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A Bunch of Japes - Stand up Comedy - A New Material Night. Tiernan Douieb + Bec Hill

Smoke & Mirrors
Bristol United Kingdom

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"Mark Olver has been running new act and new material nights in Bristol for over 10 years. He has also provided a place for new comedians to start and experienced comedians to try new material. In the past these comedians have included Russell Howard, Jon Richardson Alan Carr, Josh Widdicombe, Rob Beckett whoops let me just pick those names up of the floor) We can't promise these names here every week, but we can promise that you will see the best new acts in the area and the best acts in the country trying new material"

TONIGHT TIERNAN DOUIEB

It is, despite the name change, the show that I started writing in 2013, premiered at the Phoenix Fringe that summer, took on tour to 17 venues in 2014 then performed at the Edinburgh festival for a half run under the title 'Read Something'. I had never liked that title as it was unnecessarily patronising, or if read incorrectly, bafflingly irrelevant. So this version is now called, as I wish it always had been, "This Isn't For You". Which similarly is a baffling title in that it is definitely for you and I'd really like you to buy it.

Back in 2013, before writing this show, I had a genuine panic about stand-up. I was doing shows I didn't want to be doing, bleating out material I loathed to audiences I couldn't connect with and generally felt miserable about making people happy. Without going all self help guru on you, it took leaving my agent, cancelling all those gigs and booking in a tour for myself to do material I wanted to, to finally kickstart my love for the job I'm so lucky to have.
It is very easy to forget that, especially in the era that we are in, you can, to quite a large extent, control your creative output. There are social media sites where you can draw audiences to you, video and audio hosting sites where you can direct people to your content and blogs where you can bore people with blogs where you bully them into buying your videos.

To do it properly does require money and time and I have recently felt, more than ever before, jealous of those with vast inheritance that mean they can just get their short film made, because they have the money. Or they don't have to take the gigs they dislike because they never worry about rent payment or if they can buy food that week. Luckily I have my friend Ben Hilton who is ridiculously talented and so with a small, brilliantly underground looking venue, 70 nice audience members (some I knew, some I didn't), sound recording from the excellent James Hingley, 4 cameras (operated by Ben and the brilliant Tania Freimuth), a lovely support set from Chris Coltrane, tons of editing, grading and working out how the internet works, here we are. My show.
All one hour and five minutes of it. A few bits were cut but that's mostly how it was, with the laughs, luckily, just how they were too.

So this is that. This is me, deciding to do what I want with my job and hopefully other people will like it. If they don't, they don't have to buy the vid. If they do, hopefully it means that when I finish the show I'm writing they'll come to see me do that live, which in turn will maybe pay for me to put that online for sale too.
Hopefully we've made it cheap enough for anyone to buy* and if you do, and enjoy it, please spread the word. I'm far less interested in earning from it, than making sure I can still go out and shout comedy at your faces with material I want to write, in years to come. Though if me and Ben can get a nice dinner out of it at some point, that would also be great. I love nice dinners.

I'm genuinely fucking proud of this, and it isn't often I can honestly say that about anything. And I've lost weight since it was filmed so it's a double whammy of joy when watching it. Feel free to point that last bit out to me lots whenever you see me.

Mostly though, as sanctimonious as it might sound, I really hope it makes you laugh.

BEC HILL

"It was just a throwaway line!
I used it because there was a close mate in the audience who was vegan it got a good reaction, so I kept it in the show."

The young Australian comedienne's referring to one tiny gag ("Some of my best friends are vegan. They were going to come today but they didn't have the energy to climb up the stairs") in Bec Hill Didn't Want To Play Your Stupid Game Anyway, her one-woman show at the Gilded Balloon.

It was perhaps a litle unfairly singled out as one of the 'worst jokes of the Fringe' in a recent competition run by Dave TV.

"It's actually been good publicity," Bec says. "When I hand out flyers now, I give people a guarantee that there's actually much worse jokes than that in the show!"

Of course, she's being modest. Her show based on the things she doesn't like about being a grown-up is gaining great reviews from the industry and public alike.

"I think it's important to have a theme to your show. Apparently, laughter affects your short-term memory, so hanging the jokes around a central idea helps people remember them! And people feel they've come away with something after it."

This is Bec's second solo visit to Edinburgh last year she performed another themed show based on superheroes.

"It was a great learning experience," she says. "It went well, and I got some really valuable critique which helped shape this year's."

"And I've had several people come along this year because they enjoyed the last one."

Bec first started performing comedy back home in Australia when she was 18. She took a year out and entered the Raw Comedy competition, reaching the national finals.

One of the judges Justin Hamilton saw her potential and took Bec under his wing, helping her shape her comedy and influencing her material.

Now based in London, she is hoping to persue comedy full-time.

"There's no grand plan," she says. "I'm going to see where things are this time next year. But I'll be gigging in London and playing the Adelaide & Melbourne festivals next year."

"Edinburgh's a great place to showcase your work I've had quite a lot of interest this year."

"It's also a fantastic place to catch-up with people you've not seen for a while too. I've really enjoyed this year's Fringe."

Bec's show features her child-like onstage persona and some of her unique and cleverly-designed flipchart work ("paper puppetry", as she calls it).

"The onstage me is like an exaggerated version of myself," she says. "I play up the elements that people seem to like though I do slip in a bit of darker material to counter some of the cuteness!"

And her paper-based comedy is also creating a bit of a buzz, particularly her "rejected tampon ad"

"It's actually based on a real piece I was asked to do by a tampon company," she says. "They showed me some of their concepts and the jokes were pretty terrible."

"So I thought I'd try and come up with something a bit different and silly. The company loved it, though it didn't get used in the end."

"But the video for it just popped up on Reddit, so it seems to be going a bit viral!"

Bec seems to have that cultish quality that gets her comedy noticed the sort of thing that people see then pass on to their friends. So, whether she ends up as a successful full-time comic or as some reviews have suggested a kids' TV presenter, the remaining dates of her show give you what might be your last chance to see her up close and personal 'bad' jokes and all.

Location

Smoke & Mirrors
8 Denmark Street
Bristol BS1 5DQ
United Kingdom

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