Out now on Overinvested, @steffanalun.bsky.social and I discuss 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a brilliant (and unexpectedly hilarious) continuation of an all-time great zombie franchise. www.overinvestedpodcast.com/episodes/the...
Aha, and I'm delighted to find you here!! So pleased to see where your art has taken you!
1. Laptop (for making notes to help remember the show) 2. Notebook and pens (for making notes when I remember I don't like using the laptop) 3. Toiletries and hairbrush (people paid good money, they deserve me at my hottest) 4. Novel (which I won't get around to reading) 5. Puzzle book (only difficult puzzles remaining, boo) 6. Rubik's cube (trying to master it because my 6-year-old niece keeps asking me to solve hers) 7. Outfit for first half (with bi pride pin!) 8. Outfit for second half (needs ironing) 9. Kitchen timer (if you know you know)
STEFFAN ALUN: STAND UP comes to WMC Cardiff tonight!
Small number of tickets still available - linked in the replies. Help me sell it out!
Someone asked me what I bring to my shows, so here you go. Details in the alt text!
Secret Invasion killed my interest in MCU, and since then I've not watched any new TV that wasn't explicitly recommended by someone I trust.
Thank you, Whitney - I *also* hope to have an absolute blast at this gig which happened 6 months ago!
Undecided on coming to LAST QUANTUM LEOPARD OF THE YEAR in December ( www.ticketsource.co.uk/quantum-leop... for tickets!)?
THREE of our lovely feature acts (Bethany Black, @steffanalun.bsky.social, Katie Mitchell) have all done episodes of the QL podcast (links in thread):
I'm going in the other direction, but you were right to identify the Welshness of this anecdote!
I've missed late night trains!
Drunk women are belting out I Dreamed A Dream. I am shocked by every single line as I learn what they think the lyrics are.
Only one of them was brave enough to belt the final high note.
"Oh my God you can SING 🥹🥹🥹" said one of the others.
(She can't, really.)
Oh, that's so nice!!
Diolch Mei!! 💚💚💚
Ooh, that would be wonderful.
(Comedians Play Videogames will also be continuing in a new form!)
😎😎😎
Diolch o galon!!
Thank you!! And thanks for recommending my show to your friends!
Thank you!!
So kind!! Thanks so much for coming along. 💚💚
So my plans scale up! A tour. And work on a follow-up show - which has to be better than the first, of course.
I have a mailing list now!
Join me:
gmail.us11.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=...
For the final performance, the room was full to the brim (one comedian sat in the tech seat), and my show received a standing ovation.
I've NEVER experienced that EVER - it was the most surreal thing.
The reviews and award are lovely. But the audience response is the most important thing.
I wrote up a list of my reviews and achivements, and filled out the rest of the page with wonderful audience reviews from the EdFringe website.
I printed them myself, and stapled them individually to my flyers.
On the final weekend, I won the Pegasus Award for Best Newcomer!
I love the Pegasus Awards. Richard Wright's hilarious night, celebrating underdog shows, with a deliberately low-cost aesthetic. Expensive banners celebrate the winners' prize money: 1p!
But then the month kept progressing. I got more great reviews from more publications. The audience size kept growing.
I glued stars and quotes to my own posters. I kept waking up to messages from Ignacio or Flick announcing good news.
They also organised a press event for the Welsh acts.
The month started incredibly well. In the first few days, I got a 4.5* review from A Young(ish) Perspective, and jokes from the show were chosen for the Best Jokes of the Fringe lists in the Telegraph and Times.
The first few shows had audience numbers between 10 and 20 - and I was more than happy.
We went with Hoots' Apex Hotel on Grassmarket as our venue. I love Hoots - they strike an incredible deal by Edinburgh standards, and the hotel is air conditioned and accessible.
I love the guys who run it, and I love the shows they pick for their venues. New kids on the block, but already great.
Shoutout to my fellow debutante Josh Elton - brilliant Welsh-Jewish comedian (we all have a thing; I'm bisexual). Josh and I worked on our shows in tandem, putting on previews across the country.
Josh was also produced by Ignacio's company Comedy Sheep, and the brilliant Flick Morris was our PR.
Since this would be my first hour-long show, it would technically count as my debut. I'd be eligible for Best Newcomer awards! Hahaha!
Funny to think, but really, I just wanted to announce to the industry that I exist, and that my work's worthy of critical attention. Nice reviews is all I need.
The next 7 months were spent preparing the show, and raising the necessary money. I wanted to pay the thousands and thousands of pounds needed for the run from money I made from gigging - no debts, no dipping into savings.
I just about managed it. I gigged like crazy, including private bookings.
Over Christmas I met for drinks with the brilliant Welsh/Spanish comedian Ignacio Lopez - and he revealed his plan to start producing solo shows. I told him my ideas, he mocked the parts that deserved it (I'd expect nothing less), but crucially, he was on board. He wanted to produce my show.
But also - the world is changing, and my career with it. It feels like a scary time for the queer community, and my instinct is to become louder. Prepare myself for what's coming.
This might seem self-aggrandising, but I can explain. I'm a standup comedian. I'm inherently self-aggrandising.
So the time had come to scale up. I wanted to make the move to a paid venue for a couple of reasons. Firstly, accessibility. I've started talking more about disability in my work (dyspraxia and ADHD), so it felt wrong to be in inaccessible venues. The ability to actually book a ticket helps too.
