http://www.paulkerensa.com/blog The blog of comedian Paul Kerensa Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:35:24 +0000 Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:35:24 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost53 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost53
- My doing the Free Fringe for the first time. Worked out marvellously, with full houses, breaking even, fun shows, lovely venue, and generally far more enjoyable a run of shows than my last fringe. Then, while I did enjoy my show, I found being delighted at 30-40 people in a 120-seat venue still meant that the audience were rattling around in it. Much better to lure 100 people in with the promise of zero ticket price, then put a hat round, and sure enough, people gave. The added consequence is that because they pay after the show, my earnings were directly proportionate to the quality of that particular show. If I had an off night, I got less. So I upped my game, and the next night worked my arse of on stage and earned more than at most gigs. It's like street theatre but without a street. So theatre.

- One person rummaged in their pockets for change but unfortunately drew out their house keys. Even more unfortunately, I didn't notice till I counted my takings later that night. I still have their keys, and presume that means I now own a house in Edinburgh – I just don't know which one. A generous donation.

- I met a second cousin for the first time, who also happened to be doing a show at the fringe. And I met my second cousin's second cousin (no blood relation of mine), who was teching at the Pleasance. Small world, but then I am Cornish. It certainly didn't help prove, as I was hoping to in the show, that Cornish inbreeding is a myth.

- One nightmare of a gig was at the bar next to my flat. I saw they had a comedy fundraiser gig, so I offered my services along with the other names I saw listed. I turned up on the relevant afternoon, waiting for 2 hours as various comedians gigged then stayed to drink, and eventually went on stage to find an all-male audience crammed into this pub. I began with a routine about my forthcoming child, asking if anyone there had kids. No one, apparently. “What are you all, barren?” I asked. No. It turned out it was a gay bar. My gaydar is pretty bad, but my gaybardar is even worse, it appears. Apparently the rainbow flags should have been a clue, plus the all-male audience, plus the fact that the comedians drinking there happened to be either gay or female, plus the charity being fundraised for was Waverley Care (an HIV charity), plus the fact the two preceding acts to me were The Scottish Gay Men's Chorus and a poet whose work was all homoerotic. His act ended with a full striptease. There were clues, you might say. But I am so clear of bias that I don't see these things that others might. Plus anyone there might have had kids – they could adopt. Still, that gig did not go well.

- I did see some shows, but not many. Highlights included:
...improv musical Baby Wants Candy
...comedian David O'Doherty
...Exeter University's play Bluebird
...sketch troupe The Real MacGuffins
...Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Zoë Gardner's riotous An Hour of Telly
...Lizzy Mace's lovely docu-comedy Crush
...Andrew Collins' solo show debut
...the inimitable, the indefatigable, the indivisible Andy Zaltzman

All in all a successful Fringe. I now hope to do a mini-tour of my show (or even a minotaur), and roll on next year, or more likely, the year after, pending parental duties next August.

In the mean time, for my own posterity, here are some links to articles written about the show, or more likely, by me, this Fringe:

http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2010/08/09/11522/fringe_baby
http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=207&story=E8831281535334
http://www.whatsonstage.com/features/theatre/edinburgh/E8831281351709/Guest+Blog
http://www.edinburgh-festivals.com/viewblog.aspx?id=39
http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/comment/ken-smiths-diary/not-such-a-class-act-the-diary-18-august-2010-1.1048947
http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/article/28549-borderline-racist/
http://newstaging.spectator.widearea.co.uk/the-magazine/arts/6215233/part_3/playing-it-straight.thtml
]]> Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:51:08 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost52 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost52
So can you help proffer any information on the following...?

Silly neighbourly stereotypes & prejudices from country to country. That's it, simply put. Especially what any African, South American or Asian country thinks of their neighbours. I've done Europe, North America and Australasia (although opinions on these welcome too if you know any). But anyone with insider knowledge of what Sudanese think of Egyptians or Peruvians think of Bolivians, or anywhere else, please email me - paul at paulkerensa.com.

I'm hearing lots of 'x hates y', normally due to a war many years ago that few of us have actually heard of, but the good uns are the little stereotypes that we wouldn't normally know about, eg:

- Austrians think Hungarians are scary drivers in small cars
- Latvians swear by speaking Russian
- The Swiss think Italian men scream for their mothers while having sex
- Swedes say Finns are knife-wielding introverts who sit in saunas all day. Swedes also insist this isn't a stereotype - this is actually true.

Any other contributions? There are a lot of countries on the planet, and I'm finding it very hard to find out what any African nation thinks of their neighbours. No one wants to tell me. Also South America and Asia are proving tricky.

Do tell any unusual prejudices you've picked up on your world travels. paul at paulkerensa.com. Ta much.

And remember: it's not being racist, it's being xenophobic, and in any case, we're all equally rubbish, just in different ways...]]> Fri, 23 Apr 2010 04:39:18 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost51 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost51
So it was nice to come back to it with the original actors, many of whom I had in mind when writing the characters. I say 'characters' - more caricatures, some of them, as parts include Dribbles the manservant, Professor Von Spleen, and one character just called Dodgy Bloke. Shakespeare it ain't, but fun it is, and it was tonight.

We've had 5 rehearsals, and the first rehearsal with the complete cast was the dress rehearsal. I'm on stage 4 nights a week doing stand-up, but it's not quite the same as donning a costume, learning some lines, and interacting with others onstage. Much as the temptation was to go totally off-script and improvise around some laughs, you do have to consider other actors, so I think I reined myself in there.

Anyway, one night only, one big laugh. We may put it on again in a year or so at the Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford - if once again we just can't keep away from this blast from the past. It was odd - putting it on in the new auditorium that used to be the gym, where I last set foot to do my A levels. The night before plays, many actors have anxiety dreams about remembering lines or cues - I had a dream instead all about turning up for the right exam.

So tomorrow night, back to normality. ie. A stage, as Paul Kerensa not Paul Young, with no costume, no learned lines, just me and no one else. Much more comfortable.]]> Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:38:52 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost50 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost50
I know these times suit businessmen, but I'm not a businessman. I didn't get to sleep till 3am thanks to gig-time then writing-time then a teeny bit of watching-Lost-time. A 7am breakfast is not convenient for me. Given that I'm the only guest, why not treat yourself, dear landlady, and let's all have a lie-in.

Hotels suit me better. Far less pressure. Over time as we age, our goalposts are narrowed ever so slightly year on year as to what accommodation we'll put up with and put up cash for. When I began stand-up, I'd stay on friends' floors. This stopped when one friend put me on the kitchen floor, with my head staring underneath the fridge. I was woken that morning not by a landlady coughing, but by his flatmate reaching over me to bread from the freezer. If the cold blast of air didn't wake me, the freezer door crashing into my skull did.

So then I'd still stay on sofas. Until you realise that one man's sofa is another man's armchair, and you end up with curvature of the spine by morning, plus being forced to watch whatever the last person in the house wants to watch on TV before they go to bed, and whatever the first person in the house wants to watch in the morning. In busy houses, this could only be separated by a few short minutes.

Then there are spare rooms. I still do this, but am choosy. Many promoters offer spare rooms, but not all are worth the gamble. One promoter offered me a spare room, and I took it, not knowing he was a student, and that the spare room would be whichever room wasn't occupied by his rutting housemates (“There's always at least one room free if they stay at their girlfriends...”). So that night I had the choice between two rooms – both rank – one with a Student Health Service Guide To Chlamydia by the bed, the other with a Student Health Service Guide To Herpes. It's rare in life you get a choice like that. So I read both booklets, and chose the one least likely to catch from a duvet. I chose chlamydia.

This B&B's ok. In trying to save money by going for a B&B, I've probably cost myself more as I'll have to get another hotel tonight rather than push on home, thanks to the very few hours of sleep. But at least on laterooms.com, when comparing B&B facilities, I didn't click on this one with the thought: yes, I'll choose chlamydia.]]> Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:07:51 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost49 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost49
No. The world's googlers do not ask such elementary questions. Their curiosities are piqued by more pressing questions. You can find what pressing questions these are by going to the www.google.co.uk and starting to type 'Why...' or 'Why does...' or 'What...'. See the suggested google searches that others have done. It's worrying.

Here are some of the (apparently) most frequently asked questions by the world's googlers (if you don't believe me, start typing the questions in and watch them fill themselves in before your eyes)...

Why does my dog eat poop?
Where is Chuck Norris?
Who is The Stig? (I think The Stig is Chuck Norris)
Why do I fart so much?
Why does my bellybutton smell? (Because you fart so much.)
Why are men attracted to breasts?
Why are my hands always cold? (A line often used in conjunction with the previous question.)
Why are black people so ugly? (I know. It scares me that the world is asking this questions.)
Why are people racist? (My thoughts exactly.)
Why am I always tired?
Why are Journey back in the charts?
What are piles?
What are Santa's reindeer called?
What are the names of Santa's reindeer in order? (I like this. Clearly the previous question provided the right answer but not in the right order, dammit)
Who are the Kardashian family and why are they famous? (Cos you keep searching for it.)
Where does Cheryl Cole live?
Why aren't I losing weight? (Because you write 'why aren't I' not 'why am I not'. When you pay attention to words you will start to understand what 'calorie count' means.)
How do I delete google history? (Someone's been looking at porn.)]]> Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:29:45 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost48 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost48
So now there's Everybody Hurts for Helping Haiti - a some-star, some-I've-never-heard-of cover verstion. All fundraising is of course admirable, but that doesn't mean that the product is immune from all criticism. So let's look at it.

21 performers. 7 of them involved in some way with The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent (1 judge, 3 winners, 3 runners-up). So that's a third of the singers from Simon Cowell's shows. I'm surprised they didn't find a way to get Louis Walsh singing one of the lines.

It's a good song, although not the beltiest of choices. None of the artists excels in the way that Sonia did with her "Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!" Classic.

Instead we get the likes of JLS (who are apparently a popular beat combo of the day) rubbing shoulders with I-think-it's-a-man Mika and two of everyone's top 4 (or 5?) members of Westlife, Shane Filan and Mark Feehily. Susan Boyle of course gets a good couple of lines, and looking at the video - and I don't know if anyone's noticed this - have you noticed that she's not exactly a looker? This has not been well documented, I know. I get the impression that SuBo is a bit like the Queen - she milled around the studio, didn't recognise or know any of the other famous people, had never heard of the REM song she was singing, then went home to her vast array of pets.

So you've got to feel for Steve Brookstein. And Shayne Ward and Leon Jackson - all X Factor winners but while Leona, Alexandra and Joe have all gone on to international promotion (if not acclaim), the only stars that Steve, Shayne and Leon are likely to see are on their name-badge if they succeed in 6 months good customer service in McDonalds.

Granted, Leona Lewis has a voice on her. Her cover versions of Run and Stop Crying Your Heart Out are excellent, but it makes you think that her big secret is to just give a soul performance of an indie classic. Can't wait for her gutsy versions of Country House and Sorted For Es & Whizz.

As for the others, Michael Buble stands out for his distinctive voice, and for the fact that while everyone else in the studio was all pop, Mr Buble (one half of the former kids party clown double act, Buble & Squeak) stood all alone in the jazz corner, wishing as he always does that he had a career in the 40s and not now. Not that he wishes he could have sung with the Rat Pack, it's more that he hates the emancipation of women and ethnic minorities. Can't stand 'em.

And James Morrison. He's a lucky boy to be included. Cowell must have had a toss-up between him and calling Steve Brookstein, but Brooky was probably backed up on Happy Meals when Cowell phoned up, so Morrison got the job.

I'm being harsh, but largely because of what I heard James Morrison say when he heard from Cowell. He said that when he saw the devastation of Haiti, he didn't know how to respond. Should he donate money? (Yes...) Or should he do a fundraising gig for Haiti? (Again, that would have been a good idea...) But then the call from Cowell came, and he thought, yes, that's the one for me. (But you could still give money AND put on a fundraising gig too as well as the option that costs you the least time, money and effort, and in fact will serve to boost your career...) James Morrison - what a James Blunt.

That said, it's not a bad song they've produced, and it's a good cause. I just hope Steve Brookstein's thinking the same thing.]]> Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:14:30 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost47 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost47
Gigging up country, including two nice gigs on the way up in neighbouring East Midlands settlements Okeham and Stamford. Okeham was a museum gig. A stage, set up among vintage cars and tractors. Odd but nice. Stamford was the 2nd gig that night, and a lovely - just lovely - downstairs comedy room, with low ceilings and great audience members and nice banter and good people and even fine cuisine including Sloppy Joes and Po' Boy sandwiches, which reminded me of our Louisiana and Texas stop-offs in America last year. Yum.

The next day would hold, in theory, two gigs in the Northwest. I opened in Preston, then while hotfooting it to Manchester for Friday gig no.2, my car conked out on the M60. Properly conked, as in wouldn't even make the hazard lights work, which is even more of a hazard, especially on a motorway with traffic accelerating towards you. I managed to get onto the sliproad, but no further. I called the RAC. A minute later, an AA van appeared. Hurray! I thought. But no, he merely yelled through his open window, "Have you called someone?" "The RAC," I responded. "Good luck," he yelled, and drove off. Bstrd (add the AAs to that).

Then an incident support truck arrived (who are not the police), and advised that if the police catch me here, even though the car's broken down, they can charge me £300 just for being broken down on the motorway. With that, the police arrived. I put on my biggest charm offensive, and sure enough wheedled my way out of any £300ness. My car started, the police said "Follow us off the motorway", and my car spluttered a metre before conking out again, as the police accelerated off into the distance.

RAC man arrived, spotted the fault and said it was unfixable tonight, so I'll tow you to where you're staying tonight. I didn't know where I was staying, so spouted various places I thought it might be - Sale, Hyde, Trafford, Rusholme... hoping they'd all be near each other. The RAC man laughed in my face in a "You're not from round here" kind of way.

I don't have good history impressing RAC chaps. The last time I needed one (for running out of petrol on the M1 - they don't take kindly to a basic fault like 'The tick-tock petrol bit pointed at the E not the F, and then it stopped'), he scoffed at me, "Are you ok to rejoin?" "Yes," I replied, "I am very happy with your service, and shall definitely rejoin at the end of the year." "No, you moron," his eyes said, "Rejoining the motorway from the hard shoulder." "Oh. Yes. Thanks. Bye."

So anyway. The next day, up in Manchester, a 2nd RAC man came to fix the problem - drivebelt came loose. £75. Fine. Fixed. That evening, on the way to Preston for my last gig before driving 4 hours home, the car conked out again. Balls. Phoned RAC man yet again, at 6pm, and he showed up at 10pm, to say, a) It's buggered, and will cost £1000 to fix, and b) you need to be towed home, but your RAC membership is invalid because you didn't update your address, so the tow home will cost £500. Tow truck will be here at midnight.

Thus began a night being towed home from Preston to Guildford, including a stop in Birmingham as tow truck man no.1 decided he had to go home (yeah, so did I, keep driving), so after 2 two-trucks, 3 RAC men, £1575 cost, 2 cancelled gigs, and a 7 hour drive home, I arrived back at 7am Sunday morning, much poorer than when I left. And to be honest thinking that those vintage tractors in Okeham Museum on Thursday night, probably would have been a safer bet than me knackered Kerensamobile.]]> Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:16:09 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost46 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost46
Then in HMV this week, in their sale section I found two porn films: 'Giant Breasts 3' (bucking the trend of many recent trilogies by making the 3rd film in 3d) and 'Student Girls Gone Wild' (I'm not sure just how feral they get, although the picture on the back does involve a harness, so I'm presuming they go rabid or something). These weren't just light adult naughtiness - I could tolerate Doctor In Trouble or Wild Things 2 in the sale section - but these were proper, pornographic nakedity on front and back covers, without I presume plot, characterisation, subtext or even that many deleted scenes or an audio commentary (let alone an alternate ending).

I then dubbed myself an activist for moral decency, and took it on myself to remove these offending items from being sat pride of place in the sale section. Yes they were in the sale, but I don't think that means they should be sat, cover facing outwards, opposite the chart CDs for all sorts of kids and nuns to see. So I picked them up to carry them to the adult section of the store.

I couldn't find it straight away, and then got distracted by the complete boxset of The West Wing (Jed Bartlett would have approved of what I was doing), so suddenly realised I'd been walking around clutching two porn films in a shop frequented by a lot of my friends and neighbours, and both DVDs couldn't be turned around to hide the crotch-out front-and-back cover photos. I briefly tried to conceal the images from passing children by hiding the DVDs in my jacket till I could find their rightful home, but then quickly stopped that when I realised the difficulty of convincing a security guard as to my moral stance. "No officer, not stealing - just protecting the youth."

I couldn't find the Adult section in the end - I don't think they had one, which is probably why they ended up out by the front doors in the sale section. I thought of just dropping them off at the nearest section, but that was Children's Animation, so thought that just makes thing worse. In the end I buried them in Horror. That's not an indication that I think the female naked form is something to be terrified of (I hope), but just because if you're of an age and mindset to be looking through horror DVDs, I think you can take the image shots of Giant Breasts 3 and Student Girls Gone Wild. Or if you're a curious 11 year-old, you'll have think you just struck gold. Even though they should be at home watching Pinocchio.]]> Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:18:15 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost45 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost45
What's the most frequently repeated TV programme ever? That Last of the Summer Wine ep when they slide down the hill in a bath? (Little-known fact - they slide down the bath in most episodes, so no, they are different ones.)

No, it's 'Dinner For One', aka The 90th Birthday, aka Der 90. Geburtstag. It's apparently massively popular in mainland Europe, and is shown every New Year's Eve as a locked-down tradition. On Dec 31st, 2003, it was broadcast 19 times on various channels.

Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the title, so I ordered on my online DVD rental list a film called Le Diner de Cons, which is a French comedy. It's not bad, and is certainly the funniest French comedy I've seen (ie. funnier than Amelie and La Haine), but is not the one I was after. Still, I found a good way to watch subtitled films if you just want to get through them really quickly is to watch them on fast-forward. I got through the entire film in 20 minutes, thanks to a good bit of speed-reading.

Dinner For One is viewable on the internet, I've now found, and is a black-and-white sketch from 1963, although originally performed in the 1920s. It stars English comedian Freddie Frinton and is massively popular in Germany, as well as Australia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, South Africa... basically everywhere but the UK. If you haven't seen it, imagine Mr Bean as a butler, and you're not far off. Have a look on youtube if you want to see what the fuss is all about.

But then, we have our own bonkers tradition. I had to explain earlier today what a panto is, to an American friend. And when you write out exactly what one is, it makes you wonder why it ever caught on. Somehow a panto isn't a panto without a cow played by two people, or an ageing celebrity in drag delivering sexual innuendos to an audience of children, or a bucket being thrown at the audience as if it's got water in it when actually it's tinsel. Yet caught on it has.

A factette you can take away with you: Panto has caught on around the world, in Australia, Canada, and others - not as much as in the UK, but with ex-pat pockets making it happen every year. My favourite? The Phnom Penh Players of Cambodia, who always bill a celebrity guest star who fails to appear. 2009's 'Snow White and the Jackson 5' advertises Jude Law as appearing - every night so far 'he's cancelled' and the understudy steps in. Jude, if you're reading this, go on, show up, just for one show...]]> Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:50:01 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost43 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost43
This one's named Robbie. We have a tradition of naming goldfish after the first name we hear on the radio as we drive away from the pet shop/Christmas Tree outlet. And this time we were foolishly tuned into Magic, so it was only ever going to be Robbie, Ronan or, this time of year, Mariah. I'm thinking this is a tradition we should keep for naming everything from goldfish to dogs to children. I love the idea of explaining one day to a 10-year-old named Spoony, "Well, we had Radio 1 on by accident..."

Given that Robbie is our 9th fish, I figure that any day now I'll sadly forget the names of previous fish, so this blog serves to store for posterity the fish of yesteryear. We will remember them...

Jerry - Jerry was the first to go. Odd since we named him after the character in The Good Life (pre-dating our 'radio name' rule), and Paul Eddington who played Jerry was the first (and currently only) member of the cast to pass on. The fish carried on that curse.
Tom - Again, Tom & Jerry were not named after the cat-and-mouse cartoon, but after The Good Life. We happened to name these two after the men, and true to form they popped their clogs earlier than the women.
Barbara - Barbara & Margot stuck around for a little while, and even survived a house move. For a bit.
Margot - Margot won The Good Life survival stakes. So we got her some friends...
Harriet - It's here we started naming after people mentioned on the radio. We turned on to the news, where they spoke of Harriet Harman and...
Gordon - ...Brown. Typically Gordon stuck around the longest, and far longer than anyone expected. Also typically, he was rather podgy with funny eyes.
Walter - When Gordon was left alone, we got Walter, a giant-finned golder-than-goldfish, named after a character on a Radio 4 play. That took 5 minutes to name him. Frustrating sample dialogue: "Are you going to run off with him?" "Run off with who?" "You know who. Do I have to say his name again?" (Us: Yes!) "I can't bring myself to say his name..." (Say his bloody name!) "Go on, say it." (Please!) "It's... it's Walter, isn't it?" (Oh, is that it?)
Marigold Heyworth - We use her full name, cos that entire name is perfect for a goldfish. Named after someone who wrote a letter to Radio 4. Little does she know that letter prompted a fish to be named after her...
Robbie - And now the latest new fish on the block joins Marigold Heyworth. A fine two-tone red-and-white little fishette. Long may he remain with us, long enough even for Spoony to be able to play with him...]]> Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:19:05 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost44 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost44

A CHRISTMAS PANTO NATIVITY CAROL, by Paul Kerensa (aged 30+11/12ths)

Long time ago in Bethlehem, so the Holy Bible say, Mary's boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.

The Angel Peter Gabriel came to visit Mary, and said, “I wanna be – hurrrrrrrrh! – your sledgehammer!”

And Mary interpreted this as meaning she would have a child from God and call him The Baby Jesus.

Joseph came along and the angel scarpered, as Joseph voice was heard. “Fe, fi, fo, fangel! I smell the blood of an archangel!”

And Mary told Joseph of the news and what was to come, and after an hour or several of convincing, including trying to track down CCTV footage of the angel – to no avail – Joseph believed her. But he thought, “If this happens again, I'm getting in Jeremy Kyle's lie detector.”

At this time, there was a census taken across the land, and so every man had to return to his place of birth. This really annoyed, for example, an Egyptian family who'd taken years to emigrate to Turkey, but needs must. So Joseph took all that he owned: Mary and a donkey, and rode to Bethlehem, on one of them.

Meanwhile, there were three wise men: the wise man of Christmas past, the wise man of Christmas present, and the wise man of Christmas future. Since Christmas hadn't happened yet, the wise man of Christmas was actually a simpleton. The wise man of Christmas present was kept having the feeling something big was about to happen. And the wise man of Christmas future knew all about what was going to happen, as well as the eventual growing commercialism of Christmas, beginning with Dickens inventing turkey, Coca-Cola inventing Santa, and Simone Cowell inventing the Queen's Official Singalong Karaoke Christmas Message, from the year 2018 onwards.

While they were waiting for Christmas to happen, the wise men decided to follow a star to find the newborn baby. But they were intervened by Evil King Herod, who was busy trying to write his Christmas speech to the nation, when he had suddenly started to wonder why he was doing a speech every year, and how he'd do anything to get out of it. It occurred to Herod that if he killed the baby, there would be no Christmas and no Christmas speech. He only did the speech because the wise man of Christmas future told him to get in early, so he summoned the wise men and told them to report back to him when they had found the baby. The wise men said they would, but they decided that actually they wouldn't, just to see the look on Herod's face. It would be a picture.

As Joseph, the donkey, and finally Mary (women's rights weren't what they are now) all approached Bethlehem for the census, it appeared that there were more people from Bethlehem than there were places to stay there. Obviously, because whenever anyone left, someone else would move in, so you get through a lot of people living there, with no new housing developments. There was an inn, however – not a Premier Travel Inn, not even a Days Inn. More of a Travelodge. Basic, no cooked breakfast – just continental. Check-out from nine, only terrestrial channels on the TV. Even the tea- and coffee-making facilities lacked any biscuits. But Joseph, the donkey and Mary would see none of this anyway – no pets.

So the Travelodgekeeper turned the 3 – soon to be 4 – of them away. But then Joseph spied a stable around the back, and asked if they could stay there. The Travelodgekeeper looked at the shack Joseph was gesturing at, and realised he was pointing at the VIP suite. Yes, it had straw and animal dung on the floor, but it was the best that Travelodge got. So the Travelodgekeeper sent them there, since to be honest the entire hotel was empty as no one wanted to stay there.

And it was there that the baby Jesus was born, and named ‘the baby Jesus', or as Joseph continued to call him till his 3rd birthday, Joseph Junior, just to make a point.

In the neighbouring fields, while shepherds watched their flock by night, all seated on the ground – it's not clear if the shepherds were seated on the ground, or the flock was, but either way, all got up with a start when a host of angels appeared. And the angels greeted them, “Hello!” they said. And the shepherds were sore amazed. The soreness was because they were seated on the ground. The amazed bit was definitely because of the angels, who continued: “You must go to David's town to pay tribute to the newborn king.” And the shepherds set off for St David's in west Wales. “No, come back!” said the host of angels. “Not St David's. David's town.” So the shepherds began to book flights for Davidstown, North Carolina. “Stop!” said the hostess of angels. “See that there dusty straw room down there? Well therein lies the newborn king.”

“Oh,” said the shepherds. “That's easier.”

And the hostess of angels with the mostess of angels turned to the other angels and mumbled something rude about the shepherds. The hostess turned back to the field of shepherds and lambs, and announced: “You must bring a gift to worship. Take one of those animals, kill it, and present it as an offering.” And sure enough, one of the lambs went and killed a shepherd. “No, not you!” spake the co-host of angels, who was more of a sidekick. “He was talking to the shepherds.”

“Ohhh,” said the lambs, who were then killed by the shepherds and brought to the Travelodge. Just as they got there, the wise men of Christmas past, present and future all appeared from the other direction. “Oh, were you going to go in?” said a shepherd.

“Yes,” said the wise man of Christmas present. “We've travelled a long way, weighed down by this job lot of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”

The chief shepherd replied, “Oh. Well any chance we can go in first? That gold is really going to trump what we've got: some bleeding animal carcass.”

And the wise man of Christmas present whacked the shepherd over the head with the gold bar, and the shepherd fell to the ground with a comedy lump and a circle of tweeting birds.

The wise man of Christmas future, who was holding the frankincense, said, “Frankly, I'm incensed.” And all the wise men laughed and laughed. During which time, the other shepherds snuck in.

Inside the stable, Joseph, the baby Jesus, the donkey, and Mary, were all laying in the manger. Well Mary wasn't – she was standing now her work was done. And in came the shepherds with their recently slaughtered lambs. Joseph asked, “What is this you bring?”

“Oh, nothing,” said the shepherd. “Just some lamb. Does the little lad like lamb? We can puree it.”

“I'm not sure,” said Joseph. A cot might have been nice, or a pram. We've got to push him round for a year in this manger. It hasn't even got any wheels. Lucky I'm a carpenter. And to be honest it's a shame you killed the lamb – we could have put him on that.”

The shepherds looked down at the lamb in shame. “It's halal, if it helps.”

“What?!” Joseph exploded.

“I mean, erm, kosher. It's koshalal – a new mix of the two. And circumcised.”

“Do you not see,” said Joseph, “that this child is born to replace the old law of ritual and works to please God? This child fulfils and yet at the same time supersedes the law so that you may be saved by faith alone.” But such theology was lost on the shepherd, who just said, “Wha-?” For he still had a bump on his head.

The wise men came in, and delivered their presents of gold, frankincense and myrrh. That helped cover up the smell of rotting lamb in the corner. But at least it's better than the smell of many Travelodge rooms.

And so the next day, presumably, Joseph registered for that census that he'd come to Bethlehem for, but that never gets mentioned again in the Bible. And he presumably kept very quiet about the baby so that evil King Herod wouldn't find out. And they all moved to Nazareth and lived happily ever after, for a bit.

The end, for now...]]> Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:14:25 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost42 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost42
First question many wonder: is it to do with Nine Lessons & Carols For The Godless? No. I would say this is the opposite, ie. it's for the Godful, but it is aimed at the Godless too. Only we're not a bunch of atheists talking science; we're a bunch of religish folks talking religiocomedy (several nice new words in that sentence).

Second question you may then wonder: which came first? I think ours did. The atheist one got more press cos they've got Ricky Gervais. In terms of celebrity, they win at top trumps. In terms of all-round Christmassiness and nice warm rosy feeling at the end of it, I like to feel we come out on top. To be honest the two shows aren't in any competition, since their show is in central London, and we're taking ours on the road, to the south coast, the west coast, Yorkshire, Essex and Cambridgeshire. A central London one next year, fo shizzle.

The shows have been lovely, with a nice mix of acts: stand-up, sketch, magic, double-acts, musicians, character acts, videos, carols, and mince pies. Alright, the first one in November took a while to make them feel Christmassy, but as the audience observed, it's November. Give ‘em a free mince pie though, and they won't care what month it is – they'll be harmonising ‘Sing, choirs of angels' before you know it.

Tonight I write this from a vicarage in York, where we performed just now in the shadow of Yorkminster. I'm convinced York looks Christmassy year round anyway, so it's great to get to do it here. Feels all Dickensian. Might go out and buy a goose tomorrow, or maybe fling some windows open and ask an urchin to buy one for me for a shiny penny.

So roll on next year, and thanks to all the performers who have been excellent this year in the C&C shows. Christmas cheer has been spread. Happy advent, one and all, and if anyone reading this fancies this show for their own venue/community/church/theatre/big living-room, we're now booking for 2010. December only.

Tonight, Buckhurst Hill in North-east London/Essex. Do come if you're in the vicinity.]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:41:56 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost41 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost41
This summer, my wife and I were delighted to have a little post-wedding luncheon with my Cornish relatives at a really nice hotel on the Cornish coast. A delightful meal with good folks, and we were treated wonderfully by a female maitre d' (mistress d'?). We got talking to her, and she was a great woman, who had sadly last her husband not long before, and had both her boys being sent overseas to Afghanistan that very next week. Last week, one of her son's names has been in the news. The day he was due to return, he was killed.

I never met him and barely met her, but remembering his proud mother, the news story has had the horrid title of being the first time that I've known in some small way the family/friends of a serviceman killed in a modern war. It adds an awful new dimension to the news story, and indeed to Remembrance Sunday. I'm well aware too that I'm probably part of a minority - more and more Brits have a friend, relative or acquaintance that they've lost in modern warfare.

I vary opinions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wiser, better-informed people than I equally waver, so I'm not going to make up an opinion just for the sake of it. I don't know if they're fighting unwinnable wars, but troops in both countries are fighting darn hard ones. Seeing the film The Hurt Locker recently gave the merest glint of the tough conditions out there and the frighteningly vague enemy they're up against. I'm quite pacifist, but I 100% support them now they're out there, especially now that Poppy Day has come around, and especially now I can picture the family of one of these guys.

I don't want to sound like a crap panellist on The X Factor and use idiotic percentiles twice in one blog post, but I am 110% sure that no soldier is going to read this blog, now or ever, but anyway, I wish ‘em well. I've seen the running order of a comedy gig line-up they're being sent in the next few weeks, and they've got some good acts coming their way. They've got some crap ones too, but that's just like any gig in the UK, so at least that should remind them of home. Be well, chaps and chapesses.]]> Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:00:40 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost40 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost40
Does anyone really like it? It's just there because it's not quite Christmas and we need a reason for a party. But wait a week and you've got Fireworks Night. That's great for a party. You get fireworks and everything – the clue's in the name. But Halloween? I don't want to answer the door to some acne-ridden oik with a cape round his shoulders, demanding in a voice that's just broken today that we give him some sweets or he'll spray foam over our car. Most of the time you either look at them trying to work out if they're too old to be doing this (15 year olds trick-or-treating just comes across as threatening) or too young (either they're on their own, in which case it feels weird, or their parents are with them, in which case you get the impression the kids don't want to be there at all, but Mum made a costume specially).

I have the luxury of an evening job, so I'm delighted to say that I've made it my business to have a gig every October 31st that I can remember. Those trick-or-treaters will just find an empty house. Ha. But given that only this month a survey came out that the vast majority of UK householders don't want carol-singers at their doors because it feels like home invasion, can we not also conclude that these people don't want trick-or-treaters either? I shall be buying no sweets this year. If any kids come round a day early (I've seen that before – thus ruining my gig-booking scheme), they'll be getting chopped-up bits of liver wrapped in Quality Street wrappers.

If this all sounds like a Halloween-based Scrooge, then we Brits only have ourselves to blame. The Americans do it and do it properly, but to the extent that it's now a fancy dress party extraordinaire. And that goes beyond horror into Superman costumes and the like, and that I don't mind so much. It's the prospect of going out on October 31st to find a bunch of women dressed as ghoulish vamps with red juice running down their cheeks as they lollop zombiefied to the nearest pub that's got a special drinks offer on. I've seen that all summer – they're called hen dos, and they're not pretty.

I applaud the churches in doing something different, even though ‘Light Services' probably sound as painful to non-Christians as the words ‘secular funeral' do to churchy types. The worry is that kids will go from Trick or Treat to Ouija boards in one easy step. While I don't think that happens much, I can almost see why they would, just because, as I say, Halloween is so boring. You come back from Trick or Treat, you've listened to The Time Warp and The Monster Mash, you don't know what else to do for the rest of the evening. Someone's suggested a horror movie at the cinema to round off the night, but it's only Saw VI and Halloween II, so even that's a rubbish plan. You've got a whole week to wait till fireworks, so what else do you do? Out comes that most deadly of demonic boards: Monopoly. And then it all really kicks off as no one can quite remember the rules and suddenly Jon owns everything and he's also the banker. Coincidence? I don't think so. Then it all kicks off and then there's real blood.

So yes, by all means have your Light services, good churches. But best of all, let's hope Halloween and The Light Nights cancel each other out, and we can all get back to a nice normal Saturday night with The X Factor, a bottle of wine, and no annoying knocks at the door from feral kids that look like they want to burgle you.

Bah, humbug! (Wait a minute, that's not a humbug – it's a bit of liver wrapped as a humbug...)]]> Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:10:59 +0000 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost39 http://www.paulkerensa.com/blogpost39
To start I thought the two were able to co-exist. Micro-blogging and macro-blogging (this is macro-blogging, by the way. What a posh word for what is basically an apology to approximately no one)... But because twitter has that bite-sized quality, whatever you are thinking, so long as you are thinking a thing, can be squeezed into it. The fact that you can do it from your phone means that you can ‘tweet' during a bad film in a cinema, or even a good film, or a minute before you go onstage, or even onstage itself (I have not done this... yet. Adam Hills, I hear tell, is a fan of this). It's rare you're out and about and think, “You know what I really need to get out there to the world: this 500-word long blog.” More likely it's things like ‘Don't go and see Saw VI: it's rubbish'. Or ‘Had a lovely gig in Liverpool'. Or even more likely: ‘Had a lovely gig in Leeds'.

So that's my reasoning for lack of blogging. I may blog more, now I've remembered too, but more than likely, my main witterings will be over on twitter.com/paulkerensa. You don't need to be on twitter to read them – you can just go to that link in the previous sentence. If you sign up though to twitter, then you can ‘follow' (like friending on Facebook), and help soothe my ego. Twould be appreciated. Thanks.
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