Older Work

Comedy Countdown

The late-night Edinburgh show.

Many years ago, in Edinburgh, I was the host for a few festivals’ worth of Comedy Countdown, a very stupid midnight version of the TV teatime quizshow ‘Countdown’. I think it’s worth pointing out that this pre-dated Cats does Countdown by some years. It’s about the most fun I ever had on stage, and was nearly always sold-out.

As you can see from the poster, the kinds of guests that came along to play were seriously good comics, and a handful of them were seriously good at Countdown. Although a huge minority.

It was the kind of late-night show that made the Edinburgh Fringe most enjoyable for me. Getting a bunch of excellent comedians on stage to mess about with words whilst getting pissed was about as good as it gets.

Paul Sinha was the maths brains (of course he was), Marcel Lucont would marshal dictionary corner, but in French. James Sherwood would bring the most brilliantly awful ‘fun’ for the audience to enjoy during the break, and there was a parade of guest clocks, each of whom brought their own style to that particularly limited role. Special clock mention I think has to go to David Morgan who reinvented the role and made it his own.

I’ll have forgotten people and moments that were incredible, but in my defence it was pretty boozy.

Git

A live show.

In 2006 Lloyd, Jon and I performed in the Comedy Zone at Edinburgh, and became good friends. We decided to put together a show with the three of us performing together, and Git was born.

 

Git is a game show in three parts, with each part swapping host and contestants between the three of us. Convoluted? Definitely, but it actually works quite well if you ignore the scoring.

 

Memorable moments include hitting a piñata full of surprise porridge, blind taste testing using gimp masks and super soakers, and quiz rounds such as ‘cannibal or duck’, where we were shown pictures and had to guess if it was a picture of a cannibal or a duck. Was it as easy as it sounds? Yes.

 

Git has happened sporadically over the past decade, including a run in at the Edinburgh Fringe, a Christmas special and a performance at Machynlleth Festival.
It hasn’t happened in recent times purely because of the logistics of getting us together, but the desire is strong and I’m sure we will do another one before too long.

The Brexit Cards

A design project that I never did anything with. I think the idea is a bit convoluted to be fair but I quite liked the stuff on the cards. The idea is that it’s a pack of commemorative cards each showing a snapshot of British life in the year 2035 after fifteen years of living under Brexit.