Zoe Lyons Guest Blog

Performing at the Glasgow Comedy Festival always feels a little bit like coming home for me. I grew up and went to school in Glasgow - Newton Mearns to be precise. I love it when you tell folk from Glasgow you lived in Newton Mearns. “Oh” they say.... “the Mmmmmmmmearns” in a faux posh, slightly camp accent as if to suggest that I spent my childhood riding around on polo ponies while shovelling caviar down my throat. Far from it, my school memories are of having to go cross country running in the snow wearing gym shorts that even the pussy cat dolls would now describe as “a bit too skimpy”.

The cold would turn your legs a very unattractive deep purple colour. It took me a while to realise that the cool kids didn’t actually do the cross country run but rather ran out of the school to the bus stop, leapt on the bus to the bakers, sat in the warm bakers for twenty minutes munching on mutton pies and then got the bus back up the hill and ran the last bit back into school. Once I was made aware of this approach to PE I became a big fan of the subject. In fact, to this day mutton pies play a very big part in my health regime.

Find Zoe Lyons online at www.zoelyons.co.uk

Zoe will be performing her show Miss Machismo at Blackfriars Basement on Friday 26th March. Find out more here.

Hardeep Singh Kohli Guest Blog

Don't tell anyone this, but I have never played a gig in my hometown. Seems rather strange to be coming home to play my debut gig there. Luckily it's low-key event in a tiny wee venue. Wrong. The Kings Theatre as part of the Glasgow Comedy Festival. Brown trouser time.

It's always great coming home, mostly cos everyone makes sure you don't get too big for your boots. Everyone kent ma faither and have no problem reminding me of that fact on a regular basis. But also there's a lot of love in Glasgow and that's very humbling.

It's amazing to play the Kings. I went to school across Sauchiehall Street, used to study at The Mitchell Library round the corner, drank coffee and ate toasties across the road from the Kings. But I've only ever seen pantos there which makes me want to perform my show completely in drag with loads of very badly applied make-up. The only reason I'm not is cos I would genuinely be mistaken for my aunt (though her beard is greyer, obviously).

A lot of my show is about coming from Glasgow, growing up in Glasgow. So many of my stories and reminiscences from home so it's going to be very interesting to see how the stories work in the city of their origin. I'm so excited and I just can’t hide it. I'm about to lose control so I'd better take another Tamazepan.

I don't mean to sound all nostalgic and maudlin but I cannae help thinking about all the great comics that came from Glasgow, men and women that shaped and changed the comedy of the city, a city renowned across the world for being funny. I only hope I do them justice.

(No Pointer Sisters were hurt in the writing of this blog)

Check out Hardeep online at www.hardeepsinghkohli.co.uk

Hardeep will be performing his solo show The Nearly Naked Chef at the King's Theatre on Monday 22nd March. You can win tickets to the show by going to www.glasgowcomedyfestival.com and checking out our Competitions page!

Billy Kirkwood Guest Blog

Firing through the rain soaked streets, shoes drenched, pocket full of scribbled notes, dodging the craziness of Sauchiehall, pausing only to watch a girl charging head first at her soon to be ex-boyfriend while swinging her shoes high above her head and screaming "Rambo", I pound the pavement on my way to my third gig of the night. I’m looking like a cross between a stand up comedian and a monkey that's fallen out a tree but wearing a smile a mile wide.... such is the madness of the Glasgow Comedy Festival and I love it.

"Aye that'll get it right up that Fringe lot eh pal?" beams a taxi driver, cheerfully nodding at the banner splattered bus.

"You like stand up do you mate?" I reply with my mock 'big boy' voice.

"Oh aye” he fires back “Especially when it’s dirty stuff, likes fannies n that".

"God" I think to myself.

I love this city and would totally let it get to second base one the first date.

As a boy from the coast I’ve become besotted with the special buzz my adopted city holds for 18 days every March. The Dear Green Place opens its streets, pubs, clubs, buses, theatre, trains and everywhere in-between to comics and punters alike from all around the globe, inviting them to bring their comic mojo…..and ready to let you know if you left it at home that day.

The cous cous becomes a fish supper, the red wine the can of Tennent’s. The pretentious pomp and circumstance that sanitises and dulls the fun of other comedy festivals is nowhere to be seen at Glasgow, you’ve not come here to waste your money, you’ve come to have some fun and a bloody good laugh.

What's that? Finally got a rumbling in your funny tummy? Well why not tuck into the buffet of awesomeness coming at this year’s festival it's bloody scrumptious! From phenomenal talents of your “El Diablo” Mark Nelson, Raymond Means, Scott Agnew and (soon to be huge) sketch group How do I get up there?, to the big household names like Paul Merton, Jerry Sadowitz, Lee Mack, Dave Gorman, Bill Burr, Lucy Porter and ahem…..Billy Kirkwood (cough - that one is awesome - cough).

With the orange glow of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival starting to sparkle on the horizon, I can't help but get once more terrified and excited in equal measure. Gigging everywhere and anywhere the festival will have me with a variety of comics I can’t wait to see perform, even just as a fan. The comedy festival is book-ended with my own new solo show "Comedy Fizzbomb" at Gilmorehillg12 on Friday 12th and something a little different with my live comedy podcast show "Seven Different Shades of Wrong" with Messer’s Molland and Buckley at Capitol on Saturday 27th.

So the party is just gearing up mofo, and the music of comedy has never sounded better, so I got to ask.......you dancing?

Find Billy online at www.billykirkwood.co.uk

Billy will be performing his solo show Comedy Fizzbomb at Gilmorehillg12 on Friday 12th and his live comedy podcast Seven Different Shades of Wrong with Rick Molland and Phil Buckley at Capitol on Saturday 27th March.

Scott Agnew Guest Blog

As a Glaswegian comic there's no more exciting time of the year than the approach to March and the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

To spend a month playing various gigs to a home crowd is a rare pleasure and it's also great fun to introduce the many visitors from elsewhere in the UK and beyond to what Glaswegians are best known for - their banter and humour.

Each year the festival throws up its own special memories that will live long in the minds' of both the acts and the punters that attend the gigs.

A personal highlight/lowlight last year was rather drunkenly compereing a late night gig last year at Sloan's which just happened to have the stupidly brilliant Ross Noble drop in to have a watch after he'd completed a 3 hour sell-out show at the Theatre Royal earlier in the evening.

Eagle eyed as always and wanting to treat the audience to something a bit special I decided to coax the Geordie comic genius into performing a set for the 120 strong festival crowd. When he at first refused I decided it might be a good idea to blackmail the Perrier nominated comedian with the taunt "Nobody in Glasgow will buy your Christmas DVDs."

To chants of "Ross, Ross, Ross" from the crowd the indefatigueable Mr Noble took to his feet and performed a barnstorming 30 minute set. Chuffed with myself I retreated to the bar to watch a master surrealist at work. He charmed the pants off the crowd and before long, me too - quite literally.

By way of revenge, on leaving the stage as I tried to close the show Mr Noble suggested that the audience might want to see me strip - which I was bashfully refusing. Before I knew it a lady in the front row leapt to her feet pulled off my suit jacket and tie - the music kicked in and she had stripped me of my shirt and was undoing my belt and hauling my jeans to my ankles before spanking my rear with my own tie whilst standing wearing nowt but my boxers - a delight for absolutely no one - I'm sure.

Embarrassing though this little episode may have been for myself, it's little unplanned, unexpected moments like this that makes the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival a special and magical experience for all involved.

So as we approach the eighth Festival I am once again getting moist with anticipation at what this year will have in store for us all. So I hope to see you all at some point during the Festival - either at my daily lunchtime chat show with BBC Children in Need's Des Clarke at Sloans or at my own solo show, Pride (In The Name of Love) at Maggie Mays on March 25. And I promise I'll do my best to keep my kegs on this time. Legs crossed anyway!

Follow Scott on facebook at www.facebook.com/scottagnew1

Scott will be performing his solo show Pride (In The Name of Love) at Maggie Mays on Thursday 25th March and The Skinny Presents...The Big Lunchtime Comedy Chat Show @ Sloans with Des Clarke every Thursday to Sunday during the festival.

Introduction from the Festival Co-ordinator Sarah Niblock

So the start of another year heralds another Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival. Excellent!

Things are well underway on the planning and organizational side of things. This will be the eighth Glasgow Comedy Festival and it’s grown substantially year on year, with 2010 continuing the trend.

Quite a few folk ask if this is a year-round job, and believe me, it certainly is! Planning for this year’s festival began way back at the end of last year’s event.

As soon as the festival is over there’s a review and evaluation reports to be done, then the planning for the next year starts.

Acts are booked, venues are secured, talent is scouted, and links are forged. 2009 saw some great new relations cemented with our colleagues over in New York and we’ve made some brilliant connections with all the top clubs over there such as Carolines, The Gotham and the Comic Strip to name just a few.

Then of course August is occupied by that event along the M8, so we head to the east of the country and check out the great and the good Fringe-goers over there to see who’s on form and who’s up and coming.

As well as work getting underway for our own event, the latter part of the year sees us undertaking the comedy aspects of the Kirkcaldy Comedy Festival and the Merchant City Festival before finalizing our own programme .

By the time that’s all done we’re at this point – January – and only two short months away from the start of what is arguably the biggest event solely dedicated to comedy in Europe!

So, it’s going to be hectic from now until March but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you haven’t already signed up, follow us on Twitter, or Facebook, or Myspace or any of the other wondrous social networking thingies that are out there then please do so and we’ll try to keep you as informed and up to date as is possible in an interesting and funny way (probably more funny peculiar than funny ha ha though – we’ll leave the funny ha ha up to our lovely, talented comedians as, after all, they’re just so bloomin’ good at it).

Cheerie bye for now….

(you’re looking good by the way, blog reader, have you done something different with your hair? It suits you!)

New year, new blog!

Hello and welcome to our new festival blog!

Here you can find all the latest goings-on from the festival team, and we'll be getting some comedians in for some guest blog spots, too.

Happy New Year!