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Tour Blog#1: 24 hours before I hit the road

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

So, it’s just less than one full day before I jump in the car and head south to Malmö for the first day of the DJ Danny Sweden tour 2011. I’ve got the usual nerves that come before hitting the road for a gig that involves being away for a few days – Minor details keep popping into my head such as ‘I must take a thermos!’ or ‘Don’t forget your toothbrush!’ which seem to fuzzy the larger issues such as ‘Will anyone come and watch us? Will they enjoy the show? Will they laugh in the right places?’

The Local were nice enough to do an interview which you can read here.

I’m pretty confident that people will enjoy the show and that we’ll get laughs as Danny is so charismatic onstage and has been doing this show for years in London in Edinburgh as well as having gigged in places like Greece, Finland and Estonia leaving audiences rolling in the aisles (or in the case of Greece, rolling in the isles)

I’m going to try and blog the tour and hopefully we can fill the venues with readers of The Local! The first stop is Malmö tomorrow (Wednesday 23/3) night at a club called Oslipat which takes place at Tangopalatset – You can get tickets here: http://www.kulturcentralen.nu/show_direct.php?showid=6309

I won’t be doing the hard sell on every blog – it’ll be more just to give you a taste of life on the road with two comedians who are seeing if it is possible to put together an independent tour of Sweden without really having a clue. But if you do make it to a show, come and say hi after!

All the details are on the poster below – but we are in Gothenburg on Saturday at Sinnet (www.lokalsinnet.se). The biggest venue of all is on 30th March at Boulevard Teater in Stockholm (which I hear is the centre of the universe). If you are an 08er please book up your tickets by clicking here

We’ll also be tweeting – me on 110percentlagom and Danny on danny_robins (Danny will probably tweet more as I’m the mug doing the driving)

See you on the road!

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Tack så mycket, Baby.

Friday, October 29th, 2010

So Paul Foot’s mini tour of Sweden drew to an end last Sunday and he left audiences either in hysterics or totally confused or both. He’s the kind of comedian that you either love or hate and I definitely fall into the love side. Watching him was an education for me, as he stretched the boundaries of the genre and also of the imagination. I was nothing but impressed by his ability to draw 20 minutes on subjects as benign as Shire horses and vans. He also made me laugh a lot.

I’m not sure what the highlight of his tour was. I am split between the experience of wiping tears from my eyes at Big Ben and looking at the audience, who had not come specifically to see Paul, and their reaction which ranged from one or two giggling uncontrollably, to many laughing without quite knowing why, to confusion, to looks of outright contempt. (Give me a comedian that splits the crowd, anytime.) Alternatively, my other highlight was watching him do a short guest spot at RAW on Saturday where he finished his set off with the immortal words ‘Tack så mycket, baby.’

Got a nice little write up too in The Velvet Onion, the place on the Internet where all Boosh related things can be found.

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Tags: Comedy, Gigs, Review, Stand Up, Stockholm
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Small town blues

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

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I like living in Linköping. I really do. But sometimes I feel that it is precisely the wrong size.

It is a fairly big place by Swedish standards. In fact it is Sweden’s 5th biggest city and as a result it has pretensions of being a big city. However, when you actually try and get anything ‘big cityish’ done here you realise that pretense is all it is. In some respects, it would be better if Linköping were smaller. At least then the expectation level would be lower. Instead, every so often, I get fooled by the glossy leaflets and believe that the kommun actually wants to develop a cultural scene here. They don’t. They want to cultivate the impression of a cultural scene.

I had a meeting a little while ago with the head of the kommun’s culture department. I started by simply asking her what her department did. She looked confused and said ‘That’s a very good question’

I spent some of Monday banging my head against a jobsworth brick wall. My crime was to miss the deadline for a quarterly events calendar. Never mind that the deadline for the calendar was not widely publicised or that it is months ahead of the actual publication date but I admit, culpa mea, I had missed the deadline. By how much? I found out on Saturday that the deadline was the day before, on Friday. So I contacted them on the Monday asking if my events could be included. Absolutely not. I had missed the deadline. Rules is rules, sucker.

On a more positive note, Nolltretton magazine have organised a series of nights in the park. I’m going to perform at one of them on the 6th August (depending on the weather, naturally). I also spent a creative day today writing a scene for a sitcom and working on the radio podcast pilot. I’m excited about both and especially the sitcom as it sounds as though I’ll get a chance to pitch it to SVT… possibly.

Finished the day off with fika in the sun with Palle and Emil, having a kvetch, working out who should come and perform in the autumn and telling jokes far too rude for The Local blog

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Tags: Comedy, Lagom, LinkÃ¶ping, moans, Uncategorized
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Pippi, Emil and rain….

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

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It might seem like an odd statement for a grown man like me to make, but without doubt, one of my favourite places in Sweden is Astrid Lindgren’s World in Vimmerby.

If you don’t know who Astrid Lindgren was then I suggest you report yourself to the nearest Migrationsverket and offer yourself up for immediate deportation from Swedish soil (alternatively, go to the children’s section of your local bookshop/library). Just to fill in the Philistines, Astrid Lindgren was the author of Pippi Longstocking, Emil, Ronja, and loads of other brilliant kids’ characters and stories.

I did have my kids in tow and I suggest that as and when you do visit the park (note: ‘as and when’ not ‘if’) you borrow a couple of under tens. And make sure that whoever you borrow them from also kits them out in waterproof clothes – when we went, nobody had told the weatherman to order sun. Despite the rain and even though the high season doesn’t officially start until June 6th, the atmosphere at the park was still so special, like nowhere I have ever visited before. It’s like stepping into the pages of a story and interacting with the characters who don’t just ‘do shows’ but go about their daily business.

One quick example: Sheltering from the rain in a cafe, Emil and family came in for fika (coffee and a cake) and between sips led everyone in a singsong. Simple, innocent, entertaining, good old-fashioned fun.

I know a couple of the actors who work there and managed to catch a bit of the rehearsal for Ronja – my pal Lasso plays Skallepär – Even in rehearsal, the choral singing was magnificent and am looking forward to going back later in the season to catch the full show and hopefully in full sunshine too!

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Tags: Astrid Lindgren, music, plugs, Uncategorized
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