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

My Mate Jamie-Ray Hartshorne

I've been noticing that alongside photos of Jamie-Ray being a lead in Altar Boys , creating Change My Body UK TM , working the door at Freedom - and clearly asking people passing by wherever that rockpool may be to snap a double-bicep - this sort of thing is cropping up on his social media: We're in The Diner, Jamestown Road, Camden. He's between tour dates of The Bodyguard, and meetings to discuss sportswear and creatine endorsements. The latter, he says, being all about making his product better. Between sips of his peanut butter milkshake (he's allowing himself dairy today in my honour - I don't quite know how to take that) he says in his soft Brum, 'I've signed up for a major Muay Thai event in Thailand next February. I'm going up against one of the Thai fighters. That's the only real way to gain any respect in the fighting world. That's why you've been noticing the combat photos. I...

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 ...

Iestyn Edwards is...what?

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