General

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.

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.

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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.

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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Today marks one year since I first decided to start a blog about comedy. It’s unbelievable how quickly this first year has flown by and how many brilliant opportunities have come from that one decision last October and though I wouldn’t normally have thought to write a post of this nature, I am doing so because I am honestly quite shocked at how much I have managed to achieve in one year. When I first began writing about comedy on the internet, I could never have predicted that Moody Comedy would become such a big part of my life; one that I am proud of and eager to share with anyone and everyone.

The past twelve months for me have involved seeing some incredible shows from Rob Beckett, Lloyd Griffith, Paul Foot, Tony Law, Joe Lycett, Sara Pascoe, John Robins and Bridget Christie as well as having a few more exciting potential trips planned for the near future. I have continued to collect autographs, most recently from Aisling Bea, Rhys Darby (of Flight of the Conchords), Richard Herring and a letter from the living legend that is Harry Enfield.

The site has evolved from previous basic reviews and short chatty posts to develop an array of regular, and one-off, features including A Week in the Life, Comedian of the Month, Comedy Catch Up, Top 5 Moments, The Mighty Boosh Revisited, Garth Marenghi Revisited, and, most amazingly, my Seven Questions With feature which has allowed me to interview some fascinating people.

One of the main reasons I set up this site was to be able to express to the creators of the comedy I love how much I admire and appreciate their work. This is why I am very active on Twitter and enjoy encouraging comedians, actors and writers to read what I have said about them and their shows. My favourite correspondences include comments from Graham Linehan, Bob Mortimer and Alan Davies as well as a retweet from the one and only Noel Fielding (which sent my stats into meltdown!).

It has been an absolute pleasure maintaining and expanding Moody Comedy and I have been lucky enough to receive advice, encouragement and publicity from the lovely people at The British Comedy Guide and The Velvet Onion, especially Mark (founder and editor of The British Comedy Guide) and Paul Holmes (editor of The Velvet Onion). It has been brilliant to be able to gain insight into the professions of these interesting and successful people whilst learning the ropes myself.

Considering this website is a purely a hobby of mine and that I am still only sixteen, having just completed my GCSEs and now starting my AS Levels, I’m going to do what I rarely allow myself to do: to tell the world that I have worked bloody hard and that I am proud of it.

I also want to encourage anyone reading, regardless of age, to follow where your interests take you. The world is a busy place and it’s easy to get caught up in just keeping yourself running, rather than trying to achieve something new or something that requires more effort. With a little hard graft, your interests can become your hobbies or even your passions, and who wouldn’t want to do a little more of what they enjoy?

Thank you all so very much for supporting Moody Comedy and myself; it has been a joy writing for you and I can’t wait to see where another year may take us.