9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People

In 2008 Robin Ince started these Godless shows as a way of showing that us atheists can celebrate Christmas too (let's face it, it's not got too much to do with Jesus, these days). And since the shows began (or at least since I got to know Robin's work) I've really wanted to go. They've had various special guests such as Ricky Gervais (who, bizarrely, I'm not too bothered about seeing anymore!), Tim Minchin (who I'm having a renewed obsession with since seeing him!!) and Alan Moore. Last time I was in London (October 2009) I decided I wouldn't go back until I saw Godless in 2010. I don't believe in cosmic ordering or anything but I do think that if you want something enough it'll happen (and for me that meant wanting it so much I booked tickets as soon as they went on sale and got front row seats!).

Going to see the show was a lovely reason to see our brilliant friends in Surrey (next time we should just have a cosy DVD night; we miss them!). The show was really long (but felt so short, as the acts were only on for five to fifteen minutes each and we could've easily have sat there for another few hours).

We went to the Saturday night show (each show will have a slightly different line up). Unfortunately Chris Addison was snowed in so we didn't get to see him. But we did have a surprise guest to replace him who made up for it!

The Bloomsbury Theatre is awesome! I wish I'd had more time just to wander around and look at all the cool stuff on the walls. It's such a lovely venue and I'm sure I'll be back there for more comedy at some point.

The orchestra (it really was a month of orchestras) - The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra - were on stage all the time (Martin White was at the back so I couldn't see him very well) and as they were getting set up we saw Danielle Ward wander past (how lovely). The orchestra would play short bursts of Christmassy music when the guests were leaving the stage/coming out on to the stage.

The show began with our lovely host, Mr Robin Ince, who was excited though tired and admitted he was wearing his second-best cardigan! He was on stage for various bits so I can't remember when he said what. Oh, I think in the first bit he was talking about people overreacting to snow. 'Thanks for braving it.'

The first act was Richard Wiseman, a psychologist who used to be a magician who was really wonderful and showed us some optical illusions. He was really funny and confident.

Then we had the lovely and charming Isy Suttie (who I'd seen quite a while ago at my Uni and remembered but wasn't hugely bothered about but now she plays Dobby in Peep Show - and gets to pretend to have sex with David Mitchell, lucky, lucky girl!) who I really enjoyed seeing. She read a really funny letter from her mum then did a song about alternative medicine. "Mother, don't make me take those pills." She kept singing in a really deep voice for comic effect.

And then it was Richard Herring doing his pope application letter (from his Someone Likes Yoghurt DVD and from his AIOTM) - it was funny as we'd been talking about that earlier in the day! It was lovely to see RH even if only for ten minutes and he looked very well dressed.

Then Robin Ince was back on! At some point he was talking about how someone (in a comments bit of The Telegraph) had called him 'the liberal elite' which was really good.

Marcus Chown was next. He's a scientist and journalist who's written a book called (hilariously) We Need To Talk About Kelvin. He came across as really nervous but his stuff was really funny and interesting. He was doing an award ceremony for scientists ie ones for underestimating. He was great. I might read his book in 2011.

Then Jo Neary came on. She was even more nervous than Marcus had been. She could barely speak and was asking for a glass of water as her mouth was too dry. After a few seconds of acute embarrassment we realised this was part of the act. She was doing a talk on sex toys from Christmas but had had (obviously fake) problems with the computer so had to show us her drawings. I loved her!! Really hilarous!

Then Robin Ince was back to introduce Martin White (who, of course, was on stage all the time anyway) to play his funny song from Dave Gorman's radio show (the podcasts are great!) "Dudley and his magic pants" which was loads of fun especially as we all got to join in with the chants of "Dudley!" I love Martin White and dream about him more than is usual (though I don't fancy him, or do I?!)

Then Robin Ince introduced Frisky and Mannish by saying he'd discovered them at Latitude and really enjoyed them while eating a cake. Then he saw them without the cake and still loved them (this isn't always the case!). I didn't know what to expect from Frisky and Mannish. I'd heard of them but didn't know anything at all about them. I didn't know that they were a musical act or that Frisky was a woman and Mannish was a man. But I loved them! And I didn't even have cake. They deconstruct songs in a similar way to Bill Bailey and James Sherwood but their song impressions are much more accurate (Frisky can impersonate so many singing styles, she's amazing.) I really need to see them again! Frisky had a cool tattoo - and I'm not normally bothered about them - three forte signs.

Then in the interval Richard got Robin Ince to sign his book and I took this lovely picture of them.

I think that Robin Ince is one of the loveliest people I've ever met; he's entirely unprententious and is geniunely interested in chatting to his fans about things.

Part Two:

I honestly can't remember the order of the second half. None of us can! But the acts were (roughly in this order!):

The first act after the interval (I'm fairly certain!) was Matt Parker, good looking, Australian, stand up mathematician. Yay! He's really funny, lovely and smart. And Australian!! We'd seen his show Your Days are Numbered: The Maths of Death in Edinburgh (Richard and I) and had given stickers with "My days were numbered" written on to Katja and Rich. Katja was looking for her sticker to show me when Matt Parker said "it's not TV, Miss! I can see you looking in your wallet!"

Josie Long was on - she did a character that was pretty much the same as her "been up space" character but instead of space she was giving a talk on the Thames barrier (!). Then she asked the orchestra to hit it and began to sing "All I Want For Christmas Is You"...to the barrier. Then she snapped out of character, did a few political jokes ("Nick Clegg promised he was gonna be here."),told us about the Black Panthers and wished us a Merry Christmas. She can do no wrong!

Helen Arney played some songs on her ukulele about wanting to have sex like animals. But it's very scientifically specific. Very very funny!http://www.youtube.com/user/newhumanistmagazine#p/u/11/ubMhA8AS68Y

Simon Singh answered five questions on the entire universe in five minutes and ended by electrocuting a gherkin! He's a great guy but what's going on with his hair?!

Robyn Hitchcock said that this gig was his last (is it? Was it?) I enjoyed his set (with two young, female backing vocalists who were great) but was getting a bit sleepy and needed something a bit more lively to perk me up. He was really good though.

Ben Goldacre was in shock as finally the rest of the country had caught on to his way of thinking and begun to hate Gillian McKeith!! He mostly talked about her and asked if we thought she was a liar (she said he was!). We said she was - he took a picture (and maybe video) and said we'd made him a very happy boy this Christmas. I love Ben and his mad hair! Sexy doctor!

Mark Thomas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our surprise guest and the most excited person about it being Christmas!! He was so clearly delighted to have stepped in at the last minute and was having a wonderful time. I'm really glad I'm seeing him next year. Yay!

Baba Brinkman - I've seen Baba do his Evolutionary Rap stuff quite a few times now. He's brilliant, clever, inventive and Canadian. He's great! Hope I get to see him do something else in 2011 (but doing that set makes sense for Godless!!)

Robin Ince finished the show (and did quite a few bits in between but can't remember exactly when) and was/is/always will be brilliant!!

Uncaged Monkeys tickets are here: http://www.ents24.com/web/artist/12597/Robin_Ince.html so that'll have to keep me going until Godless 2011! (It won't though, sure I'll see Robin in Edinburgh too!)

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!!

One week - two orchestras (and ONSIND!)

I hate snow. I didn't always hate snow - I used to love it and imbue it with magic and romance. Those times are over. But I don't want to dwell on the evil ice water for too long. The snow's ruined two Saturdays in a row but here are some of the things that it didn't ruin:

Belle and Sebastian

I got tickets for this gig at the Sage in July - B&S had long been on my (mental) list of bands I'd never seen before but really wanted to see. It was at the top of this list (along with They Might Be Giants, Pavement, Weezer, XTC, The Shins and The Smiths) so I was prepared to go to Manchester, Glasgow, London, Edinburgh or anywhere just to see them. Amazingly, they were playing in Gateshead! (Which is just as well as I couldn't travel that weekend. Gah!)

A while later I got my usual email update from Daniel Kitson and found out that he was the support for the gig!!!! I would've paid loads just to see him so to be able to see him as part of something else was an unexpected delight.

The night was exciting from the start as we walked in to find the stage full of music stands (they were playing with the English Heritage Orchestra). Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn came out - I'm not sure how many people knew who they were. I think if you were expecting an entirely musical support you may have been a bit surprised to see Daniel - a comedian telling a story - and Gavin - a musician. But what they did was truly wonderful and magical. They each told a heartbreaking story which then linked together to become a tale of unrequited and possibly requited love. Beautiful.

And then B&S! They were amazing! The orchestra made it an even more special night (though I'd love to see them with or without the orchestra, they're so great) - especially for the newer songs (and "Lord Anthony" and "Dear Catastrophe Waitress"); there were just a few where they sat silently ("Piazza New York Catcher" was done in a lovely low key way - just Stuart sitting on the edge of the stage being brilliant). "I'm Not Living In The Real World" was really fun - Stevie got everyone to join in the "ooh ooh ooh ooh" bits which was brilliant. Some girls (and a couple of guys) got to dance on stage and were given medals that said 'I made it with Belle and Sebastian' - how sweet!

An amazing night.

ONSIND

An interesting night in the house of two boys I don't know - it began with stories of shit (including someone accidentally shitting on a fox!) I felt quite old (everyone else there to begin with had been born in the early nineties, argh) and was very relieved when the people I knew started to arrive.

Crywank (the guy who'd had most of the stories) played first - he was really good. He apologised for not singing in his accent and said he didn't think anyone'd want to hear a Northern accent! What?! The best bands in the world sing in Northern accents!!

Then Winona Forever played (JC - who I'd never seen play on his own) - he was great (and really funny too!)

And then ONSIND who were amazing (as always) and even did the Billy Joel bit from in between "You Should Probably Keep It All In" and "If Anyone Needs Me I'll Be In The Angry Dome" which was great fun and showed how much everyone there listens to the album! "Suicide Is Painful" almost made me cry (as it usually does live).

Alas, we had to leave before seeing the wonderful Casual Terrorist (CJ) but we got to see him the week after in the end (hurrah!!!).

Another wonderful night made slightly less wonderful by silly snow, sleet, ice etc.

Tim Minchin

Last year I had tickets to see Tim Minchin at the City Hall - they were amazing seats (second row) and I absolutely couldn't wait to go! And then I was ill. And I missed "Ready For This?" which was one of the most horrendous things to happen in my life (I've had a pretty nice life!). Anyway, I felt like I'd waited quite a while to see Tim - and it was very very worth it.

He began with a really mad dramatic song about arenas ruining comedy, mocking egotistical performers by emulating them. Then once he was sat at his piano he played "Rock and Roll Nerd" and then came to the front of the stage to introduce his orchestra: "This? Oh this is just my orchestra." And he played with the conductor's baton - pretending to be Harry Potter etc. He really had fun with his orchestra the whole night (even getting them to join in with 'motherfucker's in The Pope Song - which was amazing to hear live!!).

There was a great song about a miracle, one about context, a brilliant one about cheese that crossed a million different genres and included jazz hands. He ended, as I'd hoped he would with "White Wine In The Sun" which was really special as it was so near to Christmas.

I love Tim so much - I love his piano, his strong wrists, his hair, his voice, his secular humanism. He is so fucking wonderful and brilliant! I think so much of what he sings about (in a comedy way) is what I really think about the world but find it hard to articulate.

It was a good week for gigs (and an even better week for babies!) - just ended up taking me ages to write about it.

Edinburgh 2008 - Day One

Over two years ago I set off for my second Fringe with Richard and Nat. It began, as most things do, with bagels. (I do have a good memory but I don't have an insane memory - I'm writing this with a copy of a letter I sent Liz when I came home) We were really excited and we were there for ages. We'd gone up for the very first day - which was a bit annoying as there was a huge cavalcade in the city when we arrived so it made getting from venue to venue harder.

We began (an amazing start to a Fringe, not to be beaten until the wondrous Kevin Eldon) with a play, What's Wrong With Angry which remains one of the best plays I've ever ever seen. I think the main reason we saw it (although that really is hard to remember) was that Stephen Fry recommended it (he must've been quoted in the programme). And it was about being gay. And it was set in a school. Yep, those three things are enough to make us see a play (me and Nat anyway!).  Oh, maybe this poster had something to do with it:

Anyway, the play was wonderful - it was about being gay in school (aged 16) and was set in the days where the age of consent for gay men was 21. Which seems mad now. However, the nineties weren't all bad and this play really captured the dance/pop music of the period ("What is Love" by Haddaway etc) which was evocative of my childhood. And the dancing in the play was really brilliant - I'd never seen dancing like that in a play that wasn't a musical. And I loved the important points it made about being gay, about hiding and about love. It's always good to see a play that changes and enriches your life. It was made into a film (Get Real) but you can't buy the actual play anywhere that I've found.

After that I think we begun one of our Edinburgh traditions when we went to the crepe place for the first time (that isn't in my letter, I just remember that!). It's a van in Bristo Square (where the big purple cow of the Underbelly, the Gilded Balloon and the Pleasance Dome are) where you can get crepes - they're yummy and more importantly quick to make and eat when you have barely any time between shows.

Then we saw Not Stalking David Tennant (aka Having It All) from which we learned the very important lesson: do not be swayed by the name of a sexy and talented actor in the title; the tenth Doctor had barely anything to do with it. We'd hoped it would have been an interesting take on obsession, love, TV (you know, the things that matter) but instead it was weird. Bad weird. It was a one-woman play split into four parts, in each part she played a different female character. The first role she played was a woman in therapy. It was well done and intersting though a bit depressing (but depressing is fine; some of my favourite things could be called depressing though they don't depress me).  In the next bit she was being a chav; it wasn't great. It wasn't funny. It could've been an okay sort of thing though nothing special if not for the third bit: the dreaded physical theatre. It was some super prententious Japenese physical theatre called Butoh. It was really slow and tortured - I absolutely didn't get it. Anyway, the final bit was about David Tennant (at last!); we kept checking watches, eager to make our next show and escape this strange woman. The DT bit wasn't bad. Anyway, you're supposed to see some absolute shit at the Fringe so that was fine!

Then we saw an all female production of The Picture of Dorian Gray which was pretty cool - they did some really interesting things with props, making a picture frame become a table etc. Very inventive. I hadn't read the novel at the time. 

The last thing we did that day (we really didn't do too much in the early days!) was see Andy Zaltman's Political Animal which included Zaltz's trademark "we apologise for the late start to this show; this is due to the unstoppable march of time" and was a really good show (despite being in the boiling Underbelly) featuring:

Andrew Maxwell, an Irish stand up who'd been doing comedy for various soldiers on both sides (Irish and Northern Irish), Kevin Gildea, also Irish, not very political but funny (mustn't have been too hilarious or life-changing as I haven't seen him again) and also that night was how we discovered the amazing James Sherwood who is brilliant - he sings and plays the piano - topical songs and he's really sweet, very funny. I always try to see him. Wonderful special man. And here he is:

Sunday was quite rainy but that was nothing compared to what was to come. Still, it was a great start to an amazing week.

Charlie's Comedians - A - Amos, Stephen K

Aaah! I knew alphabetical order wouldn't quite work out! I forgot about SKA (ooh what good initials) - which is probably mostly because I'm not very bothered about him. But I'm trying to be comprehensive and I did see Mr Amos at a Guardian Podcast (in fact he stood on my foot as he arrived late - the perils of the front row!) and he always seems like a really nice guy. Just not that funny. Or not my sort of thing - he seems to be one of those comedians where their only aim is to be funny - and that's fine but I'm much more interested in deep, meaningful story shows that make me cry.

And here he is:

Charlie's Comedian's - A - Anderson, Wil

I've seen Wil Anderson only once and that was just for a mini spot (twenty minutes at most) in the Stand, Edinburgh (beloved place). I can't find pictures of him looking exactly how he did that night but he honestly looked like a T-Bird (leather jacket, cool Danny Zucko hair, gorgeous). He was funny too. And I will have to see him again when he returns to Britain (he didn't do Edinburgh this year).

I've been searching youtube to try to remember why I liked him so much and the main stuff I've found is very Australian (jokes about politicians, biscuits, TV channels and sports people I'm unfamilar with) but I do remember him being on a Guardian Podcast (in the wonderful days where Miles Jupp hosted them every week day of the Fringe) and talking about how his best friend had died and that was what his show was about. Okay, I've found the podcast so I can have another listen! I know I'm not up to the Js but I do love adore Miles!!

Actually, all of the podcasts are well worth a listen and if you go to the Guardian website there's a picture of us enjoying one live:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/audio/2008/aug/09/edinburgh.comedy.podcast.06

Oh, right, yes, I remember now why I liked him! Also, he seems to have hosted a marriage equality rally. How lovely. He said: “I’m assuming that thanks to my involvement, gay marriage will instantly be made legal and there’ll be no discrimination against homosexuals from that day forth.” Brilliant, sexy and liberal - and here's a picture:

Charlie's Comedians - A - Amstell, Simon

I have always been fairly fond of Simon Amstell - I remember watching PopWorld when I was doing my GCSEs (I specifically remember that as Miquita Oliver was doing her GCSEs too and I couldn't believe that while I was doing nothing but revision, going bowling and watching endless amounts of Daria another sixteen year old girl was meeting popstars!) I ended up leaving that world behind and didn't really think of him much until he took over from Mark Lamarr on Buzzcocks. It wasn't something I watched all the time; I always preferred HIGNFY but whenever I did watch it Simon Amstell was funny and engaging - mean too, but mean to vacuous people I'd barely heard of.

When commenting on Katy Perry's song Ur so gay he said something along the lines of "and if you're offended by that, Jew off and stop being so black about it." And then he left so he could persue stand up. This surprised me. I couldn't imagine him doing stand up. I was so wrong.

His show Do Nothing was amazing - funny, sweet, beautiful. For some reason (I'm an idiot) I hadn't realised he was gay until we saw his live show (duh) - which was about looking for a skinny boy to love. He tortures himself, obsesses over details and is painfully shy; he is truly one of us. He was being obsessed with Jared Leto (in terms of him being Jordan Catalano in My So Called Life rather than his more recent, less interesting successes with 30 Seconds To Mars!) I love MSCL and watched it when I was far too young for teen drama (about eight or nine). So I loved that stuff. I think a lot of the stuff in his show has featured hugely in Grandma's House which I really enjoyed (though his live stuff is better, I think).

I'll definitely see him again someday and in case you don't have a television here's a picture of him. Lush!