Do you remember when life wasn’t complicated?
It was a case of wake up, go to school, come home, play all night, sleep. Up til about the age of 11. When everything was easy and fine and pretty fun. Now everything seems so goddamn hard – I’m fighting constantly against myself, against other people, against things in my life like college and need for money…
Anyway. Last night, Simon Amstell was very very funny 
However, if you were in the audience for Simon Amstell at Warwick Arts Centre yesterday, you should be ashamed. The audience last night was terrible. Awful. I think they were just too thick to understand his jokes… bloody idiots.
Steph and I got quite spectacularly lost getting there and back. Getting there involved driving part way towards London, then getting to the city centre, nervously following signs for Warwick, spotting a sign for the Arts Centre and getting really excited, missing a turning, driving to Kenilworth, turning around, and then finally getting there.
Getting back involved taking a risk and going on the A45, spending ten minutes saying “I don’t think we should have gone this way” before spotting a sign for my home town and taking it with absolute shrieks of delight, me getting very excited when I saw my Dad’s workplace and realised I knew where we were, a random trip round the Rico Arena junction when I took the wrong turning at a roundabout, then getting terrified driving down country lanes at night, imagining men with axes lying in wait.
Good times 
5 Comments
May 26, 2008 at 1:13 am
Ah, I remember those early days of driving…
In fact, I still get lost now. And I still suck at parking. In fact – I was better at parking back then (oh so long ago) because I’d practised and practised to pass my test.
And I too am ashamed of the audience at WAC – I can imagine he is hilarious, if he’s anything like, erm, himself, on “…Buzzcocks”. I’m actually quite gutted for him. I’d never be a comedian for that reason alone – couldn’t bare the sound of one person laughing and a sea of non-laughing faces to try and entertain! *Shiver*.
May 26, 2008 at 1:22 am
I saw Bill Bailey (the Part Troll tour) at the erm, (thinks, scratches head, asks Sooz who should know as well as I should but neither of us can remember so I google it instead) Merlin Theatre in Frome.
I laughed myself sick. Hardly anyone else raised a titter for most of it. They certainly didn’t have the capacity to laugh at themselves.
Why did they bother going? Was it just because he was once local? Had they not seen him on the television?
Feel free to treat all of these questions as rhetorical.
But yes, I do despair of some theatre audiences. I went to see Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist in some poncey West End venue; although I wasn’t in full-on finery I appreciated the production and laughed myself stupid at both the writing and the visualisation.
But the rest of the audience? It was like Lennon said at the Albert Hall “Those of you in the cheap seats can clap, the rest of you just rattle your jewellry”.
I do have a thing with the ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ brigade.
I’m glad you enjoyed it though!
May 26, 2008 at 10:44 am
Soph – He’s like he is on Buzzcocks, but better. He did the whole sarcastic teasing thing, but he was also so vulnerable – he spent most of the show talking about relationships, and the fact he’s just come out of one, and he was so self-mocking, other-people-mocking, and everybody-mocking I was having difficulty breathing. He was just so, so funny. And he did this fantastic thing where he linked everything back to earlier jokes, and THAT’S what annoyed me. No one laughed. Could they not actually REMEMBER the jokes from earlier? Are they really that stupid?
Brennig – I hate “Art for Art’s Sake” I went to King Lear (as you know) and so many of the people who either went on that trip or who were also in the audience were blatantly just there so they could say they’ve seen Shakespeare – it’s King Lear at the Globe for Pete’s sake, it’s amazing! Enjoy your bloody selves!
May 27, 2008 at 8:41 pm
re: Life and Simon Amstell
Hey I was also at the simon amstell gig at Warwick and i must agree it was amazing and so so very funny, i dont know where you were sitting but everyone was very entertained around our area- hes such a talented man- cant wait to go and see him again!
May 27, 2008 at 9:34 pm
We were right at the back – I thought it was fantastic, but no-one else seemed to. And remember he had to hang around on stage because of the pathetic laugh his final joke got?