Show 4: 7 May 2012
See other shows: /6 Feb /5 March /2 April /4 June
The forth night of tragedy is now over. And what a night it was…
This was the night when my initial idea of a tragic variety night was realised in all it’s strange glory.
Prior to the show, I’d thought that the theme of the evening would be literary because this night happened to feature two authors, a performed short story and a piece of creative non fiction, but instead it was all about variety, with acts flip-flopping from one flavour to another and an amazing second half that disintegrated into a strange anarchic thing with the space between performers and audience breaking down. It was a strange cocktail of tragedies, delicious and odd, moving and funny, with a sense that anything could happen next.
I started the night off with a song about the tragedy of aspiring to be like Superman in Superman II, how a mere mortal can never be that pure, heroic and romantic. After this song of sad lyrics and upbeat chords chimed out on the ukulele, the audience were immediately slapped in the face (and in the case of one audience member, on the calf) by the force of John Kearns‘ bizarre but delightful comedy stylings. He split the audience in the tastiest kind of way, added a large dose of high energy into the start of the night, and dazzled us with a surreal story of icebergs and crosswords.
Following on from this, Tania Hershman read three pieces from My Mother Was An Upright Piano, which was published on May 3rd by Tangent Books, and is a collection 56 very short fictions. Tania is writer in residence in the Science Faculty at Bristol University, and founder and editor of The Short Review and we were very glad she could make it. She quickly changed her choice of readings to fit into the new direction it seemed the night was going. All three stories were wonderful demonstrations of the power of efficiency when used with pin point accuracy by a great author.
Now it was time to welcome back my alter ego, The Dave who performed a song about the last moments of the life of a platform game character, trapped in a decaying cartridge, watching his world glitch around him. This is the last platform and I cannot jump.
Then the stage blacked out and when the lights came up we met Margaret, a tragic comic character performed by Alison Thea-Skot, who was sitting, hands tied, on a stool. She had been left there by kidnappers and delivered a tragic tale of all the times she’d been left behind. It was funny and sad and delightful.
Next Louise Adams came on stage to perform a serious character monologue written by Jenny Adamthwaite. The conceit of the piece was that it was a true story and it was introduced in that way. There was a powerful tension in the room as the audience came to believe that Louise was reading the last words of her mother, recounting a story of being trapped inside her body, watching her husband disintegrate as he believed she wasn’t there any more. A complicated plot to be delivered in under 10 minutes, but this was achieved nevertheless. Afterwards the audience was so shocked to find it was fiction that many of them persisted in believing it to be a true story.
Tony Hickson then took to the stage to tell a real true story about when he ran away to join the circus – and then ran away from the circus – and then ran back to the circus. A story featuring miserable clowns that tried to make his life hell, knife throwing misadventures, beds of nails and no discernible moral.
Here he is telling a different story at the true story telling night Spark London.
We returned to fiction with a piece written specifically for Stand Up Tragedy by Vanessa Gebbie, the author of the novel The Coward’s Tale, published last November by Bloomsbury. This novel has had very generous reviews in the press, and was a Financial Times book of the year; it has just come out in the USA. Her story was about the tragedy of Ikea! A funny and poignant tale about the pain that buying a door can bring.
Then The Dave was back with his third and final song, The Flaw which brought the first half of the night to a close.
After the 15 minute interval, Anton Frank performed three sad and soothing Rock A Pops songs on his acoustic guitar. This was my favourite:
The first attack was a biblical one as James McKay filled us in on the story of Job and then recited directly from the good book listing the terrible things that happened to Job as a result of God’s wager with the Devil. Poetic, terrible and profound, he expertly used his voice to bring the poetry out of the piece.
Then Nathalie Hourihan gave us the second true story of the night. She read to us a piece of creative non fiction about how she had become addicted to self help books as a result of the end of a painful relationship. Her dead pan delivery style and skillfully crafted words were painfully human, witty and insightful. Nathalie is currently writing and living a year long blog experiment called Counting Zeroes were she is trying to rid herself of what she calls her “finacial fuckwittery”.
So after being pushed in three different directions, it was time for a forth: a woman entered the room wearing strange circus make up. She asked a man in the front row to help her bring in her handbag and he returned to the stage struggling to pull a very big bag. The woman then began to inflate something that was inside the bag. This something was a strange ventriloquist dummy. Or rather, her twin brother. This act was called The Twisted Twins and they told a twisted tragic story of death and circuses, sexually harrassed the crowd and sang us a rude song. A darkly entertaining comic cabaret.
The bizarreness only continued as the brilliant prop comedian Ben Target entered, making people laugh with a series of hilarious oddnesses, the highlight of which was a full audience game of beach volleyball that was lost by the barman. Target had the audience eating slightly warily from his hands and after he had finished there was glitter covering the floor, all the chairs were in different positions and the stage was full of strange and wonderful things. GO AND SEE HIM!
Tripping over the mayhem and forging a sing-a-long out of chaos, The Reactionaries led the audience in a round of our regular theme song, The Tragedy is Over.
We release extracts from the night as a free weekly podcast via iTunes, SoundCloud and the Stitcher Smart Radio app.
And now, like the song says, it’s time to go.
Dave Pickering
Host of Stand Up Tragedy
Ben Target
What is Ben Target?
Ben Target or Tar-zhay as some people pronounce it is yet another “young”, “male”, “comedian” – “with a difference”. He prefers the term “talented artist” to “the best” as this is currently over-used. His family still go with “mixed blessing”.
At present, Target schleps around this stuffy little island expecting money and admiration for his ideas. Some drivel he’s had to wade through in the past few months:
1. WINNER!!! Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year 2011.
2. Starred as The Guru on BBC2′s Culture Show, in Mark Watson’s comedy installation / play – The Hotel.
3. Tour support for Adam Riches and Jonny Sweet on The Invisible Dot Tour 2012: Comedy’s New Wave.
4. Support for Anjelos Epithemiou and Paul Foot at Branchage Film Festival, Jersey.
5. Represented the UK at the Eindhoven Comedy Festival.
Stuff about Target that’s been written by people who are paid to do so, either online or in throw-away magazines:
a) “A hugely gifted prop comic whose shows are in equal parts delightful and unsettling” – GUARDIAN GUIDE
c) “What a gem Target is… probably the most original, the most over-wrought and most audacious to be seen at the Fringe.” ✭✭✭✭✭ – BROADWAY BABY
The Twisted Twins
The Twisted Twins are dark storytellers with a horrible past and not very pleasant ukulele songs. Since the incident that left them bereft of parents the twins have come to rely more and more upon one another – so much so that Timmy can now only be operated by Tilly. It’s wrong.Very wrong. Join them in finding a way to come to terms with their pitiful existence.
James McKay
Once upon a time in the land of Uz, Job was the LORD’s most faithful servant, and lived a charmed and affluent life. Until, as the result of a bet, the LORD took it all away and left Job sitting in the ruins of his prosperity with nothing but a few pieces of broken pottery to scrape his purulent boils with. What Job said next, a series of bitter and raging laments for the pain of being alive, echoes down the ages throughout Western culture from Shakespeare to the blues.
Poet and reciter James McKay has performed from the 400-year-old King James translation of the Old Testament at warehouse parties, in medieval churches, and at hippy weddings in fields, among other occasions.
His biggest regret in putting together this 10-minute distillation of the complaints of Job is having to leave so much out – saddest of all, chapter 30 verse 29. Go on, you’ll be glad you did.
Tania Hershman
Tania Hershman writes short and very very short stories, some of which can be found in her collection, The White Road and Other Stories, and many of which take science as some kind of jumping-off point. That sounds tragic. Jumping off something. Well, sometimes it is. She hopes that even if her stories aren’t cheery there are glimmers of hope, small ones, amidst the dark dark darkness. And some humour. A little. Just enough.
Tania’s stories have been published online, in print and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She hopes to be having another book of them out soon. Find out more at www.taniahershman.com.
Tony Hickson
Tony trained as a photographer before joining the circus at 27. He trained as a trapeze artis knife thrower and fire eater. He eventually left the circus and trained as an actor and has appeared in Byker Grove and Eastenders as well as The Royal festival Hall. He also performs stand up, storytelling and poetry. His interests include magic, ventriloquism as well as playing the ukulele and saw.
Vanessa Gebbie
Writer Vanessa Gebbie is author of two collections of deeply depressing short stories, one extremely gloomy text book on the art of the short story, and a novel: ‘The Coward’s Tale’ (Bloomsbury). It’s meant to be sad, but FT critic A N Wilson chose it as his 2011 novel of the year – calling it ‘extraordinarily lyrical, moving, funny…’ when what he no doubt intended to say was ‘awfully lugubrious, really.’ She will be reading something suitably grim.
The House that Jack Built
A short story by Jenny Adamthwaite. Read by Louise Adams.
Jenny Adamthwaite writes fiction and poetry. She has had work published by Dead Ink Books, Cinnamon Press and Stand Magazine. You can find more of her work at www.jadamthwaite.co.uk.
Louise Adams is a performer with Big Wheel Theatre Company and a freelance workshop leader. Current projects include Les Raconteurs storytelling events in French and Spanish and a monthly French cabaret Soirée Pompette.
Anton Frank
A Rock-A-Pops artist from London, UK. He writes and produces trendy and sophisticated guitar pop music, with lyrics that will make your head dizzy.
His latest release, “Point Blank” (mini LP), has attracted plenty of attention from Indie music bloggers and podcasters. To top that he has collaborated with some of the most inspiring young video producers, this resulted in a number of tasty video releases.
Although he is a new character on the London music scene, he is quickly becoming one of the most talked about artists. In 2011, Anton Frank played a variety of venues, including Troubadour and the main stage at Earl’s Court Festival. He is currently working on new material, to be released early 2012.
Expect to be surprised by him very soon. Expect the unexpected.
Alison Thea-Skot 
The 2011 Funny’s Funny and 2010 Funny Women Finalist presents some ‘delightfully batty’ (List) character comedy. Telegraph’s Best of the Fringe 2011. ‘Original Comedy Genius’ **** (Broadway Baby).
“Fun and dementedcharacter comedy” The Telegraph
“An absolute tour-de-force” BBC Comedy
John Kearns
John Kearns is a stand up comedian who is very brave because what he does can sometimes go wrong and when that happens it is very sad for the audience. Miss. Kearns basically puts all her eggs in a basket and then buys a piano. That smashes all the eggs.
Nathalie Hourihan
Psychological investigator, seasoned worrier, well-trained friend and book-binger, Nathalie sadly requires a minimum of 8 hrs sleep. By day she’s a researcher and advisor for an international management consultancy on topics related to HR and organizational psychology. By night she writes about a range of topics including the psychology of money, the history of time management and the working lives of artists. In an attempt to put a stop to her own financial fuckwittery, she’s currently engaged in a year-long experiment. Find out more about it and follow her progress at her blog Counting Zeros.
She will be reading a new piece of creative non-fiction.
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