search my bags or something, demanding that baby be taken into the care of social services, but thankfully they opted for the British way of pretending they’d seen and heard nothing, so all was well!

So when I do decide I have had enough of conformity and opt for a life of crime, baby shall be staying at home where she can do nothing to scupper my efforts!

The Wha’?

I know I’m going to sound proper old once I get into this rant – but here goes anyway!

I dropped my wonderful niece at “Big School” this morning for her orientation day. That in itself is a pretty dull piece of news, but unfortunately such is the life of the almost-single mother.

I don’t know the school at all; it may be the nearest secondary school to our house, but I chose on more than simply geography and elected to make my kids walk a mile and a half across town instead of attending this one – and I am glad I did.

So I roll up to what appeared to be the main entrance; a large, imposing building with a sign on the wall saying “Reception”. I walk into the building to find only doors to what appeared to be classrooms and two surly girls standing in the entrance. I asked them “Could you please tell me where I might find the reception?”

Seemed a simple question; I thought.

After staring at me for maybe three seconds or more, one girl asked “The Wha’?”

Now this is neice’s first impression of the school and that which she will carry for the rest of her life – I wonder if she will ever feel able to ask for help in her early days at the school as she thinks back on the way these girls responded to such an easy request.

These two vague, unhelpful creatures continued to stare blankly until the arrival of a staff member.

A teacher – that should be more useful, shouldn’t it? “Do you mean the main reception?” Erm… how many receptions are there?

Once I explained our reason for being there, he was able to direct us to “that tall guy over there” adding that “if he doesn't know anything about the taster day himself he will at least know more about where you should be!”

The tall guy, it seemed, was the head. You’d think the staff member would have thought to mention that, but I guess people find different things important.

Either way, I am glad I made my older kids take the long trek to their school each day; a school which uses the older kids to help out on these events and encourages them to greet parents and new pupils with a smile and a warm welcome; one which signposts the reception where it is, rather than on an entirely separate building; one which teaches respect and the importance of the letter T.

In honour of these girls, I would have linked to the Cranberries hit Zombie, but since I used that song recently I shall instead pick this song for no other reason than that whilst writing this I am listening to the fabulous Bethan Elfyn who just happened to be playing this tune which grabbed me:
Enjoy "Animals" by Kids in Glass Houses