Friends! Romans! Men from the country!
A quick newsletter this week to share some exciting upcoming things you should probably come to, a couple of things I’ve written that you should probably read. I’m really hedging my bets here.
GIGS
On Wednesday 29th October in London it’s the spooky Halloween Next Level Sketch special, with lovely special guests like Siblings comedy, one of the best sketch double acts out there (also their mum is RUBY WAX???), and Joz Norris, whose mum is not famous in any way, as far as I know. The Halloween special is our favourite show of the year, and we write lots of spooky sketches ‘specially for it, before they go away to live in a coffin or whatever for another 12 months. Please do come along, you won’t regret it! You can dress up too, if you like. We won’t mind.
Further ahead, in December, I am doing two really lovely things in quick succession.
On Thursday 4th December, my band The Highchurches are playing MJ Hibbett’s Totally Acoustic, alongside Chris Thorpe-Tracey and - yes - MJ Hibbett. This is officially The Highchurches’ first ever LONDON gig, at which we will no doubt lose our sense of control at the sight of all the cockneys and tall buildings, and go on some kind of insane spree. Or else, we’ll just play our songs then get the train back to Brighton. Either way, it’ll be FUN!
Then on Saturday 6th December, it’s the final This Machine Kills Wasps of the year, back at the beautiful Folklore Rooms in Brighton. For this I have pulled out all the stops and finally booked a comedian my auntie Nuala has almost heard of, in the form of ROBIN INCE, and comedians my auntie Nuala will definitely NOT have heard of, like Baba and Leslie Bloom (more fool her). This will be the usual comedy, jarring shift in tone, then heartfelt music night. I’m really excited to have Jo Burke playing tunes off her long-awaited album, as well as lovely stuff from Saoirse Juno and a band you might have heard of called The Highchurches.
Some stuff I’ve written lately
I went to see The Magnetic Fields on Sunday, and wrote more widely about the nostalgia circuit. I really had to share this here, given the entire newsletter is named after a Magnetic Fields song.
I was ill earlier in the week, and went briefly mad watching videos on Instagram. Like a naif, this is the first time this has ever happened to me, although I understand doom scrolling video is quite a popular pastime these days. I really did not care for it. Perhaps we should switch the internet off?
That’s it for this week! Lots of exciting stuff in the works for the next edition…
J x