On Getting that Big Break!

If you're a variety turn, as I am, trust me - you will never get the big break doing any of the following:

Bankrupting yourself to show off nightly at the Edinburgh Fringe
Overacting in the audience of Judge Judy/Rinder/Milian, et al
Heckling on Jeremy Kyle
In a podcast
Collecting for Every Child on Camden Road in character as Medea
Singing loudly while tearing tickets front of house
Giving TED talks
In a podcast playing your eccentric aunt giving her gardener instructions
Appearing on your local TV news programme
Being the barista of a bike setup with an espresso maker where the basket should be
Being in anything site-specific
Cruise ship showcases
Performing in your local library
Performing in your local church
Being on Vimeo singing hymns as your eccentric aunt
  Performing in your local dog-friendly cafe
Performing for the wrong Dean of Bocking
Giving guided tours of the road where serial killer Dennis Nilsen lived
Sending snapchats of papier-mache passed off as your eccentric aunt's private parts
Being Anne Boleyn in Madame Tussaud's
In a homemade sitcom, especially one called Mucky Bottom or similar
In an installation podcast on Periscope being the corpse of your eccentric aunt
Being in a pantomime - even one with 3-D effects
Being the Queen of Hearts in the Asprey's of Bond Street Alice installation
Performing at charity events

And, saddest of all to relate:

Performing in a bona fide variety night

Comments

Me Featuring in The Sunday Times, Nicely...

This happened. The editor thinks it's a book of dog sitter stories waiting to happen. I am scribbling away at same... I first house-sat by accident. I was originally at Haven House, Lembton, as a live-in safety net for Lady Olive Simmonds, a seventy-nine year-old Bostonian with a lilac afro, a Temazepam habit and leg ulcers. Haven House was by the sea. Eighteenth century, elegant, comfortable. But there was Olive... Always in pain; either drunk, hungover or both; barely educated. She had married a man who was knighted, and believed this gave her a licence to be a twat. According to Olive, her fellow Lembtonians were all dull academics - this group having reading ages older than hers, which was thirteen - or failed schizophrenics. She had serious monophobia, with staff working (unnecessarily) every day apart from weekends. At weekends, first thing, anxious, she would ring round the Lembtonians that were still speaking to her - six in number - inviting them for coffee, ...

The Marine Says I Must Re-queer...

Being camp in Camp Basra... Stacks, ex-Royal Marines Commando, recently watched my Tutu Went AWOL! show on Zoom. He had notes. I was shifting from foot to foot, he said, and gesturing too much. 'And you must put back the stuff about the Brigadier and your fellow comedian being homophobic...' The Brigadier had been sneering about my act, saying it would be more suited to Butlins. But, more importantly, he believed I was an 'inappropriate influence on 42 Commando'. Stacks, deadpan, commented, 'Sir, before Iestyn started hanging out with us, sir, it had never occurred to him to play Tiddlywinks with anything other than his thumb, sir.' My fellow comedian, who I'll call Mark, because that's his name, asked Reg, Garrison Sergeant Major, in front of ...

I Love the Library

Therese, soprano, never uses a library. ‘Oh, no, Iestyn. Unlike you, I pride myself on always buying my books.’ I agree with Helene Hanff, who said that buying a book you haven’t read is like buying a dress without trying it on. ‘How do you know the dress will fit, Therese?’ I asked. ‘I always know what’s going to fit me, book-wisely speaking. I tune into asking the universe what it needs me to read for the greater good, go into the bookshop and find that I’m drawn to a department, then a section of carpet, then the particular shelf and there will book the book, in a sort of outline of almost light picked out from the others around it.’ ‘But there are billions of books out there, Therese, in umpteen shops, divided into squillions of bits of carpet and…’ She was giving me her look: a nurse at my hospital bed telling me the prognosis was far from ideal. ‘Yes, but with me it’s narrowed down q...

Iestyn Edwards is...what?

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