Growing up, David Bowie’s multifacted existence as singer, songwriter, painter, producer, comedian (yes, I count his interviews as comedy) and decent father gave me an idea: My career’s guidance counsellors were wrong; I could be anything.
I wasn’t stuck on one path, one fixed timeline.
I could play dress up and change form.
I could be a poet and a science fiction author.
Later in life I discovered standup comedy. Frankie Boyle stood out to me as a beacon of unrelenting humour, his dark jokes always supported by a clever wit that underlined even his strangest material. I would listen to his Prometheus tapes on loop at uni, reminding myself that someone else out there in the world told dark and surreal jokes, and people supported him.
I knew, through Bowie and Boyle, that I would one day find an audience.
That day is today, or a few days ago. I lost track.
If you’ve read Who Built The Humans? you’ll know that as a writer, I never draw a line in the sand between the zany comedy and the mind-bending fiction.
That is true of my show too.
It’s a mix of delirious standup and Sci-Fi comedy stories, documenting everything from my birth (during which a UFO was spotted above the hospital. No, really) to my sudden change from very serious author man to silly author comedy poet who sometimes does serious books but not always.
Why mix Sci-Fi and standup?
I consider weird/dark comedy and sci-fi to be parallel branches to the same tree. Both of them reach out into unexplored corners of reality, both of them bring something strange back for us to think about. Both of them are exploratory, weird forms of literature that not many people experiment with.
Both of them sometimes mention aliens touching people as well.
So really, being a comedian and a science fiction author go perfectly together.
I feel like I only became a comedian recently, when in truth I’ve been on stage since 2014, where I started with a comedy poem about a man who couldn’t afford to pay his heating bills. If only I knew how prescient that would be.
I will be taking that poem to the show too.
And before that, I wrote and directed comedy sketches in my back garden with my high school friends. Further back, I penned surreal, cartoonish skits and made them with my Lego Bionicle figures, experimenting with visual gags and filmmaking long before I knew I’d grow up to be a writer and comedy actor.
This thing is hardwired into me.
Even in my darkest moments I have found comedy.
It has pulled my family through some weird times.
Time which I hope to make funny in my show.
My most recent big thing in comedy was Bright Club. It was an honour to perform there, and anyone who saw me will be familiar with my time travel material. It’s zany, it’s dark, and it originally involved me bullying some historical figures in the misguided hope that they turn out a bit less evil.
I’ve mixed it up a bit for Awkward Re-entry. You’ll see.
I’m going to the Manchester Fringe!
The show is an eclectic mix of standup comedy, sci-fi storytelling, and comedy poems about human stuff. It’s an hour long, meaning it is by far the longest solo show I’ve ever done. I’ve managed a 15 minute slot before, never a whole hour on my own. It’s exciting. I’ve already crossed that invisible barrier in my head and became a real comedian when I did Bright Club, but now I have an hour long set to prepare for.
So, what’s in it?
Structurally, the thing will be about what it means to be human. It will start with my crash-landing on Earth, zoom through my time at uni, and cover some of the characters I have met (and made up) along the way.
Featured will be the man I had to stare at to stop him from staring at people on the bus at 2am, that time I accidentally gave myself psychic powers, and some other stuff.
The show will open with some stand-up about time travel. After that, I will hopefully make myself seem less alien by asking the audience relatable human questions like “Have you ever been cheated on?” and “Do you think dogs are real?”
When people answer, I can then ask the audience if they want stories or poems. This is, structurally, a similar approach to what I will be taking in WBTH2, and allows a semi-improv aspect into the show.
I’ll be turning some of my comedy articles into standup, which isn’t hard as they actually started out that way in my head. And to finish it all off, I may draw random members of the audience being savaged by giant alien crabs, or I may draw Daleks falling in love with refrigerators. It depends on how I’m feeling.
Oh, and I’ll be signing copies of WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? for everyone.
And giving away a signed copy to one lucky fan/heckler.
Depending on which one they are, I may pass or throw the book.
About that, here’s the cover for the sequel.
See how it all comes together.
After that, I’ll do some standup about that time I accidentally proposed to a guy in Ormskirk swimming baths in 2015, or I’ll do a joke about being on Channel 4’s Lego Masters. I might tell them a story about how I became the ‘alpha crazy’ on a bus to scare away a crazy guy who was staring angrily at other passengers, or I might launch into a comedy poem about sucking door handles.
There is a losse, modular structure to the set already, but I want some flexibility so I can adapt to the audience on the night. So, starting with the time travel stuff I did at Bright Club (and elaborating upon it) I can get the audience used to weird existential questions.
Who Built The Humans? will be on a table beside me, used here for humour. The length and weight of the book makes it a fantastic comic sidekick, as I can make all sorts of jokes about the contents. I won’t spoil them here, partially because I don’t want to make ticketed work free, but also because I’ve not improvised these jokes yet, and I plan to on the night.
From there I will probably read the story Hologram Kebab, as it links well with the more human theme in the time travel stuff. HK isn’t in WBTH, so I can derive humour there from holding up the book, realising the story I wrote isn’t even in it, and dropping it on my foot.
I want the gaps between jokes to be funny too.
It’s going to be a weird, fun show.
You can get tickets here. Tickets fund my next book, because everything connects.
Or use this link to access the event page, directions, and get hold of Who Built The Humans? before the show.
(I am making it 100% free on June 30th, which I’ll remind you about on the day).
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