Hello world,

Been quite quiet on here for a while. There are many reasons for this, some fit for public consumption, others far from it.

Just to keep you up to speed on what I’m currently up to I have been made Staff Writer at Comedy Central in the UK. This includes writing all the links across all the channels, as well as working across online and print campaigns and consulting on the development of potential commissions.

I’ve also just finished producing a ten-part series of podcasts for the channel. Robin and Josie’s Utter Shambles proved a very enjoyable experience in which I got to work with a few personal heroes from the world of comedy and popular culture. Meeting comics legend Alan Moore and finding him to be polite, friendly, warm and hilarious was a real treat. I also got to indulge my inner geek by getting my copy of From Hell signed. The graphic novel, not the rubbish film version.

Utter Shambles has to date been downloaded over a million times and topped the comedy podcast chart on iTunes, so hopefully 2011 will see more. Click here to download all of them for free.

I’ve also been writing a regular blog for other digital comedy channel Dave. I’ve enjoyed doing this as it allows me to freely give my opinion on the comedy industry – a fickle, schizophrenic and bewildering beast that I continue to find enchanting, frustrating, exciting and depressing in equal measure. Anyway, here’s the blog. It’s written under an alias but it IS me.

So, as 2010 draws to a close what have I learnt over a year with more than its fair share of ups and downs? Well lots. But here are Ten 2010 nuggets I’d like to share with anyone who cares to read them:

1. Never ignore the elephant in the room. If you do, it’ll only turn around a bite you on the arse.

2. Whatever you think is going on, that’s what’s going on.

3. Michael Winner tweets brilliantly.

4. People are, on the whole, unhelpful.

5. It takes an hour and a half to walk from Highgate to Oxford Street.

6. NEVER ignore your gut feeling. If you do…see point 1.

7. Channel Four has stopped making good comedy – almost willfully so.

8. Listening to audio versions of autobiographies is a true joy.

9. Red Dead Redemption is arguably the most fun you can have on a computer that doesn’t involve porn.

10. Happiness is…

Hello world!Here are some examples of my voice over work. Essentially What I offer is a complete writing and voice over solution, designed to suit whatever the tone required by the client.

PROMO and TV WORK – PARAMOUNT COMEDY

This is an edited compilation of promo and programme voice over work I did for the Paramount Comedy Channel. It is compiled from the raw audio files so is without SFX or music, but it showcases a fair range of vocal styles.

Voice Over Demo

FINANCIAL ED – COPPERFIELD COMMUNICATIONS

Financial Ed is a series of online cartoons I wrote and voiced for Copperfield Communications. The aim was to present financial advice in a friendly, unintimidating and amusing way to staff at various corporate industries. The subject matter was pretty dry but I think I made a decent fist of it.

Financial Ed – The One about OptionsFinancial Ed – The One about Shares

CONTINUITY – COMEDY CENTRAL

Here’s an example of my continuity voice over used by Comedy Central. I also write all the continuity for both the main channel and Comedy Central Extra. Again this sample is taken from the raw audio files.

Continuity – Comedy Central 2010

If you would like to know more about my voice over services, drop me a line!

That little two-hander scene I filmed in Brighton in August has been cut into a short film in itself, which you can watch here.It won’t let me embed it for some irritating reason…

Hello world,

Been a bit quiet lately, but highlights have been interviewing US actor Patrick Warburton for Comedy Central. He is the voice of wheelchair-bound Joe Swanson in Family Guy but more excitingly for me he was Elaine’s boyfriend Puddy in Seinfeld and The Tick. Anyway he was lovely, witty and all round nice guy. Expect to see that interview online soon.

Also I just finished filming a scene for an independent movie written by Alex Billington and directed by Stephen M Katz, who was director of photography for The Blues Brothers and Gods And Monsters to name a few. Needless to say he knew was he was doing and the scene was very fun to do. Expect that appearing here soon.

Lastly, a short film called Ali & The Lamp, which I co-wrote with writer/director Michael Yanny is nearing completion and is scheduled to premiere in September. I also pop up in it as a policeman (again), so we’ll see how that turns out….

There’s always an emotional ambivalence whenever I visit the place I grew up. It ranks as one of the most picturesque places I’ve ever been to in this country – yet of course I never appreciated this as a child – and today was no exception.

The sun cast its warm rays on fields of long wheat and fallow grass as I walked off a lovely delicate roast down into the village while the afternoon heat and brilliant light brought out butterflies and grasshoppers in their multitude, dancing and singing in celebration of the peaceful joys of Summer.

Every so often I disturbed a rather dopey sheep or a petrified rabbit and, as I made my way down into the small sheltered community which had sustained itself for over a thousand years, a huge sense of peace washed through me, untangling the knots that have been keeping their white knuckle grip on my upper back these past few months.

Yet at the same time there was an innate melancholy dragging me down more and more strongly the further I descended down into the valley. The sensation grew to such an extent that after a while I wondered why I do this to myself. Why do I travel down there only to be disappointed by what I find? And why am I disappointed by this as I know every single time exactly what it is that I will find?

Nothing changes and yet everything has gone.

I guess I have to accept in my character the down side of being a hopeless nostalgic; you are constantly chasing something that does not exist, longing to embrace that which by its very nature cannot be grasped. Time is ethereal, relative and abstract, yet here I am yet again trying to recapture those moments as if they were etched in stone and preserved in the very landscape that cradles my family home. Searching in vain to recapture the solace that comes from the period in my life when I felt the most content.

No matter how beautiful the surroundings, those fields aren’t half as wonderful to walk through alone as they were years ago when I enjoyed many a summer’s day such as this in these fields with close friends. It represented a time when nothing really mattered and anything was possible, but the one person who made me so happy growing up, sheltering me from the loneliness and isolation that comes from living in the middle of nowhere, is no longer there, long since moved away and got on with their life as I had – or as i thought I had.

Refusal to accept this, no matter how immature I know it is, is always lurking in the back of my mind and so it seems silly to force my own arrested development down my own throat. Trouble is, the vestiges of my past are still there and so i will always be drawn back there, particularly on a gorgeous summer day.

And I still believe that anything is possible. The difference is now I know exactly what you have to to get there…

Been a bit quiet of late, mainly due to the fact I haven’t been doing very much.That said I’m overjoyed to see that a little bit of improvised comedy for the States has finally seen the light of day. We recorded it in 2007 and it essentially involved me dressed up in 16th Century mercantile wear trying to off load some codpieces to the general public.It was the first time I’d ever really done that sort of thing and normally I don’t enjoy so-called stunt comedy as I think it’s entirely based on taking the mick out of people and can be very mean-spirited.That said this turned out to be a lot of fun and everyone involved proved very game – in all a nice way to spend a winter morning on Tower Bridge. I just wished the tights were thicker.You can watch it here.In other news, i recently wrote and voiced a little animation for a corporate financial company, my sole remit to make shares fun and interesting. Hmm… Anyway, it’s here.Lastly, I was running around a council estate in West London at one in the morning dressed in full police anti-terrorist gear for a short film I co-wrote called Ali & The Lamp, so we’ll see how that tuns out.As you were.

I joined a gym this week. I cautiously made my way to some underground vault, the corridors of which lined with intimidating images of modern day Apollos screaming in enjoyment at the sheer excitement of being in peak physical condition. Undeterred, I pushed on towards the reception.

Then I met him. A man with an anvil for a jaw and a name entirely made up of consonants. His handshake was surprisingly gentle but his ridiculously manic stare and rictus grin painted before me an impression of the man I suspected he actually was. A git.

We sat down and he began talking in that bizarre fashion that those sporty times tend to do; all superlatives and hyperbole. I can’t quite recall all the details but I do remember mention of “extreme workout”, “total energy immersion” and “ultimate goal.” “What’s you’re ultimate goal?” he asked, “because we can achieve it here!”

My ultimate goal is to write a great novel. I’m pretty certain it can’t be realised in this gym or any other but I daren’t tell you that, I thought. If you mean ‘why are you here’ then it is simply to help make sure that I don’t die young. That, my absurd new friend, is why I’m here. Can you help me in this? Can you prevent me from dying? You have the body of a god, but have you the power? Probably not.

I joined anyway and I have now begun climbing my own personal Mount Olympus to achieve my ultimate goal, mainly on Mondays and Wednesdays. It think I can. I think it’s doable. I feel, for the first time in my life, as though I can cheat death, defy mortality and rise triumphant, as eternal as those beautiful creatures who work at the gym, and then I can spend all eternity avoiding them.

Hello world!Just a quick one to say that I’ll be performing on stage at the famous “Downstairs At The King’s Head” in Crouch End this Sunday (21st) – Mock The Week’s Andy Parsons is headlining and it should be a good festive night, so come down if you’re around.As you were.

I really shouldn’t blog when I’m boozed up.

I have of late come to the conclusion that things are not as they should be. I wish this was not the case but sadly it is. Only today I was in a pub sat irritatingly near a woman with the kind of grating, piercing laugh that cuts through you like kitchen scissors through cheap wrapping paper. Even her friends looked at her in abject horror, as if they didn’t know exactly how to treat this odious mostrosity before them: walk away or silence her raucous caterwalling with a pencil to the throat? Needless to say they did neither – instead they let her carry on with her own unique brand of auditory rape. I simply sat with my friend, put off our pints. Read the rest of this entry »