A storm is coming

Gig dates for June and beyond; buy tickets for Junk Mail Order Bride

A lot¹ of people ask me: Ben, where and when can I see you perform your own inimitable brand of comedy for five to ten minutes on a bill with 17 other open mic acts? Why haven’t you sent out your newsletter for ages?

And I tell those people: You poor fools. Why would you want to see me for a mere five minutes, when you could buy a ticket for my Camden Fringe show Junk Mail Order Bride? Sure, you will have to wait until 6:30pm on the 5th or 6th of August to see it, but it’s an hour-long show with just a single other open mic act, Helen K, who is even funnier than I am. If you like my comedy, it’s a no-brainer to snap up a ticket now at this link.

Sure, I am going to update you with my upcoming gig dates and recommended media links in a minute, but we can’t proceed with that until after you’ve bought your ticket. They’re only £5, because that’s the minimum the Camden Fringe will allow us to charge. Buy a couple and bring a friend.

Have you bought your tickets yet? I’ll wait.

Marketing experts say you have to tell people to buy something an average of eight times before they’ll take action. I usually ignore them because they seem dumb and annoying, but I asked this list of 97 people to buy a ticket yesterday and so far, nada, so I’m just going to keep repeating myself until you all give in and the show is sold out.

How’s it been going, Ben?

Pretty good. I’m still doing stand-up, I’m afraid. I got to the final of the Backyard Comedy Knockout which means I’ve got a spot there in July. I was in the Big Rat Little Rat comedy panel show with Dave Hill and Nick Helm and Jen from The Priscillas, which took place in a gay sex dungeon.

Here is Nick Helm berating me while I try to do crowd work

Gig dates

Here are upcoming gig dates that you should know about:

Stand Edinburgh - Monday June 5th [tickets],

Stand Glasgow - Tuesday June 6th [tickets]

Stand Newcastle - Wednesday June 7th [tickets]

Anything Goes Dark Comedy Night, Hoxton - 5pm Sunday June 11th [tickets]

Secret Comedy BRIGHTON - 8pm Tuesday June 13th at Artista Cafe Gallery (note they have moved to a new bigger venue in Brighton Square) [tickets]

Cool-Aid Comedy BRIGHTON - 8pm Wednesday June 14th at the Caroline of Brunswick [tickets]

Diamond Comedy BRIGHTON - 7:30pm Thursday June 15th at The Actors [tickets] POSTPONED

Oops Comedy, Tooting - 7:30pm Monday June 19th, also Monday July 3rd - I need a bringer for this show, so forget everything I said before about Junk Mail Order Bride and open mics, you should come to this and tell me now that you are going to come (you can just reply to this email) [tickets]

Stand-Up Comedy Gameshow formerly known as Trigger Warning - 7:30pm Thursday June 22nd at Cherry Reds BIRMINGHAM [tickets]

Bulletproof Brewing PLYMOUTH - 7:30pm Thursday June 29th - shout out to my Plymouth fan!

Edinburgh Fringe:

I am going to be at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 14th to 29th, doing spots on various shows, including Donal Vaughan’s shows Adventures! Journey Through Dungeons & Dragons and Arguments! The Comedy Debate Show and probably a few roast battles (all dates TBD).

From the 23rd to the 26th, I’m going to be taking over Gurps Cheema’s show which is called Curry Gelato because he’s Indian-Italian. Not sure how I am going to get away with a blatant act of brutal colonialism without getting cancelled. Change of plans: this isn’t happening but I will be doing support on that show.

Recommended things and links (a link is also a thing, so this is bad writing)

• If you’re coming to see my Camden Fringe show on the 6th, why not see Steph Aritone’s show Excelf-Esteem that’s on before us at the same venue? But buy a ticket to our show first.

• Somebody made an AI that generates bizarre versions of the Simpsons ‘steamed hams’ scene. It was hilarious but it got taken down off Twitch for violating community policy or some bullshit, just like happened with the infinite Seinfeld generator. If you want a picture of the future, imagine an AI moderator’s boot stamping on any AI project that is truly original or creative - forever.

• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is way better than you would expect given the history of films based on the IP - it’s funny, with inventive action scenes and character development and everything. It’s by the people who did Game Night which is also surprisingly good. You don’t need to know much about D&D to enjoy it, although it has a lot of in-jokes for people who are into that kind of thing too.

• Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is also very funny, dark and visually inventive. Probably the last good film Marvel will make, since they stupidly fired James Gunn for making jokes and he’s going to be with DC in future.

• Beau is Afraid is very funny in places. It’s definitely not what you’d expect from Ari Aster - it starts in a very heightened reality and goes completely surreal in a Lynchian way. It is 3 hours long and people were walking out of the cinema. Not sure if I would even recommend it but I will watch it again.

• Late to the party on this, but Uncle with Nick Helm is really good and is still on iPlayer.

• Hot Water Comedy Club put up the video of my set there last year! Please click ‘like’ on this so they think I have fans.

• Speaking of Lynchian, I still can’t believe this really happened:

  

  Singing Blondie’s Atomic with Jen from the Priscillas is the kind of thing I would hallucinate if I lost touch with reality. Maybe that’s what has happened

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