I was reading a review of a new film that I can't remember the name of today. It was reviewed in The Guardian, The Independent, and The Times, but I can't remember the name of the film. Basically, it was a road film in which out of the ordinary stuff happens during a journey. This particular genre isn't one that I've had a great deal to do with, aside from the Smoky And The Bandit films, and National Lampoon's Vacation, but there's pretty much a formula at work. In keeping with my recent idea about ruining jokes and doing a stand up set that intentionally gets no laughs, I idly pitched a film idea to myself; a road movie in which nothing out of the ordinary happens, nothing goes wrong, and they arrive at their destination on time. Unless there's a traffic problem, but that can't be helped.

The film would be deliberately boring, but once you started watching it you would feel compelled to see it through on the off chance that something happened. It would be a fairly cheap film to produce, requiring just a few hand held cameras, a car, some people, (it might be an idea not to use actors, as real people will come across better), and a few quid to spend on food and drink.

Scene one would consist of the last minute checks that you make before you leave the house; keys, wallet, phone, lock the back door, close all the windows, check you unplugged the iron, and so on. Then you would see the two characters getting into the car and driving off. Perhaps they have to reverse out of the driveway onto the road? Perhaps they live in a terrace and are parked on the road? Where are they going? It would have to be a fairly long journey, and would probably include a visit to a garage for petrol, sweets, a can of pop, a pack of cigarettes, and a visit to the toilet. While in there they could discuss why garages sell sacks of charcoal.

The doctor asked me if I have any difficulty passing water. I said no I didn't.
— Steve Oliver(@SteveOliver76) November 23, 2012

A woman asks the barman for a double entendre. He informs her that there's no such drink.
— Steve Oliver(@SteveOliver76) November 23, 2012

I asked the butcher for a pound of bacon. The butcher said "lean back?". I said no, I wanted streaky.
— Steve Oliver(@SteveOliver76) November 23, 2012

I don’t know how the above tweets (and more) came to me, but once I started doing it, I couldn’t stop. Once I start tweeting jokes I get on a roll and sometimes can machine gun out a handful of zingers while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil. I posted these non-jokes a few days ago and wasn’t surprised to garner absolutely no response from it. No retweets and not a single ‘like’ on Facebook.

It’s a shame to waste the idea, and today it came to me. How would the public cope with seeing non-joke after non-joke rattled out on stage at a comedy club? Like the total opposite of Tim Vine, I would recite a well known joke before delivering not a punch line but a dose of realism. Jokes are not based on fact, (never has a speak your weight machine said “one at a time please” to a fat person, in fact I might go so far as to say that the speak your weight machine has never even existed), they are based on nonsense. What these non-jokes set out to achieve is taking away the punch lines and making the jokes real.

As I reported a few days ago, the idea of doing stand up comedy has always appealed to me, but nerves and a lack of material has always held me back. If I went on stage and immediately told the audience that I didn’t want them to laugh, that would throw them. I make it clear to the audience that I’m not there to make them laugh, I’m there to establish facts are straight, and hope that someone understood what I was doing. The open mic circuit would have to be my starting post, until I was able to develop the idea into an actual show. If I had enough money to take a risk, I could even take it to Edinburgh in August. Not this August coming obviously, I doubt I’d be ready by then. If nobody got it, then that’s their problem, I don’t expect to be hailed a genius until after I’m dead.

I mentioned recently how much of a loss it was at the time that Kenny Everett did his best radio work on Capital Radio, (when Capital Radio was a proper local radio station and not the generic aural sludge it has become), and therefore nobody outside of London heard it. The same is true of a lot of Danny Baker’s radio work; the rest of the country missed it. Thankfully, the pirates and the home-tapers did their bit and now you can find recordings online to enjoy. If Kenny Everett’s radio shows weren’t available it would be a shame, the same goes for the other treasures I’ve managed to find; Noel Edmonds on Sunday mornings, Alan Freeman doing Pick Of The Pops (not ‘arf), Wolfman Jack’s old shows, (although bizarrely, new shows are still being made and syndicated), Alan Freed, and various John Peel items. Annoyingly, the massive John Peel archive of complete shows was removed.

I wasn’t aware of it until right towards the end of its run, but when I lived in Essex I could pick up XFM, a London station that tried to be a cool alternative station but sounded a bit too much like a commercial radio station, (which of course it was, it was by the time I found it, owned by Capital Radio). As I, along with the rest of the UK, had watched The Office and loved it, we all knew who Ricky Gervais was. As I said, by the time I discovered the radio show, it was nearly all over.

There used to be a website (it might still be there in mothballs) called Karl’s Round Head, that had a big XFM archive, but the links were closed due to copyright. XFM had apparently made the claim, despite the fact that they weren’t going to do anything with the recordings. Idly looking around YouTube today, I found that someone had put the complete shows up, with the music taken out. This is an amazing find, one of fairly reasonable cultural significance, and I am downloading them as MP3 files as quickly as I can listen to them, just in case these too get taken off.

The XFM shows were intended as a Gervais/Merchant partnership, and the very early shows are just that. Karl Pilkington was the producer of the show that Ricky and Stephen were given by the station. As the weeks passed, the two comedians realised the comic potential that Pilkington provided, and gradually the show became a three-way conversation between them as a team. Interestingly, Karl Pilkington displays flashes of brilliance during the talk sections. He is a quick-witted guy who can hold his own with alongside the comedy weight of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Obviously he does say some pretty daft things, which is where his reputation as an idiot started, but the truth is that he isn’t.

Music obviously wasn’t a feature of the show; the songs (which have been cut out of these ever so slightly illegal recordings) were in fact something of an inconvenience to the flow. They weren’t hired for their musical offerings though, this was a Saturday lunchtime show presented by one of the biggest names in comedy. Several times during the shows, Ricky mentioned how he would like to do a radio show with just the three of them talking and asking questions of Karl. This was I imagine where the seeds were planted that grew into The Ricky Gervais Show podcasts. Way back when the podcast began, nobody really knew what a podcast was, as the public are always a bit too wary of new ideas. I would name the team of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington as an important part of the development of the Internet as a medium that sits besides television and radio’s more conventional approach. Peter Serafinowicz also deserves a mention in the ‘Online Content Hall Of Fame’, should one ever open, as does Richard Herring for all of his podcast output over the last few years.

Tonight we went to see Hello Dolly at the Nottingham Playhouse. I interviewed Kate on the radio a while ago when I stood in for Jason on Nottingham LACE, which seems like such a long time ago now. I was asked at short notice to review it for The Nottingham Evening Post (as I still call it), but I declined as I didn't know enough about the story to do it justice. I do live music and comedy, which I consider my areas, there are people better equipped to write about theatre. I haven't seen the film version, starring Bette Midler in the Kate Williams role (see what I did there?), and so went in totally blind, apart from the actual song 'Hello Dolly'.

What I witnessed was Broadway standard acting and singing from everyone involved. I could have been watching an MGM musical at home on a bank holiday afternoon, albeit an MGM musical with occasionally wobbly sets, but that was part of the charm. It would be tacky of me to single out Kate Williams for her lead role of Dolly, as I know her, but I do believe that she was born too late. Louis B Mayer's loss is Nottingham Operatic Society's gain. Mark Pollard and Rob Palin (Cornelius and Barnaby) would be brilliant as a double act, especially in pantomime. I mean that in the best possible way, as pantomime is something I happen to be very fond of. This will be a dull blog if I name all the cast, but every one of them sparkled, making Hello Dolly an absolute joy to watch.

This time next year the society are doing Oklahoma, and I for one can't wait.

The Lancashire Hotpots were formed in 2006, and quickly became popular largely due to ‘He’s Turned Emo’ becoming an internet meme. With their folk tinged comic tunes, they have become a huge draw on the live circuit, as proved by the massive turnout on a rainy Friday night. To give credence to their cult status, many of the audience were turned out in flat caps and waistcoats.

Opening with ‘Let’s Get Leathered’, the glasses were raised and a party atmosphere ensued. Drinking was very much the theme of the evening, with a repartoire including such titles as ‘Bitter Lager Cider Ale and Stout’, ‘I’ll ‘ave one wi’yer’, ‘Beer Olympics’, and ‘Perfect Pint’.

Clad in flat caps and multicoloured waistcoats, the band looked like they had stepped out of a Hovis advert directed by Timmy Mallett. Seamlessy blending traditional folk music with pantomime, many of the songs came with a ready made audience response that could rival John Otway’s call and response version of ‘House Of The Rising Sun’. Audience participation was very much the order of the day, with a ‘YMCA’ style spelling out the letters during the song ‘Chav’, and I’m pretty sure that the Rescue Rooms have never played host to a conga line before.

The band have a hardcore following who know every word and action for the favourites, and with airplay on BBC 6 Music, Radio Two, and The Sunday Alternative, they’ve achieved greatness without chart success, but who cares about the charts these days?

Determined to play until 9:59:59, the club cerfew, they squeezed every drop out of their allocated stage time, and the crowd loved every one of those vital minutes. Appropriately for a Friday night, they ended with ‘Chippy Tea’. Returning for a fifteen minute encore, the power ballad ‘The Girl From Bargain Booze’ is a song criminally overlooked by those shortsighted fools in charge of compiling those soppy CD collections every Valentines Day.

How these guys are still doing day jobs is beyond me, if this was the 1970s they would have been given their own Saturday evening television show. Then again, from what we’re learning about 1970s light entertainment, it was a lucky escape all round. Seriously though, the Hotpots deserve the ability to go and tell their bosses to go and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.

Harnessing inspiration from The Barron Knights and Weird Al Yancovic, The Lancashire Hotpots are the only band brave enough to cover ‘Gangnam Style’ reworked as ‘Chips and Gravy’. I might be sticking my neck out here, but I do believe that if Noel Coward was still alive and working, this would be exactly the gig he would be doing.

For the record, they finished at six minutes past ten.

It was only a few months ago that I bemoaned your average gig goers dismissive attitude towards that most thankless of jobs, the support band. Nottingham does after all, rock. It’s true, I’ve seen the hash tag, ‘rocking’ does not involves standing in the bar or sitting having a fag outside under a heat lamp. With this is mind, it was lovely to see the full house that warmly welcomed tonight’s opener. Quirky Japanese pop punk three piece Toquiwa instantly got the crowd on side with a storming support set that made my bones rattle from where I was standing on the balcony. They’re signed to Scorpitones, The Wedding Present’s own label, so I imagine that this won’t be the last we see of them.

The idea of a band touring with a performance of an entire album is one that nobody seems able to put an exact date of origin on. The ipod (other MP3 players are available) ‘shuffle’ mode has all but destroyed the safe knowledge of what’s coming up next, so hearing The Wedding Present, or any band for that matter, play one of their classics, is a treat you don’t want to miss.

Formed in 1985, The Wedding Present never really hit the big time commercially, save for a few fairly respectable appearances in the hit parade that peaked at number fourteen, always maintaining a loyal fan base and a dignified underground status, and of course the all important seal of approval from John Peel, they have survived perhaps because of this rather than despite it.

The band are celebrating the twenty first anniversary of their third studio album Seamonsters by playing it in its entirety, after doing the same thing with Bizarro in 2010. Introducing themselves as “the semi-legendary Wedding Present” was met with unanimous disagreement from the audience, all of whom thought them fully worthy of the somewhat overused ‘L’ word. To kick things off, the band fired out a book ended collection of songs from their vast back catalogue, including ‘Back A Bit, Stop’ from their new album Valentina, and to a massive cheer, the 1987 single ‘My Favourite Dress’. Dressed all in black as usual, David Gedge looked every inch the Melody Maker reader’s hero of days passed.

The between song chat was kept to a minimum, save for some self-depreciating gags. Once the performance of Seamonsters started, there wasn’t another word spoken until “that was Seamonsters”. There wasn’t even a pause while we imagined turning the album over to the B-side, (younger readers might need help with that last line).

Having been treated to a selection of songs before the album, this was like buying an album and getting greatest hits compilation as a free gift, and then being able to watch them perform it. The current incarnation of The Wedding Present was on amazing form, the only thing missing was the hiss and crackle of needle meeting vinyl that many of us are familiar with.

Playing through the album without a rest, every track a sing-along crowd pleaser, we were reminded that Gedge and company don’t do encores. They did play two extra songs though, ‘Click Click’ and ‘Take Me’ to a rapturous reception. Tonight makes it into my ‘gigs of the year’ list for certain.

As the curfew arrived, a happy crowd filed out desperate to get home and have an urgent rummage through their LP collections and do it all again. Here’s to the Watusi tour in 2015.

The BBC have axed Bob the Builder. They say they can't take any chances with a children's tv star who claims to fix things.
— Steve Oliver(@SteveOliver76) November 12, 2012

So it turns out that Bob the Builder was innocent after all, and that the telly paedo-squad should have been looking elsewhere in puppet land. Logging on to Twitter this morning, I was a bit taken aback by the tweets proclaiming Elmo to be involved in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a young male. Good, I thought, surely nobody likes Elmo? Certainly not a proper old school Sesame Street fan. Elmo's arrival on Sesame Street was a full on 'jumping the shark' moment, and heralded the end of the show as we remember it and the arrival of the shouty, camera cutting, sub-MTV monstrosity that we see today. I say 'we', the UK hasn't seen Sesame Street since the turn of the millennium, so in a way we are lucky. We did however get Elmo's World on Channel Five for a bit, (yes, remember Channel Five? I've got news for you, it is still going), and somehow Elmo has become some kind of spokesperson/thing for the show. Whenever a celebrity appears on the show, (still considered quite an honour in America), they always work with Elmo. Sometimes maybe Grover or Telly but usually Elmo.

I have happy memories of watching videos (it was the early 2000s) of Sesame Street with my daughter Emily, and unfortunately she developed a liking for this annoying red sock. A full on, every cuddly toy, video, picture collecting liking that I indulged, mainly because every minute spent watching Sesame Street was a minute not watching the Teletubbies. Also, I was able to use Sesame Street as a gateway to introducing Emily to the various other works of the genius Jim Henson, such as the output of The Muppets and the criminally never repeated Fraggle Rock.

For ruining a much loved programme, I hope Elmo feels the full force of the law for this.

Hang on a minute, I've just investigated further, as I realise that Twitter might be a good news source but it's not entirely without flaws. I decided to look at the websites of some newspapers instead, and it turns out that Elmo didn't have an inappropriate relationship, (newspaper euphemism for sex) with an underage boy. It turns out that the perpetrator of this crime was Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who operates the Elmo puppet.

Kevin Clash is the one on the right.

First of all, I'm not even sure that Sesame Street is still relevant enough in this country for this to be that newsworthy. Secondly, the papers  (the tabloids in particular) can't possibly have finished unearthing all of our own sex criminals yet. Let's get ours out of the way before we start looking abroad for more. 

My main issue is with the media's use of Elmo in this story. A puppeteer is the one under scrutiny here, not a character loved by millions of children around the world. By associating Elmo with this story, it will come to the attention of small children when they see the news, or see the puppet's face in the paper. When they read the shouty headlines that he has been arrested for having sex with an underage boy, then parents are going to be faced with all kinds of awkward questions. I know how the media works, and it perhaps wouldn't have been quite the sensational story had it simply reported that a fairly anonymous behind the scenes man had been investigated, should a modicum of discretion been employed here? I'm not suggesting not reporting it, but for the sake of Sesame Street age children who might believe the story at face value, that Elmo is a nonce. I was employing comedy when I wrote that I thought Elmo had been involved, but I'm not sure Elmo's key demographic are au fait with the concept of satire.

If Kevin Clash has done wrong, then he should be removed from Sesame Street, because PBS should not be seen to be employing a sex offender to work on a children's television show. That would appear to be the BBC's department.

Besides, sexual predators have long been a problem on Sesame Street, as this video shows.

On Sunday night I went to see John Shuttleworth. The review was in today's Nottingham Evening Post (as I still call it), but here is the full on version that I wrote before having to edit it down to 200 words.

There might be people who don’t know that ‘versatile singer/songwriter from Sheffield, South Yorkshire’ John Shuttleworth is actually a character created by the artist formerly known as Jilted John - Graham Fellows. Such is Fellows’ knack for character comedy that John Shuttleworth has become a household name in his own right. Tripping onto the stage still sucking his pre-show Werthers Original, the first piece of business was to criticise the Playhouse for using Hessian as the backdrop for that play about mice and men. The mice could of course chew up the Hessian you see.

The show of two halves never once suffered the dip in energy or quality that sometimes happens at a comedy show, especially when you’re relying on an alter-ego to see you through. Accompanied by his organ and backing tracks, songs such as ‘Life Is Like A Salad Bar’ and ‘Smells Like White Spirit’ were interspersed with tales of his domestic life back home. His wife Mary, a dinner lady, and his next door neighbour and sole agent Ken Worthington were mentioned in the running theme involving his banishment to the shed for practising his music, and wanting to be allowed back into the house.

Crossing musical genres, through grunge to reggae, (“but not jazz”), all the crowd pleasing classics were there. Opening the second half with a rousing sing-along of ‘Austin Ambassador Y Reg’, and encoring with a medley of favourites including the legendary ‘I Can’t Go Back To Savoury Now’, this was crowd pleasing, clean comedy at its best. Playing an incompetent is harder than it looks, and for that alone Shuttleworth takes his place beside Tommy Cooper’s failed magic, and Les Dawson’s bad piano playing.

There once was a time when the arrival of the Christmas edition of the Radio Times and TV Times was as exciting as the thought of Father Christmas visiting. An entire afternoon spent circling the shows that wanted watching, the ones that wanted recording, in different coloured pens depending on who chose it. This was also joined by the purchase of a packet of fresh new videotapes to record your 'special' programmes. For a few years, I wrote a blog detailing the good and bad points of the festive schedule. However, I gave up when it became apparent that the five main channels, (have a look if you don't believe me, there are still five terrestrial channels), don't tend to make much effort these days.

Nobody waits for the Christmas television schedules with the anticipation of Christmas past anymore, because these days there's only one reason to own a television at this time of year. I am referring of course to the adverts.

Last night I think I managed to catch the bulk of them, the John Lewis adverts of course being the best of the lot. They once again have managed to produce a classy commercial that produces tears at the payoff. The snowman advert had a lot to live up to after last year's little boy wanting to give his parents a present raised the bar so high, but it managed. Another ingredient here is of course the song; every year a female singer slows down and rearranges a well known song, and makes it work to such a degree that even I don't object to 'Sweet Child Of Mine' or 'Please Please Please' being used in this way. I've always found it interesting that they don't use a Christmas song, but there's something to be said for what they do. In fact, John Lewis miss the same trick every year by not bringing out a CD of their past hits.

Marks and Spencer have dropped a bollock this year with their festive offering. For the last couple of years, M&S have been making, for all intents and purpose, a Woolworths advert. Not this year, which means that on the fourth anniversary of the closure of Woolworths, we can't observe its passing. Once again I have hit a brick wall with Shop Direct, and my campaign to get them to return to tradition with a full on, celebrity packed, Christmas advert like they used to do. Nobody did it like Woolworths, and that has been the missing piece of Christmas ever since. Shop Direct say they aren't interested. So who can replace them in the advert stakes? As we've seen, M&S haven't even tried this year, and they wouldn't have outclassed John Lewis. All of the others try their best, but is it really the same?

I had the idea to go ahead and do it anyway. Gather together a collection of willing celebs, (my theory being that the Woolworths Christmas advert was such an honour that they would offer to bring it back for no fee), hire a sound stage, and film a guerilla Woolworths advert and put it on YouTube. It would melt YouTube's view counter and hopefully make them see the error of their ways.

On Thursday last week, Danny Baker broadcast his last radio show for BBC London, after being told that his show The Treehouse was being cancelled. It was two quality hours of radio from one of the best broadcasters this country has ever produced. I'm not sure how he got away with the things he said without having the plug pulled, but at least he managed to get his side of the story across. This was a resignation to knock Dave Lee Travis and his Radio One speech into a cocked hat. The BBC should archive this episode online so that it can be enjoyed for generations to come.

Danny Baker is perhaps the best radio host that we have ever had in this country, there's nothing in his show that suggests why this is the case, but you have to listen to him to see that what I am saying is true. For a large period of time, he has been on London based local radio, and in the days before Internet streams and 'listen again', he was out of reach if you lived outside the M25. Thankfully those days are over, and I have been able to enjoy his daily show on BBC London by simply turning on the television. With amazingly cack-handed timing, Danny Baker is being inducted into the Radio Hall Of Fame, and In The Treehouse was axed almost at the same time. There's still the Saturday show on 5Live, but that is all you get for the moment. The BBC have a track record for shitty treatment of radio talent. John Peel was pushed from pillar to post around the Radio One schedule, until he was doing one show a week for two hours at the time of his death. In death he is regarded with such respect that a wing of the BBC is named after him. Yes, he did great work for new musicians, and introduced us to stuff you just didn't hear on mainstream radio, (The Sunday Alternative would have been an ideal show for him), so why did the BBC piss him about when he should have been doing an evening show like he used to. Mark Lamarr was moved to quit his Radio Two show because of their lack of commitment to his Friday night programme God's Jukebox, when he asked to be moved to something better than the 12am-3am slot. Ironically, this was the perfect slot for that show, and God's Jukebox remains musically at least, one of Radio Two's great losses. The Sunday Alternative would have been an ideal show for him.

Kenny Everett's best work was on Capital Radio in the 1970s, (when Capital Radio was a London radio station). The BBC were scared of him, and banished him to local BBC radio stations. See my earlier line about once upon a time not being able to listen to local radio in the days before the Internet. There wasn't anything he said to get sacked from the BBC that was that shocking in retrospect, certainly no worse than anything that gobshite Chris Moyles got away with for far too long. The BBC obviously didn't want anything too naughty to take place on air, pity they weren't as vigilant about what was happening in the dressing rooms. Thankfully, a reasonable amount of Kenny Everett shows from his local radio days can be found again thanks to the wonders of modern technology. The television comedy shows are still easily found of course, (a unique example of a show being better on ITV before transferring to a weakened version on the BBC, usually it's the other way round), but radio was Kenny Everett's medium, just like with Danny Baker. Baker incidentally is where this blog started, and how the BBC have treated him in the most appalling way by axing his daily show to save money. His resignation has sent shockwaves through the media, and in particular the world of radio. However, there is a job vacancy going with a top rated radio slot in Nottingham if he is willing to travel.

You may have detected from my radio shows, (especially if you're a psychologist of some kind), that I haven't really been enjoying it as much as I should. It kicked off when I agreed to cover Nottingham LACE for Jason, without realising that we were having a day out for our anniversary, so immediately retracted my offer. This was followed by a bitchy email from the controller, who had already got my gander up by commenting on my Facebook profile about the fact that I had 'advertised' that I was doing a pre-recorded show. By listening back to some of my old shows while uploading to Mixcloud I have spotted that I don't sound like I'm enjoying myself as I once did, and if I can detect it, then other people will be able to. There have been issues behind the scenes that I have just about managed to cope with, but I figured if I'm not giving my listeners 100% then the best thing to do is surely to stop.

I've spent today thinking about it. All of today. I wrote my resignation on paper first, so I could scribble things out and move them about and make it work. I'm always a bit too modest about my ability as a writer, but I can say without avarice that I am fucking brilliant at writing letters, (or emails of course). I have written resignation letters before, (not too many as I tend to walk out fairly unceremoniously), and can fire off an angry missive regarding bad customer service. It wasn't until around teatime that I finally sent my resignation email to the controller of Trent Sound. Although I was criticised for it, I copied my Trent colleagues in on the email too, and just to keep people in the loop, I BCC'd some relevant people in too.

My resignation email can be read on The Sunday Alternative blog.