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Win £250 with BCG Pro and thortful

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British Comedy Guide is running an exclusive competition for its BCG Pro members, in partnership with the card company thortful.

thortful is an online marketplace that sells witty and original greetings cards designed by independent creatives, so this is a fantastic opportunity for any readers who reckon they’re a dab hand at thinking up amusing tag lines.

All you have to do is come up with a great gag that belongs on the front of a birthday card. If your entry is picked as thortful’s winner, you will win £250 cash and the chance to see your slogan published on thortful’s cards (you’ll also receive royalties for all cards sold). The three runners up will win £100 each, as well as also having their cards produced and receiving royalties on all sales.

This competition is open to BCG Pro members only, so now is the perfect time to sign up for an account if you haven’t already. BCG Pro is the go-to hub for true comedy aficionados and industry professionals. It has a huge collection of resources, including tutorials, a directory of courses and the chance to connect with industry creatives and mentors.

If you enter the code ‘MoodyComedy’ when you sign up, you’ll get an extra £5 off membership too.

For a full list of competition terms and conditions, take a look at BCG’s original post.

A Third Birthday for MoodyComedy

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Today is MoodyComedy’s third birthday and that warrants another catch up post to let you all know what has been happening behind the scenes, as well as recapping the advancements made over the past twelve months.

So what has changed? The most dramatic difference between life twelve months ago and life today is that I have completed my A Level courses in Art, English, Philosophy and Psychology and now live in a brand new city, in fact, a brand new country. It has been an incredibly tough year academically and personally, but my plans to study for a degree in Philosophy have led me to Cardiff, and as I settle in and gather my bearings the exciting possibility of discovering a brand new comedy scene is fast becoming a reality.

Broadly speaking, this past year has been a fantastic one for the British sitcom; despite the recent closure of BBC3’s television platform, online comedy pilots have been growing rapidly in their number and quality. In April of this year, Will Sharpe brought his discomforting and sinister sitcom Flowers to BBC2, featuring Julian Barratt and Olivia Colman, and this is without doubt the most impactful comedy I have seen in years. Golaszewski’s Mum also left a lasting impression on audiences and critics alike, as did Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, which is set to return to stage in December. Man Down also returned for a third series, and Friday Night Dinner for a fourth, two examples of sitcoms with impressively high joke economy and originality, with a consistently strong cast to stretch the writing to its full potential.

And on a smaller scale, although the busiest and most stressful year so far academically, 2015-16 has also seen many interesting things happen on MoodyComedy. The Ask The Expert interview feature has developed into quite a fascinating series, allowing the likes of Friday Night Dinner writer Robert Popper, the filmmaker responsible for Noel Fielding’s tour documentary, Joseph Lynn, and writer and producer of Mum Stefan Golaszewski to shed light on their creative processes and influences. There have also been twelve further Comedian of the Month titles awarded to performers and there is now a total of over 80 Seven Questions With interviews in MoodyComedy’s archives.

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Despite not physically being at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, throughout August MoodyComedy arguably provided the next best thing, with over two weeks of interviews with performers at the Fringe from all over the globe, performing a variety of different styles of comedy and from a wide range of backgrounds. This has left me enthusiastic to speak to even more people working within the comedy industry, in order to make MoodyComedy as diverse and distinctive as it can possibly be.

There are many more exciting opportunities for MoodyComedy to expand over the next twelve months, beginning with getting involved with Cardiff University’s Quench Magazine, seeing stand up shows and interviewing comics about their current and future projects. This will hopefully provide another platform to promote MoodyComedy and everything it represents, with the two publications having potential to work alongside each other as my time at university progresses. I am still (somewhat intermittently, unfortunately) writing and reporting for The Velvet Onion, which is another fantastic publication that is ever-growing in popularity.

Things are, as ever, incredibly busy, vibrant and exciting and I can’t wait to establish MoodyComedy in a new city and tackle the challenges associated with this task head on, meeting and working with even more innovative artists and performers along the way.

KEEP TRACK OF WHAT IS HAPPENING BY JOINING THE MAILING LIST AND FOLLOWING MOODYCOMEDY ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM.

Farewell BBC3

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The day that some of us never believed would come has finally arrived; it has sneaked up on us, leaving those who opposed the change, like myself, feeling powerless.

If you weren’t aware that BBC3 was set to move online, let me fill you in. It’s a little over two years ago now that the Director-General of the BBC announced that there were to be £100 million’s worth of cuts. This was followed a month later with the declaration that BBC3 was to leave our television screens to be replaced by an online-only service. The money saved from this format shift would be used to introduce a BBC1+1 service and extend the hours CBBC broadcasts for each evening. And now it has happened. Tuesday 16th February 2016 was the final day of television broadcasting for BBC3.

The Mighty Boosh © BBC

The Mighty Boosh © BBC

Although the move of BBC3 to an online platform is said to be a way of catering to an increasingly young audience, I continue having difficulty believing that. I am a young person and, believe it or not, I know quite a few other young people, and many of us share the same view. It will be harder to access the comedy we love and the comedy we are yet to discover if we have to access it online, regardless of what the media seem to be telling us. Tuesday night’s episode of The One Show may have told you in no uncertain terms that people simply prefer to watch television on their phones, tablets or computers these days, but is this really the case? The ignorant and blatant one-sidedness of this segment made me laugh (perhaps The One Show can replace the comedy I’ll be missing out on from this week onwards).

Is online content really easier to access than television? I have my doubts but I’m also beginning to think that maybe I am secretly afraid of a not-so-distant almost-Orwellian society where our lives are dictated by the internet. Yes, I’m burying my head in the sand. The fact is, it’s already happening. What I am wholly justified in objecting to, however, has got to be fact that the biggest source of comedy was first to go. What a disrespect to this aspect of the entertainment industry, to the countless creatives who dedicate their lives to producing innovative content.

But, complain all we like, the truth is at its most painfully clear today; BBC3’s fate is sealed. It seems that the only thing left to do is ensure that we do not let the channel die, through doing what we can to use the new online service provided by the BBC and spreading the word about new comedy projects as and when they come. I’d like to commend the work of Jono Read and all those who worked on the Save BBC3 campaign. It was a valiant effort to change a decision that was clearly set in stone a long time ago. I am interested to see the coverage of comedy on a new platform as the time has come to embrace the decision and continue to support Britain’s finest creative minds.

WATCH BBC3 ONLINE FROM TODAY

Martin Pilgrim: Why I Quit Comedy

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Martin Pilgrim worked as a stand up comedian for six years before deciding to quit the profession in the summer of 2015. Although Pilgrim retired from his job as a stand up, this does not mean that he didn’t enjoy his fair share of success, with the comic performing his debut solo stand up hour Diary Farmer at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014.
So what is it that made him decide that the role of stand up comedian no longer suited him? To gain insight into the thought processes behind Pilgrim’s career change, I asked him a few questions…

1) What drew you to comedy in the first place?

I was in a lot of bands at school and I started to enjoy being on stage. I was never a very good musician but I always liked writing lyrics. I joined a ska band (the curiously named Damn Good Fondling), which allowed more scope for funny lyrics than the punk bands I’d been in before, where all the songs had to be about how much you hated George Bush even though you lived in rural Dorset. Strangely the drummer in the ska band was Jake Baker who is now a brilliant stand-up comedian in London.

I tried to carry on with music in my first year at university but I found myself suddenly surrounded by loads of amazingly talented musicians and I couldn’t keep up.  During the summer after my first year I started to think about other ways that I could get on stage with the minimum amount of hard work. I’d seen a great student comedian towards the end of that year and I was struck by how everyone wanted to talk to him and buy him drinks after his performance. He didn’t have to be funny off-stage because he’d already proved himself.

Martin Pilgrim

Martin Pilgrim

This seemed like a great system to me. I decided to try and emulate him so I wrote some truly terrible one-liners and I read them straight off my phone at an open mic night. All my friends came and it went surprisingly well, mostly because of the home crowd rather than the quality of the material. After that I started performing regularly around Exeter, where I was at university at the time. The city didn’t really have a comedy scene so I was a bit of a novelty at most of the places I performed. This gave me a false impression of how good I was which wore off pretty quickly when I started to perform outside of the city.

2) What was the catalyst for your decision to quit comedy?

I just stopped enjoying it really. I’ve got a fairly tiring day job and I was less and less willing to travel in the evenings. I realised that I’d begun to feel relieved when a gig got cancelled, which is not a good sign. I also realised that I didn’t have anything particularly new or interesting to say. As much as I enjoy listening to bearded young men moaning about being single, I didn’t feel like I had a fresh enough take on it to warrant my place on a bill, particularly at the expense of someone who might be trying to do something brave or different.

3) Were there any comedians that you felt you couldn’t compete with?

Most of them really. I’m a decent enough writer but I’m not a natural performer. I’ve got friends who are born comedians and I started to realise that I wasn’t talented in the same way as them. I could trick an audience into thinking I was comfortable on stage but I never really was.

4) Which element of your comedy career do you look back on most fondly?

The friends I’ve made along the way. I’ve met interesting artistic people in every corner of the country, and the great thing is I don’t need to be performing to maintain those friendships. I live with three people that I met through comedy and I actually go to more live comedy since I’ve quit. It’s great to enjoy stand-up from a civillian perspective without having to see the performer as a rival. I’m also proud that I managed to do an hour at the Edinburgh Fringe. The show wasn’t a massive success but just sticking it out for the whole month felt like quite an achievement.

5) Do you feel like you got what you wanted from comedy?

Pretty much, yeah. Obviously it would have been nice to progress a bit further than I did, but I got to do something I enjoyed for 6 years and then I was able to walk away when I stopped enjoying it. I’d like to move into comedy writing in the future and hopefully my time as a stand-up has equipped me for that. The idea that I can write something from the comfort of my room and then not have to go through the stress of performing it seems a bit too good to be true!

6) Do you see yourself returning to stand up in the future?

Probably not. A few things have happened to me since I quit which, in the past, I would have automatically turned into stand-up material, but now I’ve got a column in a local magazine and so I’m able to tell these stories that way instead. I’d only get back on stage if something absolutely life-changing happened to me and stand-up was the only way to talk about it. However, since I work in a Post Office and spend most of my free time watching Netflix, I think that’s unlikely at the moment.

MARTIN PILGRIM NOW WRITES A REGULAR COLUMN FOR BRISTOL 24/7

2016: Happy New Year!

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I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and are enjoying the prospect of another new year for yourselves, and for the world of comedy. 2015 has been an incredibly busy year for me, and that doesn’t look set to change any time soon, but it has also been a pleasingly productive one. I even turned 18 just before Christmas so will be able attend more of the events that MoodyComedy gets invited to, which I have often had to turn down in the past!

With things getting on top of me somewhat in the final few months of 2015, the quantity of posts on MoodyComedy had to be decreased. I will be continuing this certainly throughout the beginning of 2016 and most likely all the way through to next Summer due to the heavy workload involved in taking four subjects at A2 Level. However, one of my reasons for reducing the number of posts is so that I may maintain the level of quality to my writing whilst acknowledging my own busy lifestyle and various personal and academic commitments.

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But I definitely don’t want you to think that while MoodyComedy has been quiet, things haven’t been going on behind the scenes! The start of a new year sees MoodyComedy get a facelift, courtesy of the very talented Lucy Fletcher from Gabs Graphic Design. Lucy and I have worked to ensure that the new logo represents what the MoodyComedy brand is truly about, encompassing uncluttered, simple values with an artistic, homegrown touch, and I am immensely pleased with the outcome.

I’m very interested to hear what you all think of the new layout and encourage anyone needing help with the design-side of website maintenance to bear Lucy’s business in mind. I must also wish you all a very Happy New Year; here’s to another hectic twelve months of combining my two loves: comedy and crushing deadline pressure!

Comedy Circle #2 Why Do I Keep Laughing At Terrible Things?

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We live in a world where vile things have coexisted with, and been caused by, us for as long as humans have lived. Maybe horrific events are as frequent and as constant as they ever have been, but our exposure to them is arguably greater than ever before due to our heightened internet and media accessibility. It’s getting hard to avoid hearing about and seeing bloodshed on all corners of the globe, and rightly so. The suffering of others shouldn’t be something we are allowed to ignore. But with our ever-increasing knowledge of what really goes on in the world outside of our homes comes an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, fear and frustration at the inevitability of more depravity to come. So how is it that we deal with such feelings? For many people, myself included, the first place to turn is comedy.

The horrifying terror attacks in Paris just over a month ago shocked and sobered the majority of us. Nobody worth the time of day is finding humour in the death of innocent citizens. However, it is often suggested that the most effective way of conquering the threat of terrorism lies not in force or violence, but in laughter of a strange kind; in ridicule. There is no element of this tragedy that is to be found funny but it has, yet again, got me thinking about how our opinions are shaped by what we view on television and how exactly we are expected to process this onslaught of information.

It can be claimed that the truth lies in the ridiculousness of it all. To laugh at something does, after all, disarm the thing that we are laughing at, rendering it inconsequential. Every waking moment revolves around the concept of death, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. Everything in life essentially boils down to death but it seems, for the most fortunate of us, to be something we hear more about in the media than ever personally experience. Being eighteen, I have had limited encounters with the ill and the dying and that has left these concepts to be very abstract and distant in my daily life. My dog died unexpectedly at the beginning of November. I didn’t see her dead or even nearly dead and it felt strange to have her be there and then suddenly not be there anymore. Every time I talk about the fact my dog is dead, I laugh. My instinct now is to back this up by insisting that there is nothing funny about the fact my dog is dead, but if that was the case, surely I wouldn’t be laughing?

Laughter is perhaps our most relied-upon social tool, used to ensure a connection with others through the assurance that our communication is effective and our conversation understood. Laughing is also a means of deflecting stress and processing grief. It works as a defence mechanism when we feel uncomfortable or appears as a symptom of shock or fear. We also laugh when we feel connected within a community due to holding a common belief; it seems that we find humour in the good and the bad. I may, perhaps, view this topic from a biased perspective: I am, after all, a British citizen and we are particularly known for our droll humour. So is that why I haven’t been able to cry; because I am British?

Regardless of why we do it, it’s okay to laugh at things by way of processing information. Yes, it is often seen as socially inappropriate, but to laugh does not mean to laugh at something or someone. Perhaps it is the healthiest means we have by which to understand and digest the never-ending stream of atrocities we hear about in the news and maybe, as a result, it can become our lifeline. I won’t be seeing my dog again but I will continue to laugh at the fact she was an absolute moron.

MoodyComedy Is Two

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Today, October 11th, marks exactly two years since MoodyComedy came into existence. And in the beginning, I guess a year makes a lot of difference. It’s strange that I can’t actually remember the exact moment I decided to set up a website, or even what sparked the decision, but it has since become one of the most pivotal decisions of my life so far and it makes me proud to see how far the site has progressed since the last post I wrote of this nature.

As I’m sure some of you will remember, only a couple of weeks after my last birthday post, I was offered the chance to interview my comedy idol Noel Fielding for the British Comedy Guide. As well as teaching me the valuable skills involved in professional interview-conducting, this experience has enabled me to meet my favourite comedian and talk to him about my work. Noel Fielding knows about MoodyComedy and that is quite an achievement, in my eyes. This time last year I had also just launched my Seven Questions With feature, posting interviews with Lost Voice Guy and Angela Barnes. This month I hit the milestone of having interviewed 50 comedians, including the likes of Harry Enfield, Josie Long, Katy Brand and Harry Hill. This has lead to another interview series in recent weeks, where professionals working behind the scenes in the world of comedy are interviewed for Ask The Expert.

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In January of this year I began writing for The Velvet Onion, which has already proven itself to be a very educational experience as I have been able to approach new subject matter as well as work with different writing styles. It has been eye-opening to see how much of the limited free time these people have is spent on producing such top quality material, enabling The Velvet Onion to reach a following of over 12,000 people. These reporters have a real passion for the artists they write about, and their positivity and ambition is infectious. I’d like to thank the team at The Velvet Onion, Paul, Mog and Helen, for all of their encouragement over the past ten months, as well as Mark and Aaron at BCG and all of the people who have enabled the Seven Questions With feature to become what it is today.

And of course, I have to thank you, readers of the site, for the retweets, shares and kind words. This is a hobby and though it is very time-consuming with looming deadlines and daunting challenges, I still absolutely adore writing for you, and hearing your feedback validates all the hours I have spent labouring over my writing. Without the support of creative people like you, MoodyComedy would hold far less value than it does. This next year will see a lot of changes for me, and for MoodyComedy too. In just under a year I will be heading off to university, meaning that I will be living in a brand new city, and I am very excited to absorb a new comedy scene as well as meeting more like-minded people. I hope I end up studying in a city as vibrant as Birmingham, which I have been lucky enough to grow up in. So here’s to another year of hard work, good friends and lots of laughs. I hope you will join me.

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Comedy Circle #1 Who Watches Satire?

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It has been virtually impossible to miss the recent, yet of course not fully reported, news story regarding Lord Ashcroft’s account of David Cameron’s Bullingdon Club days and the antics he and his chums got up to. Waking up to the storm of excited social media was made all the more interesting given the fact this doesn’t seem to be a hoax, but I guess we can never know for sure. I doubt the Prime Minister will ever admit to it, if it does happen to be true. Since the news broke on September 20th Charlie Brooker has been inundated with comments that reference the parallels of Cameron’s pig plight with National Anthem, the first episode of Black Mirror, which aired in 2011 and it got me thinking about the role that satire plays in our society.

Satirical comedy is a genre that seems deeply ingrained in the British psyche. At its best it can be revolutionary, but at its worst attempts become lazy, stereotypical and therefore ineffective. Yet regardless of whether it hits the mark or not, it seems that we can’t express ourselves thoroughly without it. Satire is now an underpinning part of our media consumption, with the implications and effects of this being incredibly promising in terms of freedom of speech. It has been proven that comedy, and practically any form of communal laughter, is an immediate way of uniting a group of people in a positive, reinforcing manner. It may even be so that with some of the most popular and accessible satirical humour that is broadcast on television in the UK, this sense of togetherness is multiplied due to the age-old addition of human pride that comes about when discussing things that make us feel clever.

Intelligence is anyone’s game now. Education is now accessible to far more people than ever before, and increasingly so, meaning that satirical comedy is no longer an exclusive thing. It makes people like me, a seventeen year old female with a Midlands accent and very little in the way of a plan for the future, feel as though my opinion is valued and important. Regardless of whether I agree with the satirist or not, the crucial point of it is that the individual is permitted to broadcast an opinion. Though at times this branch of British comedy can feel very smug and male-dominated, it is encouraging to see it being opened up to more people as time progresses.

So if more of us are watching, absorbing and reflecting the satirical sense of humour, are those that are being criticised watching it too? Of course there are countless targets of countless jokes from all different backgrounds, and for all kinds of different reasons. Nobody is safe from mockery, or at least they shouldn’t be. I can state with relative certainty that each person reading this has been a part of a collective that has been criticised by a comedian on television or radio, whether that be the teenage generation, the middle classes, the working classes, the One Direction fans. You name it, it’s probably been ridiculed. But do we take note of the message behind the comments, when it is our own values that are being attacked, or is it in our nature to defend our position in order to deflect any criticism?

Is comedy still relevant if the people you are satirising are unaware of the irony? Does it matter if David Cameron never watched Black Mirror?

JOIN THE COMEDY CIRCLE: LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW OR FOLLOW MOODYCOMEDY ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM

The Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards

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sam_simmons_fosters_win_2015

Sam Simmons

So the Edinburgh Festival draws to a close for another year. The final weekend saw a whole array of awards being presented and futures being temporarily flipped on their heads. The Edinburgh Comedy Awards are perhaps the most prolific of the entire arts festival and the effects of winning either the overall award for best show or the prize for best newcomer results in a great deal of publicity and ticket sales for the next year and beyond. Nominations for both titles this year, which were announced on Wednesday (26th August) with winner announced yesterday, were as strong as ever.

Those shortlisted for the award for Best Comedy Show were James Acaster, Joseph Morpurgo, Kieran Hodgson, Nish Kumar, Sam Simmons, Sarah Kendall, Seymour Mace and Trygve Wakenshaw. A diverse list, to say the least, with two of the comics above coming from Australia and another one being a mime act from New Zealand. Sam Simmons (who was MoodyComedy’s Comedian Of The Month this March) took the award along with the £10,000 prize, which was presented by last year’s winner John Kearns, for his bustling, surreal show Spaghetti For Breakfast. This was the third time the comic had been nominated for Best Show, much like James Acaster who’s show Represent saw him nominated for the fourth time, showing the high calibre of nominees.

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Sofie Hagen

The award for Best Newcomer is one that has proven itself time and time again to completely catapult the careers of the world’s brightest new talent. ‘New’ that is, at least, in terms of being newly recognised. A quick glance at the list of previous winners will demonstrate to any cynic that this award is not to be overlooked. Winners over the 35 years that the award has been running have included Sarah Millican, Harry Hill, Tim Minchin, The Mighty Boosh and Josie Long. This year saw Danish stand up Sofie Hagen claim the crown for Best Newcomer with her debut show Bubblewrap. Sofie’s show has been delighting audiences with her refreshing take on growing up into a proper adult and issues such as body image and the stigma around mental health. You can catch my interview with Sofie Hagen here.

And finally, the winner of the Panel Prize was Karen Koren who has worked as the founder and artistic director of the Gilded Balloon for the past 30 years. The Guilded Balloon also saw the launch of the So You Think You’re Funny? competition which has been running for 28 years.

A full list of past nominees and winners is available on the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards website.

Sell This Gig Out, An Edinburgh Initiative

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It’s common knowledge that being a stand up comedian is hard work. The travelling is arduous and lonely; there is often a loss to be made once all the costs are detracted from any money gained from ticket sales. The Edinburgh Festival is probably the most strenuous time of year for a working comic. Performers from across the globe travel up to Scotland for a month of entertaining, spectating and living out of suitcases.

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Michael Legge: ‘Tell It Like It Is, Steve’

Having worked on their new shows for the past however many months and performing them nearly every single day of the festival, there are plenty of comedians who live with a constant anxiety that nobody will even turn up to see them. Comedy is a volatile art form, and while this is what makes it so exciting, it is also what makes it a risky thing to dedicate your life, love and money to, as a performer. Comedy is a labour of love and those who pour the most into their art are sure to be the ones who can bask in the most future success or personal triumph. But, as you can see, it must take its toll, and a helping hand from a friend is sometimes the perfect way to lift the spirits, or, in this case, the ticket sales. This is where Michael Legge and his army of comedy folk come in.

Sell This Gig Out is Michael Legge’s initiative, which he has been utilising in recent years to allow groups of comics and comedy fans to promote shows through various social networking platforms. The idea is simple enough: Legge has summoned together a network of people who are willing to help each other, and, of course, who would be grateful for any help they may too receive. The group have been focussing on one comedian’s show per day so far but are also constantly recommending other shows to attend as well as attending them themselves, beginning as they mean to go on, by completely selling out Angela Barnes’ first show of the run.

Here we have a prime example of the wonderful camaraderie shown by so many of our most loved stand up comedians, and I, for one, find it incredibly uplifting.

If you want to recommend a show or have a show recommended to you, feel free to join the Facebook group and get to work using the hashtag #LetsSellThisGigOut.