Today has been just as productive as yesterday, but also HUGELY more exciting because I officially climbed aboard a project being run by the Live Live Then Give Life campaign putting on a comedy night at the Mermaid Theatre in London in March.
The history to the night is quite long and convoluted, but mainly involves Emily getting a phone call a while back from Bill Bailey, who’d been told through the grapevine from a reader of her blog that she was a fan and had been having a hard time.
Now, there’s a very funny story here about serial-schmoozer Emily getting hideously tongue-tied and not being able to form sentences, but I wouldn’t like to embarrass her, so I’ll leave that bit out. Oh wait….
Anyway, after chatting to her for a while, Bill apparently succumbed to what many people have come to know as the “Emily Effect” – that is, having spoken to a remarkable friendly, eloquent, funny, determined and energetic (in speech, at least) young woman about all the issues on which she campaigns, he offered to do whatever he could to help.
Some months later, Emily has decided that now is a good time to go get some new lungs (I’m told they’re 2007’s must-haves) and left her LLTGL partner-in-crime Emma high-and-dry staring down the barrel of a show in 6 weeks time with a whole range of “To Do’s” still “To Be Done”.
So, shining my armour and mounting my steed (yes, my steed!), I fired off an email to Emma gallantly offering my services as Production Manager extraordinaire to fill any gaps she may have.
Now, there must have been some sort of mis-communication here, because Emma and her wonderful, throw-your-hand-in, get-stuck-in, jump-in-the-deep-end husband Brad seem to have developed the mistaken impression that I was actually offering to help them out and do some work.
Clearly, they don’t know me well enough to know that when I offer to help it’s nothing but an empty gesture and what I really mean is I’ll be happy to sit on my rump in bed at home and watch Bill Bailey DVDs and tell people how funny he is.
Still, being the awfully polite person I am, I suddenly felt like it would be terribly improper of me to point out their error, so it looks like I’m on board…
I really don’t know how I get myself into these fixes, but now I’m here, I supposed I’ll just make a fist of it and see what I can’t do to make things run a little smoothly.
Right now there’s all sorts of bits and pieces remaining to be organised, including nailing down who exactly is going to be on the bill. Through Bill Bailey’s management we’ve aquired a strong line-up of fresh comedians willing to entertain the masses, and we’re still hopeful of getting a few last gasp names to pop along too.
I’ve got my list of To Do’s passed down and am liasing with the venue and management about technical requirements and other such things, as well as sticking my oar in wherever I see opportunity.
It’s looking like it’s going to be a really good evening and, more importantly, is going to go a good way to helping support the LLTGL campaign’s current objectives – of which more at a later date.
Tickets should be on sale within the next week or so and I’ll post with details as soon as they are, but for now if you’re in, around or fancy going to the Mermaid Theatre for a cracking night of stand-up, book out 4th March in your diary and watch this space!