Sunday 22 March 2015

Miserable Malcolm: dates in April



Photograph by Fred Chance

Stunned out of his lethargy like an incredibly unwilling daffodil, my gloomy poet Miserable Malcolm will be ambling into action this April and spreading his sadness over various parts of Gloucestershire, before taking off with Mavis to the Brighton Fringe in May. 
Here is a list of dates:

Wednesday 8th April, Graveside Manner, Black Books Cafe, Nelson Street, Stroud
If you missed my hour-long show in the Subscription Rooms in Stroud in February, here’s a chance to see it again, with a few changes and in an informal cafe atmosphere.
There is a facebook page here.
Show starts: 8pm
Tickets £5 (on the door)

Friday 10th April, Smoking Hot Stroud-Sourced Spoken Word Smorgasbord, at Smokey Joe’s Coffee Bar  in Cheltenham
I’ll be performing alongside Crispin Thomas, Uta Baldauf and Neil Laurenson.  All the information is in the title! This event is being put on by the Cheltenham Poetry Festival.   
There is a facebook page here.
Smokey Joe’s Coffee Bar
15-17 Bennington Street
Cheltenham GL50 4ED
Show starts: 7pm
Tickets: £6/5

Wednesday 15th April, Vote for the Verse – A Poetry Election  at Francis Close Chapel, Cheltenham.  This event is part of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival
“Six candidates for the Cheltenham seat perform their favourite poem – which one will get your vote?”
I’ll be performing a short set at this event, and will attempt to put the current political picture into the larger context of my personal misery.
Francis Close Chapel, Francis Close Campus,
University of Gloucestershire, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, GL50 4AZ
Event starts: 7pm
Entry is free!

Saturday 18th April, Mr Fluffypunk’s Penny Gaff presents Kriss Foster and Friend  Stroud Valleys Artspace, Stroud
I’ll be doing my regular ten minute spot, “A Dose of the Morose” at the always excellent Penny Gaff.  This one features Edinburgh favourite Kriss Foster --  just your average man from Lancaster with a guitar and a home-made leopard suit. His friend is Mr Ferris, who plays a keyboard and doesn’t say much. They tell stories, show you their bag of things for the charity shop and sing songs about taxidermy, The Cumberland Pencil Museum and the man who feeds other people’s cats.
There is a facebook page here and the Site Festival programme is here
Stroud Valleys Artspace,
John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
Event starts: 8pm
Tickets: £8 advance £10 on the door


Thursday 23rd April, Miserable Poets’ Cafe, Stroud Valleys Artspace, Stroud
This is my event for the Site Festival.  It’s a sort of open mic’ where only miserable poems are allowed, with an incredibly half-hearted competitive element where a bottle of cheap red wine will (probably) be awarded for the most depressing poem.  I’ll be compering it as Miserable Malcolm.  If you’d like to get involved, please drop me a line.
Details are in the Site Festival programme here (Week 4)

Stroud Valleys Artspace,
John Street, Stroud GL5 2HA
Event starts: 8pm
Tickets: £4 on the door, performers get in free.


Saturday 25th April.  I’ll be doing a short spot at a one-day festival at the Tetbury Goods Shed (details to follow)
And don’t forget:  I have three dates in the Brighton Fringe Festival in May, at OtherPlace in the Basement, on Kensington Street, where I’ll be performing my hour long show, Graveside Manner.
The dates are:
Sunday 17 May 6.30pm
Saturday 30 May 12.30pm
Sunday 31st May 12.30 pm
and tickets are £8 (£6.50 concessions)

Thank you for your patience in enduring this catalogue of woes!  And hopefully see someone sometime somewhere!

Thursday 12 March 2015

The Hall of Misery (Part 5)


Ennui, 140 million years BC.


                                                                                                                                                        
 Spare a thought for the melancholy plight of the dinosaurs, their bones compressed and sunk ever deeper into the earth by the accretions of geological time. Who among us does not bemoan the six feet of earth that will separate his skeleton from the continuance of life?  What poems have not been written about our encounter with mortality?  And yet all the deaths of mankind are fresh and recent things compared to the deaths of those almost incalculably senior to us, the dinosaurs. 
How paltry our own late deaths seem compared to theirs.  For the game was up long before we started ...   What care they in their stony state for shrew-like creatures, for apes and automobiles?  And what remains of their concerns, their hopes and joys, their quips and quiddities?   
Nothing. 
Nothing remains at all.


Sunday 1 March 2015

Uh-oh! It's the Literalists ... (Parts 1 and 2)



You know where you are with the Literalists ...















Many thanks to everyone who came to my one-man show (Graveside Manner) in the Subscription Rooms in Stroud on Thursday.  It was great to have such a full audience to try my new and desperate material on!
News of upcoming gigs as Miserable Malcolm will be up on the website soon!