How Do I Get Up There? Guest Blog

James Kirk and Chris Forbes from Glasgow's critically acclaimed sketch group How Do I Get Up There? talk about their show at the GilmorehillG12 Theatre tomorrow (Saturday 27th March).

James: "I know it is a terrible cliché but Glasgow audiences really are the best and that's what makes this festival a highlight for all comedy lovers across Britain. Glasgow Comedy Festival 2010 was always in our minds. We knew this was going to be a landmark for us. Our biggest venue to date, some new material and a couple of big set pieces, has meant sleepless nights have become all to frequent. With it being a theatre venue we have decided to pull out all the stops by getting in some very special guests and using a few extra gizmos to hopefully make it a very special night."

Chris: "It feels like there is a lot of pressure on us for this year’s festival show. We have been overwhelmed by the support and interest people have shown in our sketch group and I think our biggest fear is that, after last year’s successful break-through into the world of comedy, we might disappoint people or feel like we’ve let people down. We truly hope this will not be the case and we have tried to create a bigger and, hopefully, better show than ever before to give people a full on night of entertainment filled with sketches, songs and special guests, to try and give it an old school/variety/ musical hall kind of feel."

"In our humble opinion Glasgow Comedy Festival is the best comedy festival in Britain. The Edinburgh Fringe is obviously a big deal but it also seems a bit too manufactured and artificial in comparison. Glasgow is real, Glasgow is exciting. Glasgow is the sort of place where you feel you have achieved something if you can go the whole night without getting into some sort of altercation. Most importantly, Glasgow, at this time of year, is the best place to find the future stars of Scottish comedy and there is plenty of them. Billy Kirkwood, Scott Agnew, Mark Nelson and John Gavin to name but a few. Scottish comedy is on the verge of being very special indeed and this festival is the best place to see this in action."

Find How Do I Get Up There? online at www.howdoigetupthere.com

How Do I Get Up There? will be performing their new show Avant Garde this Saturday 27th March 2010 at GilmorehillG12 at 7.30pm. Find out more here.

Special offer: Get two tickets for the price of one for this show by calling our festival hotline on 0844 395 4005 and quoting code 'festivalweb2-4-1'.

Photoblog: 25th March

Want to know what we've been getting up to at the festival so far? Here's a taster of our flickr photostream - check out all our photos at www.flickr.com/glasgowcomedy

Backstage at the Magners Festival Club at the Stand Comedy Club. Photo credit: Grant Thistle (www.grant-thistle.com). From L-R: Marc Maron, Lucy Porter, Richard Herring, Fred MacAulay and Chris Forbes.

Susan Calman at the festival launch at the Old Fruitmarket. Photo credit: Grant Thistle (www.grant-thistle.com). Her solo show at Oran Mor this Saturday is sold out, but you can catch her on Friday 26th March when she will be hosting the Wicked Wenches Special at the Women's Library. Find out more here.

Kevin Bridges and Bill Burr Photo credit: Grant Thistle (www.grant-thistle.com). Saturday 20th March at the Magners Festival Club at the Stand Comedy Club after Bill's solo show at the King's Theatre.

Scott Agnew at the Citizens Theatre. Photo credit: Grant Thistle (www.grant-thistle.com). Supporting Des Clarke at his Homecoming show on Tuesday 16th March. Scott will be performing his solo show Pride: In The Name of Love at 8.30pm at Maggie Mays tonight, Thursday 25th March. Find out more here.

Sketch group: How Do I Get Up There? Photo credit: Grant Thistle (www.grant-thistle.com) On stage at the Citizens Theatre. They will be performing their show Avant Garde this Saturday 27th March at GilmorehillG12. Find out more here.

Bratchy Guest Blog

I can’t really describe myself as a veteran of many things. Drinking alcohol perhaps? Well, I’ve being doing that in varying amounts for roughly sixteen years, so that might be in with a shout. Masturbation? Well, I’ve been doing that in varying amounts for… oh, you can guess the rest.

But outside of these incredibly worthy (and fun) endeavours, I can’t claim to be experienced enough at anything to be considered worthy of veteran status. I have, however, performed in various capacities at every Glasgow Comedy Festival since its inaugural year, so perhaps I could comfortably be described as an old hand at Weegieland’s biggest festival of fun. (Or uncomfortably, depending on your point of view.)

I’m glad to say I have, since that first year, watched the festival get exponentially bigger and better every year. And every year I have a blast. Like many other west coast based comics, March is easily becoming my favourite month on the comedy calendar. I live in Glasgow, you see, and it’s a city I love, a city that regularly makes me laugh – it’s quite easy to glean material from a short trip down Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night, observing all the attendant orange-skinned, scantily-clad, pukey carnage. But what’s even better is being able to jump in a taxi and travel to two or three gigs a night to try out said material.

And so the festival is upon us again, in its eighth year, and is indeed bigger and better than ever. I, for one, can’t wait. My show, Beer, Loathing and Lost Wages, has a loose theme, about me being somewhat of a reformed party animal. Like, I got fed up with going out on a Friday night and before I knew it, it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m in a stranger’s house watching Finding Nemo with the volume down. That lifestyle left me skint, and knackered. The comedy festival does as well, but in a good way.

Ah well, as they say, “no sweat for a vet.”

A veteran, that is.

Bratchy will be performing his solo show Beer Loathing and Lost Wages at 8.30pm, Wednesday 24th March at Brel. Find out more here.

Rob Rouse Guest Blog

Dear Glasgow, I have an admission to make. This is the first 'blog' I have ever written in my life. I've never done one on my website, on myspace, not never before, never ever. Not one.

I have the same uneasy relationship with twitter, I know it's handy for someone in my line of work, so I do it sporadically, but there's always a sense of 'Should I really be putting this out there? Who would actually give a fuck?!' every time I tweet. Also I'm fully aware that this sounds ridiculous coming from someone whose job it is to stand on a stage every night and talk and shout at complete and utter strangers with the purpose of making them laugh, that feels for all the world like one of the most natural things to do, but is an utter contradiction. So am I.

I've always been much more into 'doing' than talking about it. I always think Glasgow is very much a doing it kind of city too. Whenever I've visited, it's been impossible not to be swept up by the buzz of the city, the excitement, the passion, the directness and the sheer bloody mindedness of people to enjoy themselves. Living in England it's a massively refreshing contrast. Ask any performer; I've got mates in bands and they always site Glasgow as the best night on the tour because people always go absolutely fucking nuts from the very first song, no chin scratching, just full on from the bell, right to the end, then it generally continues out into the street and on the trains, buses and pavements home. And that's a fairly standard Wednesday evening, best not to go completely mental on a school night.

And it's not to do with some stereotypical comedy idea of everyone being pissed and lagered up either. It runs deeper than that. I think it's just ingrained, you're born with it. Your wear you hearts on your sleeves and the world is the better a place for it. And for that reason I'm delighted to be taking part in the Festival on Wednesday March 24th with my show My Family and the dog that scared Jesus. A show about huge changes, experiencing massive things things for the first time. And it also contains the filthiest story about a dog I hope you've every heard, although it's thoroughly justified artistically!

And to top it off Glasgow, you've just popped my ripe and swollen blogging cherry, you filthy dirty lovely people!

See you on 24th March.

Rob. xxx

Check out Rob online at www.robrouse.com or on twitter @robrouse.

Rob will be performing his solo show My Family and the Dog that Scared Jesus at Universal on Wednesday 24th March at 8.30pm. Find out more here.

Introducing the Magners Festival Club podcast

Richard Melvin introduces the new Magners Festival Club podcast:

Sometimes a comedy club can be quite an intimidating place, both for the members of the audience who’ve chosen to sit near the front and for the nervous comedians pacing around backstage.

Well for me, it’s been scary for a whole different set of reasons. I’ve been making the 'Live At The Stand Comedy Club Podcast' - a programme that includes stand-up recorded at The Magners Festival Club and backstage interviews with some of the biggest names in comedy. Most of the interviews start with words “You’ve just stepped off stage… how did it go?” Thankfully, so far everyone has replied with an enthusiastic “Brilliant!”

Amazingly, just after a comedian steps off stage, there seems to be a small window open, right in the middle of their soul, so some of the chats we’ve recorded have been extremely revealing.

Last night, for example Miles Jupp, Gary Tank Commander, Mike Wozniak, Susan Calman and Robin Ince all excelled on stage, helped along with a few words of encouragement from their backstage buddies Dara O’Briain and Frankie Boyle. Dara and Frankie hadn’t seen each other since Frankie quit Mock The Week, so they had a lot to catch up on! The banter was electrifying! I even managed to record some of it – so make sure you download the next podcast.

It’s available to listen to here on The Stand’s website or you can download it via iTunes. The first one is up now – and I’ve got loads of great material coming up over the next few weeks – so be sure to subscribe! It’s free. Oh and by the way…. It’s extremely rude; so if you’re easily offended, don’t bother.

Richard Melvin will be recording live at the Stand Comedy Club at the Magners Festival Club which runs Thursday - Saturday every weekend during the festival.

More information about the Magners Festival Club

Listen to the first podcast at the Stand website

Download the podcast via iTunes

Little Howard Guest Blog

Me and Big Howard are coming to The Magners Glasgow Comedy Festival, but because I am six, I'm not allowed to drink any of the Magners.

We are looking forward to doing our show Little Howard And The Magic Pencil Of Life And Death in Glasgow because Scottish people are very nice. Most of them are anyway. We went on Stephen Jardine and Michelle MacManus' TV show and he tried to hit me! Just because I said he reminded me of Fern Britton. She was very nice though. I can't believe she played Taggart.

Michelle MacManus is very good at singing. Stephen Jardine can't even sing a note! How did he get a job as a TV presenter!? Who is he anyway?! I've never seen him on any reality TV shows. I hate it when people get on telly without having earned it on reality TV.

Anyway, we're looking forward to doing our show in Glasgow. I've done some research and I've found out what "Glasgow" means, have a look at what I found out on this clip:


Please do come along to our show and say hello to us afterwards.

Will that do, because I need the toilet?

Check out Little Howard talking to Michelle MacManus and Stephen Jardine on The Hour here (part four; available for a limited time).

He's also online here at www.littlehoward.co.uk

Little Howard will be performing with Big Howard in Little Howard and the Magic Pencil of Life and Death at the King's Theatre, Glasgow at 2.30pm on Saturday 20th March.

Bruce Devlin Guest Blog

Well it that's time of year again when the other comedy festival starts. I remember back in its infancy staying in a lot of hotels with "Scottish Comedy Legend Jane Mackay". We pop over from Edinburgh, ply our filth at a few gigs then get on with the serious business of "networking", which as you can imagine was really just lamming into litres of gin, terrorising the gay community at large and staying in various hotels.

One particular evening, an establishment in the west of the city did put the willies up us and not in the way either of us would have liked (nudge nudge, wink wink). There we were, comatose, when someone burst in our room demanding our autographs as they had seen us in the bar downstairs and thought we were Jo Brand and Dom Jolly respectively. Jane politely asked them to leave and when they wouldn't I threw a bedside table at them. They then promptly left. Also in another city centre establishment a man was convinced we were the same person as at different points of the same evening we had on the same dress. That's a long very long story, however it goes to show just how stupid some people are.

Journeys to Glasgow were problematic as on one occasion we saw fit to travel with a ready-mixed keg of gin and slim. Running late, we both ran onto the platform at Haymarket and once on the train promptly opened the keg and it went everywhere, much to the horror of the bint sitting opposite. She soon calmed down when we offered to take her to Bonapartes (the lovely bar in the station) where we did speed drinking for an hour then went to a show, which I can't remember.

Glasgow and its festival have very fond memories for me - there really are a lot of good things on and I'm on almost constantly and will be tweeting throughout (www.twitter.com/brucedevlin), so do come to one of my shows or follow my filth on twitter. Have a fantastic festival and STAY ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Find Bruce Devlin online at www.brucedevlin.co.uk You can catch Bruce performing at the following festival shows:

Stand Up @Sloans : Thursday 11 March, 8.30pm, Sloans

Comedy Out WEST: Friday 12 & Friday 19th March, 9pm WEST Brewery

The Late Show: Friday 12th & Saturday 13th March, 11pm, Blackfriars Basement

Best of Red Raw 2010 with BBC SCotland: Monday 15 & Monday 22 March, 8.30pm, Universal

Magners Festival Club: Thursday 25th (10pm), Friday 26th (10.30pm) & Saturday 27th (10.30pm), Stand Comedy Club

Fullmooners Guest Blog from Tim FitzHigham

What runs through my mind when I hear 'you're playing Glasgow Festival'? Several questions rattle round my head. The normal comedian’s paranoia of ‘will they laugh?’ comes way down the list. Above it: will I get to the gig without dying? This happened on my first trip to Glasgow when, as the most English man since a German first stepped onto a muddy fen in Norfolk, I tried to get the up to date England rugby score in a crowded pub with a very English accent and the words ‘has anyone seen the rugger?’

Next on the list: will I make it through the gig alive and get home without being dismembered or shot? This happened to my Fullmooners co-thing Maxwell who on his first gig in Glasgow was chased out of the theatre and for three miles by a man with a bullwhip. Fullmooners is a gig distracted by anarchy. Putting it in a festival program is like setting the timer on a bomb. Two years ago Fullmooners in Glasgow turned into a sit-in protest against the police who were attempting to send the audience home. Last year a member of the audience came up to me in the loo. As I mentioned I’m a very English man with an accent to cut not only glass but sheets of metal and a face like the missing link between Gonzo and a Fraggle. The man in the loo smiled (this could be good or bad) and hugged me (again could go either way) thanking me for the greatest Billy Connelly impersonation he’d ever seen. And three years ago I finished the gig in a laundry basket.

The Glasgow audience may drink hard, they may punch hard but they laugh far harder than any other I’ve played and I can’t wait to be back… come see Fullmooners and work out what debris the ticking bomb will throw out this year.

Find out more about Maxwell's Fullmooners online at www.maxwellsfullmooners.com.

The Fullmooners will be performing at the Old Fruitmarket at midnight on Saturday 13th March. Click here for more information.

Photo credit Claes Gellerbrink.

Tiernan Douieb Guest Blog

How good is Glasgow? Well take ‘good’ and add six times more ‘good’ and some things and what have you got? Well no concept of maths apparently. But ignoring that, Glasgow, I think Glasgow is pretty damn awesome. I had never actually been there until I went to the festival last year. I know, I know, just where had I been all this time? Well, other places than Glasgow. That’s why I hadn’t been there before. While I’m not blaming Glasgow’s location on anyone, had it been somewhere I’d already been before, then I’d have definitely been there already.

That first trip, despite being on Friday 13th, was anything but unlucky and involved much fun, great audiences, booze, being asked for money by a druggie on Glasgow Green and eating noodles on Sauchiehall Street at 4am. What more could a chap ask for? How about an actual hall full of socks? I have thought about this a lot but I can’t really see how that would help anyone. Then again I have lots of odd socks, so perhaps an international odd sock swap shop on Sauchiehall Street would be brilliant? I shall write a letter to someone important and see what happens.

I return again on the 13th of this month. I can’t help but feel it’s a clever plan to ensure I don’t have a crap time on a supposedly unlucky day. Then I realised that from Glasgow’s point of view, the 13th is the day when that beardy hobbit twat appears to shout about halls full of socks, which seems fairly unlucky really. Just be thankful I haven’t even got started on the lack of royalty in Princes Square or where on earth the host of Art Attack is, on Buchanan Street.

Check out Tiernan Douieb online - and his regular blog - at www.tiernandouieb.co.uk.

Tiernan will be performing his solo show at the Buff Club on Saturday 13th March. Find out more here. He'll also be performing at the Glasgow Kids Comedy Club at the Stand Comedy Club in the afternoon on Saturday 13th March. Click here for more information.

John Gavin Guest Blog

So it's nearly that time of year again. The time of year when one of the largest comedy festivals around is only a 20 minute train journey away from my home. Being from the west of Scotland, the Glasgow Comedy Festival is something to get really excited about. This year’s festival has so many different shows that every taste is catered for. Not only that, being a non-driver, it means that there is loads of gigs that I can get do and get home from without having to get a train home too early.

This will be my second festival as a comedian. It also marks a personal milestone as it will be my first ever solo show. The show has been in the back of my mind since October really. The only thing is, it was really at the back of my mind, hiding like a bat. I say a bat as it only came out of hiding at night when I was trying to get to sleep. You have no idea how long I have been kept awake at night by such thoughts as:

• "What should my poster look like?" - this was a huge pain for me and has changed so many times I lost count.
• "What should I pick as an intro track?" - being a real music geek this is a problem. The last time I did it the first list of potential songs stretched to 164 songs. The worst of it is that the layout of the venue means that if I wanted an intro track I'd have to walk past the mic and physically turn it off myself.
  
• "Could I get some fireworks?" - I won't even go into the directions my brain took me that night.

Weirdly at no point did I think about any new material. Next thing it's nearly Christmas and nothing is done. Plans for writing were scuppered by a very busy festive period involving four nights out, 14 gigs in 22 days and getting things ready for Santa Claus coming and trying to be a good husband and father. They were also scuppered by the snow. At the first sight of snow I was out in my wellies sledging and having snowball fights. Sledging was a particular favourite (although I did find out that my body, especially my back, cannot endure the same rigors it did when I was eight).

Thankfully January wasn't too manic so there was time to get the show ready for previews in February. For some reason I hit a particularly productive period just after the New Year. I wish I could tell you what it was that brought out this productive period. If I did know what it was I would bottle it and sell it to other comedians. There is a good chance that it would sell faster than bread and milk on a snow day.

Only thing I have worry about now is ticket sales. Well that and hoping that people decide not to see Dave Gorman instead of me on the 25th of March...

John Gavin will be performing his solo show The A-Z of Parenting at Uisge Beatha on Thursday 25th March. Find out more here.