Tickets have gone on sale for my Edinburgh Fringe show Simon Donald is Completely Hatstand.
There’ll be lots more posts about the show here in the coming weeks, but take your chance now to guarantee yourselves places for my first solo Edinburgh show.
ORDER HATSTAND TICKETS ONLINE HERE
Also Tonto Books are offering special early edition signed copies of my autobiography HIM OFF THE VIZ. The offer is open until the end of the month, so if you want to take advantage I recommend you do it now.
Fry yesterday.
Stephen Fry may be seen as an eccentric intellectual by some, which just about justifies my headline. He hit the nail on the head in his speech calling for better television programmes at the annual Bafta Television Lecture. Nice to hear someone with a track record of excellence say that telly has been going in the wrong direction in recent years.
The obsession of commissioners to follow trends set down by Hollywood and by motormouthed pyramids of university educated producers, could sound the death nell of good TV in our time. These people are destroying British creativity. Mike Leigh recently criticised this increasingly formulaic structure for damaging young British filmmakers’ chances of making an original British film, saying the results of interference by those justifying their own place in the management structure, are to turn the films into something “Quasi Hollywood” This results inevitably in the films falling heavily between stools and proper knacking their arses.
Fry the day before yesterday.
I’ve encountered far too many self confident know-alls in positions of power in the media who haven’t a creative bone in their bodies, have never had an original idea, yet will preach all day long that art is a science, and by following the correct equation success will follow. They’re a bunch of cunts.
Put Stephen Fry in charge of the entire world. Immediately.
It was too much to dream that a gig booked at Knock 2 Bag wouldn’t get knocked back. I’m afraid my second gig for the same promoter at the same venue, due for tonight, has been called off.
Apologies to anyone who planned to come.
Barry Twyford will be putting in an appearance in West London on Thursday night, before moving to Morpeth in Northumberland on Friday and then Bingo will be in Stanley, County Durham on Saturday.
News coming soon of a new character I’m developing, whose only purpose will be promoting my Edinburgh show this August. Jacques Prattle of Prattle and Twaddle PR will appear very soon. Watch this space.
More damage than the FA Cup tackle? Yesterday
The biggest impact from an England star so far this week appears to have been made in a taxi rank on Tyneside. Paul Gascoigne has been involved in an accident on Newcastle Quayside, in which a taxi rank signpost was destroyed. Allegations of drink driving have been made against the female driver. Fortunately it appears no one was seriously hurt.
Poor old Gazza has been cursed through his life with sublime skills and joyful childishness in equal measure, making him the ideal party companion, which in turn makes him his own worst enemy. I fear he may get more headlines in the coming months for worse offences than wearing plastic tits or telling Norway to fuck off.
No sign of Paul Rogers, but this is bad company.
I’d heard, as I’m sure many of you have, rumors of him drinking around the North East in recent months. I’ve thought for a while that the only possible saviour of Gazza from himself would be a change in the company he keeps, but it seems he may be carrying on down the road the fans watched George Best go down. I don’t want to see Newcastle Airport renamed in similar circumstances, but there’s a feeling of inevitability about his journey that I wish wasn’t there.
I know he’s had mental health issues, I just hope someone comes to his rescue. I don’t think he’s strong enough to do it himself.
He’s given me not just some of the best football moments I’ve ever witnessed, but some of the best laughs. Here’s to the better times, raise a glass (of pop) to Gazza’s return to health, and keep your fingers crossed it’s not just wishful thinking.
He could have been at my show instead. Yesterday.
Thanks so much to all the people who turned up to my show at Newcastle’s Live Theatre last night, despite it clashing in a nasty head-on collision with the biggest TV event since that elephant pissed on the floor on Blue Peter in 1969. There was a close-to-full house, despite the football being on and and I managed to keep my Likely Lads promise to myself and avoid the score until watching the recorded game later on ITV’s website. Unfortunately, or maybe that should be fortunately, the coverage was in two halves and the icon for launching the second half was a freeze frame of Robert Green looking as sick as a chip. I quickly worked out that if his face was the most significant image of the game then there must have been no score in the second half, and I thus avoided wasting 45 minutes watching it.
Unbeknownst to me there was a reviewer at the gig from NE4me online magazine Ann Graham gave me a very nice review indeed, a sample of her words here:
“This was so near the knuckle it left cuts…
Donald was, simply, brilliant in each role. His range of accents, voice modulation and body language was spot-on and he made the stereotypes believable – horribly so in the case of Bingo…
He even apologised to the audience for staging a show on the night of England’s first match in the World Cup. I know I made the right viewing choice.
Incidentally, Ross Noble is also something of a fan, declaring Donald as Newcastle’s second-funniest man. Watch out, Ross – you’ve got competition.”
See the whole review HERE
A disgrace yesterday.
I spotted this disgraceful slur to the character of upright citizen and dog’s cock joke specialist Rob Rouse while I was working at the Edinburgh Stand last month.
This sort of thing should be taken in hand. It should have been pulled off as soon as it went up.
If you do get a chance to see Rob get out there and do it. I was nearly sick with laughing when I saw his show last year.
Probably best not to take your maiden aunts with you.
Speaking of which, my aunt is coming to the Live Theatre on Saturday, may play down the material on the Queen Mum’s twat.
You can follow Rob Rouse on Twitter HERE
The wrong Bingo yesterday.
This is not an invitation for the middle-aged heavyweight ladies amongst you to get too excited, it’s not an opportunity for you to wave your blubbery arms aloft, shouting “Hooooosey! Hooooosey!”
No, this is not about the joys of life-destroying addictive gambling dressed up in a big shed on an out of town retail park as a glittery social opportunity. No this is about my return to the Grinning Idiot at The Alexandra in Sunderland this Friday, where Bingo (from Benton) will be “Deein’ topical”
For those of you who’ve not seen Bingo dee topical, he’ll be looking into the week’s news in depth and discussing the issues raised, with his own, diverse perspective. And swearing a lot.
The line-up is tremendous, a Canadian I worked with last year called Wes Zaharuk, who’s act has to be seen. I’ve tried to describe it to people and it just sounds wrong, you’ve just got to come and see him, and the ever-brilliant Danny Deegan, a young deadpan Mancunian with a razor sharp tongue.
Right Bingo, all a bit wrong, yesterday.
Saturday night will see me cleverly try to compete with the England game in the World Cup, I’d like to say I’ll sack my agent, but I booked this one myself. I’m hoping it works like one big ‘toilet trick’ – where going to the bog makes your team score, so missing the whole game should see us thrash the Ham Shanks.
I look forwrad to seeing all of you who’ll be coming to this weekend’s gigs.
Finally a big thanks to Jason Manford who sent his Twitter followers to my blog yesterday, sending the hit rate through the roof.
Leeydaaaaaazzzz
A Moral Panic has been set in motion, not by the disturbing news that a fox has attacked two children, but by the reporters covering the story. I’ve now seen four news programmes and two news websites asking what should be done to deal with the problem.
A Fox yesterday.
Does anyone have any recollection of this kind of attack ever happening before? The BBC even quote a wildlife expert who says in 40 years he’s only had two reports of such incidents, one turned out to be a dog and the other a cat. Domestic pets injure thousands of people every year, and kill a few too, but no one is calling for all pets to be destroyed.
According to BBC London news there could be 10,000 foxes in London alone. So, on maths alone, it looks like as many as 1 in every 10,000 foxes might be dangerous.
Remarkably, it’s now considered acceptable for serious journalists to enroll the opinions of fuckwittted members of the public by soliciting email from them and then broadcasting the drivel that comes back as if it’s somehow newsworthy content.
I highly recommend this piece on the BBC site, not for the writing, but for the comment from Mr C Quinn of Ilford. Mr Quinn appears to suggest wolves should be put into the environment to deal with the foxes. Mr Quinn even reins himself in slightly for the sheer stupidity of what he’s said, but it hasn’t stopped the BBC from publishing it.
Room with a view this morning, yesterday.
… not for Mrs Richards and not from a Torquay hotel bedroom window, but for me from the guest accommodation at the Flying Horse in Rochdale this morning.
I had been expecting a view of Rochdale’s magnificent Town Hall, a building that came to the attention of nasty and bad man Adolf Hitler, who was said to have admired it so much that he wished to ship the building, brick-by-brick, to Nazi Germany had Rochdale been defeated in World War II.
I was told last that he’d stayed in the Flying Horse in order to admire the Town Hall from his bedroom window, however, far from historical documentation there seems to be little more than speculation that the mustachioed mass murderer ever visited the area.
My gig at the Flying Horse won’t go down in history, a low turn out, but a fun crowd nevertheless.
Likely Lads – Match Abandoned…
The Likely Lads yesteryear.
Bad news for anyone who had heard about my plans to tape the England v USA game on Saturday and then watch it in the theatre bar after the game. The cost of permission for the venue to do it legally is prohibitive, so we’ve just got to go home and watch it, unless anyone has any bright ideas.
I’ve been thinking of keeping a live internet feed going on stage, so I can fill in the audience at appropriate times with the scoreline, however this may be distracting and those who’ve deliberately booked to see a theatre show in order to avoid the football might not be best pleased.
Edinburgh PR Plans Afoot…
I have an idea to create something, or perhaps somone, entirely new in order to promote my Fringe show… More on this very soon.