Blog 72

Twitter are making it very hard to get rid of False Alexei, apparently I have to send a fax proving MY identity to a phone number in Iowa or somewhere.  Presumably after that I'll have to send them a VHS tape of me saying I'm actually me to an address in New Mexico, then...well I can't think of a third anachronistic thing but you get the idea.

I think I'm on the One Show this week with a little film I made about our house in Anfield.

Blog 72a

Hello Jane Ball.  I am reluctant to explain what the show is about since I always think if you can explain it in just words then why do a show at all?   But the bit you refer to is towards the end when I say I sometimes feel that we/I should give up the struggle which is true but then the last part of the show takes, I think, another direction and ends with a totally different conclusion.

 Yah! Away with you False Alexei!  There can be but one!

 And finally I think we all need to spend a little more time thinking about the 'Wright Way' then I will give my considered response.

Oh and I got it wrong about the One Show film, they don't have a transmission date for it yet.

Here's the links for booking tickets for my upcoming shows

Edinburgh

SouthBank

Blog 72b

 Sorry I forgot to say my little film (and me) was on the One Show last night (The 15th).  You can watch it on i-player, it was a really nice little film.

Blog 71

Warning.  Sorry to disappoint you but that's not the real me on twitter.

 My friend Nigel Planer was telling me that a while ago the man pretending to be him was having an argument with the man pretending to be Ricky Gervaise.

I would completely agree with G about The Shadowline.  Though it was relatively engaging in the early parts in the end it amounted to nothing because the story was not convincingly resolved.  Its not just the BBC who do this though, C4s Utopia suffered from the same problem, the end made no sense whatsoever which really makes all the time you've invested in it a waste.  Basically C4 and Kudos Productions owe me six hours, so I'd like Elizabeth Murdoch to come round and paint my stairs. 

However re my BA 13 OON piece in the Telegraph there was a good car smash up in Utopia, I think it was a silver MK 2 Mondeo but they shot it from the side from which angle it looked like a brand new car that they were destroying.  So well done Kudos car smash up department,  boos to everyone else apart from the actors who did their best.  Incidentally Stephen Rea was in both Shadowline and Utopia-maybe he's the problem.

Mr Heath, since nobody else bothered I'd recommend, Barcelona Plates, Mister Roberts and Stalin Ate My Homework.

Also I don't know if I've said but I'm doing 10 extra dates at Soho from the 2nd of April and I'm playing two nights at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on July 4th and 5th though I'm insisting they re-name the venue Hugo Chavez Hall or Nohm Chomsky Hall for the duration of my residency.

Blog 70

Well I said that Blog 70 would have to be pretty special and I think it is since it concerns me and a multi-award winning Hollywood star.  A few days ago I saw this on some US website.- 

WHAT Is Christoph Waltz Doing In This British Sketch Show?

By Fraser McAlpine | Posted on Friday, January 25th, 2013

Showbusiness is a strange place to try and make your home. One day you’re Hamlet, the next a talking pork chop, and there’s no sense in trying to work out how an actor jumps from one place to another; bizarre juxtaposition is an occupational hazard.

That said, it’s always a joy to discover than a current hot talent has some unusual anomalies deep in the hidden recesses of their resume. In that spirit, here’s an unexpected delight that came up this morning, from the twitter feed of the comedy writer Graham Linehan.

It seems that, in the mid ’90s, he and his then partner Arthur Mathews, had written a sketch show for the comedian Alexei Sayle, with the refreshing title The All New Alexei Sayle Show. It would take a while to fully explain who Alexei Sayle is if you don’t know, but to give context to the cultural impact of the show itself, The All New Alexei Sayle Show, while not unpopular, is largely unremembered even on the British side of that big sea thing between here and there.( Bit harsh)

So, it came as much of a shock to Graham as anyone else, to discover that one of the actors in his sketch The League of Hirsute Gentlemen is actually Christoph Waltz: movie star, Golden Globe winner (for his part in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained), and current Oscar nominee.

By way of context, here’s an extract from Christoph’s IMDB profile immediately before and after this appearance, to show you the sort of thing he was involved with at the time. If anything, it makes the appearance of an Austrian actor, clearly used to playing Germans or Russians, in this very British comedy skit, all the more baffling:

• 1994 Jacob (TV movie) - Morash

• 1995 Ein Anfang von etwas - Herbert

• 1995 Die Staatsanwältin (TV series) - Andreas Döpke

• 1995 Prinz zu entsorgen (TV movie) - Roman

• 1995 Man(n) sucht Frau (TV movie) - Christoph

• 1995 The All New Alexei Sayle Show (TV series) - Weak Moustache

• 1996 Rex: A Cop’s Best Friend (TV series) – Der Puppenmörder (1996) – Martin Wolf

• 1996 Rosa Roth (TV series) – Nirgendwohin (1996) – Wietze

• 1996 Du bist nicht allein – Die Roy Black Story (TV movie) – Roy Black

• 1996 Der Tourist (TV movie) – Stephan Görner

Well I can reveal how this came about.   If the guy had gone further back in Christoph’s film history he’d have seen a channel 4 series called “The Gravy Train” which starred Christoph as a German EU Bureaucrat and me as a sinister businessman.  We became very good friends, he lived London and at the time had three small kids.  We spent a lot of time with them and they came to stay with us in the country.  But despite the Gravy Train Christoph couldn’t get more work in English though he could do as much German speaking film and TV as he wanted.  When I was making “The All New...” I asked Christoph if he wanted to take part because I also knew, although he rarely got the chance that he was very good at comedy. 

Its been a delight to see Christoph’s recent career triumphs.  When he was living in Britain I think he was always frustrated because he was not more successful but in this case he was right to feel so.  He is extraordinarily intelligent and talented and deserves everything he has recently achieved.  (Maybe now the BBC will release The All New...now it’s got a possibly double Oscar winner in it.

Blog 69

Poor old blog 68.  Surely the most unloved blog of all time.  Fair enough its not the most scintillating piece of writing I've ever produced but there's worse even on this very website. First of all for the longest period there were no comments posted at all and like the comment that finally appeared suggested I would check each day and still nothing. 

Since obviously my sense of self is intimately connected with how many comments I get that was a difficult time for the whole family.  Then there was just the one snarkey comment and there was a certain arid beauty about that.  Afterwards like some wounded stragglers from a war a few more comments limped painfully in but like survivors of a war many of them were bitter and unpleasant, lashing out in their anger, rage and  hatred.

As the year died so did blog 68, unmourned and unloved.

Now its onwards to blog 70.  What a cracker that's going to be, I personally can't wait.

p.s.  Book your tickets for Soho they're going quick.

Blog 68

Hi Evelyn.  Yes my writing has rather taken a back seat since I started thinking about stand up again.  Once the Soho Theatre dates are over (21st Jan-9th Feb)  I hope to go back to writing.  It has been great doing this tour though, I think with the way the publishing world has been changing recently I was starting to feel a little lost but now I have a new sense of purpose and I think a clearer idea of what I want to be writing.  Also I do have quite a lot of short stories I’ve written over the years so I may have something published next year, we’ll see.   

And it is still a learning experience. cat you mention the Nelson Mandela bit and presumably other stuff about my activism.  It is not my intention for that to come across as bragging, indeed part of the joke is that all the benefits I do are generally for causes that are either lost or are doing badly thanks to my help but I think perhaps it might be a good idea if I highlighted that a bit more, so I’ll do that in January.  See I can take criticism.