COMING UP
Festivals now confirmed, for various shows: Brighton Fringe, The Rik Mayall Comedy Festival, Chesham Fringe, Cambridge Fringe, Langton Green Fringe, Bedford Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, Cheltenham Fringe. More on the way!
LEICESTER COMEDY FESTIVAL: 5TH FEBRUARY 2026
February feels very early in the year to start my fringe adventures, and I was booked to perform in the opening week of the festival, too, which added to my sense of urgency. My promoter for this, the wonderful Ben at Foxy Comedy, booked me in early October last year, and shortly after there was the programme deadline. In October though, February next year feels like a long way off and it really does spring up on you, especially with Christmas dominating a chunk of that time. I'd spent a lot of Christmas writing a play for two cracking actors, Alex and Nicole, which will first be heading to the Brighton Fringe in May (our initial read through in January went well - I just wanted to get this one in the bag before Alex starred in a Chekhov play which opens soon) and I'd also assembled my team to start recording a radio sitcom (the recording of which is a longer process than I imagined but, you know, I'm working with professionals - the first session was last week), and started working on a show with my dear friend Helen which is also heading to Brighton.
With all that and, you know, earning a living teaching and playing music, the two shows I took to Leicester weren't as developed as I liked, but I think the Leicester Comedy Festival is really good for this sort of thing - ticket prices seem to be quite low, and you get a lot performers performing work-in-progress shows. Audiences have always been warm and respond well, there's a reason why I keep coming back... this is my fourth year in a row performing at this festival, and fourth year at the same venue; Wygston's House. I was nominated for 'best musical comedy' at the festival in 2023. It's a room above a pub, not sure of the capacity but it feels like a 50, which is great because it still feels busy with 10 in there. The staff are friendly and I've always felt welcome.
I took two brand new shows there; a very dark comedic play, Death by Congas, which was on at 5.30pm, and then a loose energetic thing, Restless Monkey Chops, which was on at 7pm. I was really worried about Death by Congas, mostly because it's a comedy festival and this one has long storytelling spells without any, well, comedy. Also, I'm wearing a mask the whole time, playing a 71-year-old man, and it features way too much jazz. Logistically tricky, lugging heavy percussion to the venue, and with one rolling audio track which, if it fails, means I have no show. It starts with my character 'dead' on the floor as 'My Favourite Monster' by Cliffords plays (check them out, lovely band), as the audience enter, before jumping into life when a (home recorded) percussion part kicks in which is my signal to jump up and start the show. That was the plan, anyway. In reality, the audience walked in, looked intrigued, and then somebody in the front row knocked his pint over, soaking my legs, so we had to delay the start. It momentarily lost the dramatic intro I had planned, but the attendees seemed to warm me because of it. This show, unlike some of the other stuff I have coming up this year, was a huge experiment but those who were there really bought into it, laughed at the right times, and - as my character dies at the end (not really a spoiler alert, it's kind of implied at the start) and those words, "the coroners verdict: death by congas" played on the backing track, it felt like everyone had been rewarded for the journey.
Which is not what could be said for Restless Monkey Chops. A really simple, freeform concept, in which I attempt to do everything I didn't achieve last year in real life, onstage. Things such as record a percussion album, speak Polish, get fit, learn a magic trick...a lot happened in this show, but also it never quite felt like it landed, mostly because I achieved everything I want to within the first 18 minutes of a 60-minute set, so I had to pad it out with stand-up stuff and way too much audience interaction, neither of which is 'me' these days, before getting back to the point of the show to tie it all in. It's a lovely concept, and as soon as I got home it clicked - I know exactly what didn't work, I'm really, really confident about this one now (which is cool because it's already booked for Edinburgh and other festivals), but it just took an awfully shaky first performance for me to work this out. The small audience, however, stuck with it throughout, and I'm very grateful. Of those six, four of them had seen me last year and came back, and two of them also watched Death by Congas earlier that evening. In the break, those two chaps very kindly presented me with a card game they'd made called 'Leicester Comedy Rivals' and I'm featured in it, with my own laminated cards and everything, as a 'hero'. I signed their copy and gleefully took my one home; it was a flattering, lovely, early fringe moment for the year.
The figures:
Death by Congas: 10 audience members (including one industry comp)
Restless Monkey Chops: 6 (one industry comp on the ticket list but never attended)
Venue hire (combined for both shows): £60
Programme entry (combined for both shows): £144
Fuel from Cambridge (aided by my swanky new hybrid car): £20
Door money in: £88
Total: £136 loss