Aaaaand we're off...

I love it when there's variety in life and the last three days have certainly had that.

On Friday we recorded the second episode of the Museum of Curiosity - (I'm loving this series... it always has such genuinely interesting guests) on Saturday I hosted the first of my new nights - (Dave Gorman's Screen Guild) - and on Sunday morning I presented my show for Absolute Radio.

In a way they're all just-be-yourself gigs but I'm very aware that as I switch my attention from what's just finished to what's just around the corner there is a change of gear required as a different kind of headspace is used.

With The Museum I need to do a bit of reading around the topics on the day. With the Sunday morning show I need to do some writing in advance (mainly the new 'Five Favourite Faces' feature that has become the start of the show) but mainly it's about reacting to what happens on the day. The Screen Guild on the other hand requires a lot of work. It took about 8 hours to construct the powerpoint presentation that glued the night together. I think it was worth it.

As I said in a recent blog post, the point of the night is two-fold. It's a place for me to a) experiment with new ideas and b) showcase acts I really like.

The only way of building up a store of new material is to try it live and as I want to play with material that isn't just one-man-and-a-mic stand-up, there aren't a lot of places that can actually accommodate it. But Hoxton Hall is a perfect venue. It's small enough to maintain the feeling of intimacy and yet big enough to house what I want to put on stage. And as you can see from the picture at the top of this post... it's pretty too.

The March gig sold out pretty quickly and the April date has now sold out too. But there are still tickets available for May, June and July. It's a hard show to put on. But blimey it was worth it. I feel excited about live work in the way I did 20 years ago when I was just starting out. It's like knocking a wall down and opening up a whole new place to play.

I'm already thinking about the next one... and about ways to take the material to other places. I'll mull on that and get back to you. After we've recorded another Museum of Curiosity on Tuesday night... and I've introduced Roger Daltrey at the Teenage Cancer Trust gig at the Albert Hall on Thursday night... and whatever else I'm up to this week. Actually, there is something else... but that's for another day.