Fighting the good fight

I interviewed Julian Hall of the Independent and attempted to take him to task on his feelings about sketch comedy. You can hear it as part of the chortle podcast (there is also an extended version of the interview on the same page).

A proper blog to follow but, before that, here are some of my favourite shows so far:

Eric's Tales of the Sea
King of Everything
2 Episodes of Mash
Brian Gittins
Helen Keen
Jimmy McGhie
Colin Hoult

However, best of all was Felicity Ward. Her show is probably my favourite thing I have seen this festival. It's utterly brilliant. Please please please go and see it. And then see King of Everything. And then see something else. And end your day at Fordy's Lock In.

Bye!

Everybody loves a techie, tourist

Just returned from a tech run that went pretty smoothly. Being in a big theatre means we can have real lights and proper cues, which we're not that used to. We kept forgetting things that we needed and enraging the techies. Actually enraging is a bit strong. They were tired and we were disorganised. We, having spent the day remaking props and watching Aziz Ansari's hilarious Raaaaaaaandy character's videos on FunnyOrDie, were not all that tired and were thus, a bit annoying. But there is a real excitement from both sides of the curtain about the start of the festival and the tech ended with apologies on both sides for being tired/a team of four unprofessional dickheads who have somehow found themselves in a real theatre.

Afterwards went for a pint in Brass Monkey and had the first of many Edinburgh experiences. Walking into a bar and knowing most of the people there. It was just like being at University. Except most of the people there didn't mind me talking to them.

At my door a group of Edinburgh locals were entering the flat as I was. I wished them a good day and enquired which flat they were in.
"That's none of your fuckin' business. It's higher up than yours 'cos we're on the third floor", came the suprisingly competitive and aggressive response. That felt more like University.

First show later today so I'm off for a sleep. Thanks for all the kind messages welcoming me back into the blogosphere. And for the one message that claims "every race is equally racist towards each other and that is everyones right." Goddamn you, Herring! Leave my blog in peace!

I've just arrived in Edinburgh

So that seems a good reason to start writing the blog again.

Our show, Pappy's Fun Club's World Record Attempt: 200 Sketches in an Hour, starts on Wednesday 5th August. Blame preparations for that, several other writing jobs and my general laziness for my lack of blog for the last few months. Strangely, according to google analytics, the blog is more popular in my absence than it has ever been. This is thanks in large part to the number of racists and non-racists that frequent this page. In fact that page was recently-ish recommended by Richard Herring who according to the G2 falls into one of those categories: racist or non-racist. I can't remember which as I wasn't paying much attention whilst reading the article. After all, if the writer can't be bothered to then why should I?

So here I am again in Edinburgh, my favourite place to be during August. It is deceptively lovely weather, birds are chirruping outside yet, since my arrival, the only time I have set foot on good-old Scottish soil is to walk from the car to the flat. I've been in town for nearly 20 hours and I haven't been outside.

I'll tell you a few things about what I have been up to prior to this month, then I'll go and do our tech rehearsal, then hopefully I'll see someone or do something that'll give me something to write about that requires more than 140 characters.

I wrote a bunch of sketches for this series of The Kevin Bishop show. I'm especially proud of my Crank parody, The Puncher. Jason Statham is injected with a strange potion that means he can't stop punching. I also performed in a sketch in which I had to play rugby. Unfortunately I was cut out of most of the 'action' scenes as I looked scared every time the ball came to me. In fact, in a number of shots, out of pure flashback-to-Grammar-school knee-jerk reaction, I actually said,"Sorry!" on catching the ball.

I also co-wrote and performed in a few sketches for the late night topical show TNT Show. The show films on a Tuesday and airs on a Thursday. Upsettingly, I performed a sketch about Michael Jackson (the premise being that he wasn't as ill as the papers were saying, he wasn't using lookalikes and-to prove it- here he is. Cue crap lookalike, ie me) on the Tuesday before his sudden and semi-unexpected death. The news broke on the Thursday night, just as the show was beginning. This of course threw me, the producers and my co-stars into a bit of a panic. In the end Channel 4 did, well, this:



Which was the best they could do in the 15 minutes they had. Read the [not exactly] full story here. One thing that did make it was my girlfriend Charlie's La Roux spoof. Here that is instead...

TNT Show - La Roux parody @ Yahoo! Video

Well, it's good to be back. Hit me up with comments and all that.

Hello. Sorry I've not been about.

I will be back on the blog train very soon. In the meantime, have a look at what Pappy's got up to for the Twitter Comedy gig tonight.

It's all here.

Hello, this is Matthew, I'm going to be on TV

I'm going to be on the BBC 2 show Winging It tomorrow at 12.45pm (a perfect hangover treat). More details of the show are here. But the BBC website describes it thusly:

Comedy series which features quick-witted comedians who are thrust into unfamiliar scenarios and forced to improvise their way out of them.

Sporting a fake identity and with no time to prepare, the comedians will be pushed to the limit as they desperately try to adapt to their challenge. Each challenge begins with the performer receiving a dossier they won't be allowed to open until minutes before their assignment begins.

This fearless cast of the best new comedy talent, will be guided through their assignment by the Wing Commander who will communicate with them via an earpiece. Their mission will contain several 'hit points' - pre-planned obstacles, which increase in difficulty as the challenge progresses.The Wing Commmander will be pushing the comedians and will secretly trigger each new part of the 'hit'.

In the first show, performer Jonny Sweet pretends to be a careers advisor and, without any preparation, delivers some dubious tips to a group of jobseekers. Meanwhile, Matthew Crosby takes on the role of leading environmentalist Julian Glacier and, with no time to prepare, delivers a made up-on-the-spot lecture to a group of budding planet savers. Will they be able to convince the public they are experts in a field they know nothing about? Or will their audience realise they are Winging It?

If you miss it you can see it on iPlayer (for 7 days after it's on) right here!

The MCRP will return very soon.

PFC on Tour 29: Colchester Minute

Read all about our exploits in Colchester here at Pappy's Fun Club's new blog.

MCRP waves goodbye to PFCTB

Pappy's Fun Club will soon be moving its blog to a more permanent home. Matthew Crosby's Readable Podcast has certainly enjoyed hosting the Pappy's Fun Club Tour blog but, frankly, its outstayed its welcome and we need our sofa back. Besides, Pappy's Fun Club's Tour Blog has an annoying habit of taking off its clothes when we have guests.

So goodbye PFC's TB (I know that's not a great acronym) and godspeed!

Easter Sunday treat!

You can listen to Matthew on the Gulbenkian Theatre podcast here. Unfortunately, as only Matthew was available for the podcast, he attempted to 'do' the voices of the rest of the Fun Club. Although this was the podcast host's idea, Matthew still agreed, despite being a far from expert impresionist. Anyway, enjoy the mildly upsetting results.